U.S. News Law School Rankings Prediction Sees Very Big Changes At The Top
Will a mainstay in the T14 be kicked to the curb? We'll have to wait and see in the real U.S. News law school rankings.
We’re just a few months out from the release of the latest iteration of the U.S. News law school rankings, but we know that many are incredibly eager to see what the future may hold. For those of you who are growing too restless to wait any longer, we’ve got a surprise for you.
Today, we unveil a new rankings prediction, courtesy of noted law school consultant Mike Spivey of the Spivey Consulting Group. With the recent release of the 2023 ABA-required 509 disclosures, Spivey was able to calculate the upcoming U.S. News law school rankings using the magazine’s current methodology. Here are some additional details on how that task was performed:
Because of the rankings boycott, U.S. News now relies primarily on publicly available data from ABA reports. With today’s 509 release, 75% of the current methodology’s weight is now available, and the remaining 25% comes from the Assessment Scores (which are, in aggregate, very stable—some schools’ will change, but overall they will be much the same as last year). That means it’s possible to calculate the upcoming rankings under the current methodology with a good deal of accuracy.
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Spivey cautions that his predictions may not be completely accurate for a number of reasons (e.g., some of the ABA data has errors; U.S. News may roll out a new methodology). That being said, what could the new edition of U.S. News law school rankings look like? You can check out Spivey’s prediction for the full complement of 196 law schools, but here’s the T14 based the calculations he’s run:
UVA tied with Harvard! Washington University in the T14 — and tied with Georgetown, which has returned to the top of the rankings! NYU drops to #10, and Cornell drops out of the T14 entirely!
Will any or all of these things actually happen? That’s unclear for the moment, but given Spivey’s experience with the rankings, these could all be serious possibilities. Stay tuned for the release of the U.S. News law school rankings, which will likely be published sometime this spring.
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Predicted 2024 U.S. News Law School Rankings [Spivey Consulting]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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