William D. Henderson is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Law -- Bloomington and Andrew P. Morriss is the H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business at University of Illinois College of Law. They have also just published a study of law school graduate income, debt, and job opportunity at different law schools and considered the impact of ranking on that outcome. It is a fascinating, albeit somewhat dense, article that I recommend to those of you applying to law school, particularly if you are not aiming for the top 25 schools. Here are a few excerpts:

• "For the vast majority of students who are not admitted to top-tier national law schools, these figures lead to a simple conclusion: Slavishly following the U.S. News rankings will not significantly increase one's large-firm job prospects. And the excess debt that students incur is likely to undermine their career options."
• "By focusing on price rather than rankings, they will have the financial freedom to pursue jobs that will build valuable professional skills and mentoring relationships or leave the law altogether, without debt, to pursue other life ambitions."
• "We don't rank; neither should prospective students. Within regional markets, many schools will have similar outcome profiles. The question to ask is whether marginally better employment outcomes -- for example, 12 percent large-firm employment versus 6 percent -- is worth the additional law school debt."

According to Law.com "All together, the top 20 law schools that NLJ 250 law firms relied on most to fill their first-year associate ranks sent 54.9 percent of their graduates to those firms, compared with 51.6 percent in 2006."

Obviously that does not mean that the remaining 55.1 percent were all unemployed, but if you want to see a quick snapshot of where graduates of a particular school find (and don't find) jobs, please see the NLJ's graph of law school graduate employment trends.

For a succinct commentary on the full report, please see "Top Law Schools Tighten Their Hold on NLJ 250 Firms."

While the Law.com articles reflect last year's strong economy, The Wall St. Journal presents a less rosy picture,  probably because it reports current market conditions in "Law Firms Curtail Associate Programs as Economy Slows."  This article mirrors the the economy's downshift in the last six months.

Six months ago journalists speculated that new associate salaries at top firms may hit $200K annually. This article reveals layoffs, rescinded offers, postponed start dates for new lawyers graduating in June, and shrinking programs for summer associates. It even discusses humane working hours for currently employed first-year associates at some big firms heavily dependent on M&A, private equity, and real estate transactional business.

Reactions to last month's 2009 US News Grad School Rankings, particularly for law schools range from the thoughtful to the laughable:

• Over my morning cup of tea, I read "Dropping 23 Spots in U.S. News: Dean of Buffalo Law Responds"  in the WSJ, in which Buffalo’s interim dean, Makau Mutua comments on his school's dizzying drop in the rankings. Robert Morse of US News responds to his comments.
• That piece led me to "Law Schools Shouldn't Grub for Rankings" by a Yale 1L who feels that law deans pay too much attention to rankings.
  
• I also stumbled across the WSJ's  "Tennessee Law Prof Lampoons Responses to U.S. News Rankings."  While Prof. Stein is officially spoofing administrative reaction to the rankings, his piece closely resembles reality.
• Finally, thoughtful commentary on Law.com: "There are Only Two Kinds of Law Schools". Professor Cameron Stracher of New York School of Law divides law schools into two categories. "Those where students decide which firms they want to interview at and those where the firms decide." Sobering perspective.

Applicants put way too much emphasis on small differences in overall rankings. They should be looking at ability to get a job after graduation, bar passage rates, overall student satisfaction, the actual program at a time when many law schools are becoming innovative, and a host of other factors. They tend to focus on the rankings which too frequently are a crutch that replaces research into a program and its strengths and weaknesses.  The data behind the rankings provides some of that info, but the applicants should go deeper to really understand the different programs.

At the same time, the frequently two-faced and sometimes defensive reaction of law schools to the rankings is spineless. Schools brag about their ranking to alumni and prospective students -- if it goes up. They respond defensively if they go down. How about examining them with a degree of objectivity? Perhaps the rankings provide clues to areas in which a school needs to improve. If they are meaningless, then schools shouldn't brag about them or cooperate with them regardless of the result.

Rankings should neither be the sole source of feedback for schools nor determinative in applicant or administrative decision-making. While I welcome a constructive examination of ranking results on the part of law schools, as Michael Seringhaus, the Yale 1L quoted above, wrote, law school deans should not "grub" for placement.

The US News released its 2008 Grad School Rankings today. I'm going to list the top ten for business school, law school, and medical school and provide links to the ranking methodology for each category. For other graduate specialties, please visit the US News site.

Business School Rankings and methodology 
1. Harvard
1. Stanford
3. Wharton
4.  MIT Sloan
4. Northwestern Kellogg
4. Univ. of Chicago
7. Dartmouth Tuck
7. UC Berkeley Haas
9. Columbia
10. NYU Stern

Law School Rankings
1. Yale
2. Harvard
2. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. NYU
6. UC Berkeley
7. Univ. of Chicago
7. Penn
9. Northwestern
9. Univ. of Michigan
9. Univ. of Virginia

( I am not including a link to the law school methodology because as I am writing the link provided is a bad link.)

Medical School Rankings (Research)  and Methodology
1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Washington U (St. Louis)
4. Penn
5. UCSF
6. Duke
6. Univ. of Washington
8. Stanford
9. UCLA
9. Yale

A few caveats: My strong recommendation is to use the rankings as a library of raw data  conveniently compiled in one location and not as a tried and true guide of educational quality. They are not the latter. They are the former. To the extent you are going to use the rankings as a guide to school reputation and brand value, you must understand the methodology behind them and what they are measuring. Be cognizant of the differences between what is important to you and what is important to the rankings.

A few observations on the rankings themselves:

1. There are many ties in the rankings, which implies that the differences in reputation are almost imperceptible when talking about closely ranked programs. For example the difference between being "in the top ten" and out of the top ten (i.e. #11) for MBA programs is 1 point,  for the top law schools is 2 points, and for the top medical schools is 1 point. Don't get hung up on these differences.
2. The "top ten" changes little from year to year. In most cases, if you compare these rankings to the 2007 version, it looks as if US News just reshuffled the deck a little.

For more on rankings, please see:

• Rankings: Controversy and Magazine Sales
• Thoughtful Dean Looks at Rankings
• Law School Admissions: Study Says Rankings Influence Decision Makers

BusinessWeek released its rankings of undergrad business schools this week.  And the winners are...

1. Wharton
2. University of Virginia
   
3.  Notre Dame
4. Cornell
5. Emory
   
6. Michigan
7. Brigham Young
8. NYU
   
9. MIT
10. University of Texas

More important than the raw rankings provided above are the data and insight provided by BW in developing the ranking. BW combines 9 measures which includes surveys of students and recruiters, salaries of graduates, and a measure for academic quality gleaned from a number of statistical sources like SAT scores, student-teacher ratio, etc. It prides itself on being a consumer-oriented ranking since the ultimate "consumers" of a business education are the students and their employers. To the extent that the ranking has value, you need to have a thorough understanding of the methodology behind the rankings to extract it.

Also, directed at  applicants to business school, but valid for most undergrad applicants are the suggestions contained in "Extracurriculars that Count." Surprise, surprise. No specific extra-curricular activity will guarantee admission, and quality of commitment trumps quantity of activities any time and across the board.  I recommend this article. You may also be interested in "What is 'Passion' in Admissions?"