Part-Timers and Law School Rankings

An interesting article appears in today’s Wall Street Journal about a proposed revision U.S. News and World Reports is considering making to how it ranks law schools.  See Amir Efrati, Law School Rankings Reviewed to Deter ‘Gaming’, Wall St. J., Aug. 26, 2008, at A1.

Here are some excerpts from this article:

The most widely watched ranking of U.S. law schools may move to stop an increasingly popular practice: schools gaming the system by channeling lower-scoring applicants into part-time programs that don’t count in the rankings.

U.S. News & World Report is “seriously” considering reworking its ranking system to crack down on the practice, says Robert Morse, director of data research at the magazine, who is in charge of its influential list.

Such a move could affect the status of dozens of law schools. It would likely reverse gains recently made by a number of schools that have helped their revenue by increasing their rosters of part-time students with lower entrance-exam scores and grade-point averages, without having to pay a price in the rankings. * * *

Counting part-timers would roil the law-school rankings, which have a big impact on where students apply and from where law firms hire. A number of law-school administrators interviewed about the potential change contend it could have another effect: narrowing a traditional pathway to law school for minorities and working professionals.

The article contains a list of sample schools are how the change would impact their rankings.