The University of Virginia Law School will no longer submit responses to be considered for the U.S. News and World Report annual law school rankings list, the Dean of the school announced in an open letter to students last week. UVa ranks eighth on the 2023 Best Law Schools list that U.S. News released this year.
UVa is the ninth school on the top 10 Best Law Schools list to walk away from the ranking platform after nearly 30 years of partnership.
“As they currently stand, the U.S. News rankings fail to capture much of what we value at UVa,” said Dean Risa Goluboff. “Facilitating access to legal education and the legal profession for students from every background; fostering the free exchange of ideas within a community of joy, humanity, and trust; providing top-notch teaching by accomplished faculty; supporting public service; and launching our graduates into the stellar career paths of their choosing.”
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The decision from UVa Law follows a trend of the top law schools in the country disassociating from the frequently used higher education resource. Nine of the schools listed in the most recent U.S. News top 10 law schools list have also decided to withdraw from the rankings. Many of the schools cited that their reason for leaving is because U.S. News ranks schools lower when they support graduates pursuing public interest careers rather than Big Law ones.
Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard and Yale law schools were the first to announce that they will no longer be participating in the rankings in mid-November. These initial announcements prompted the only response that U.S. news has provided publicly on the topic.
In a statement from CEO Eric Gertler on the same day Yale announced its separation from the digital resource and magazine, he said U.S. News would continue its “journalistic mission of ensuring that students can rely on the best and most accurate information” in evaluating schools.
Since 1983, U.S. News rankings have been measuring law schools based on expert surveys, student grades and Law School Admission Test scores, bar pass and employment rates, incurred J.D. debt and more.
The University of Pennsylvania – Carey, University of California – Berkeley, New York University and Stanford law schools soon followed suit. The University of Chicago Law School is the only top 10 school that will continue participating in the rankings after this year.
Dean Gillian Lester at Columbia Law School stated that the methodology that U.S. News uses creates incentives that counter the school’s mission to retain a student body with diverse qualities and career paths in the private sector, public interest, government or academia.
Dean Heather K. Gerken at Yale Law called the U.S. News methodology “flawed” and claimed that the for-profit magazine “disincentivizes programs that support public interest careers, champion need-based aid, and welcome working-class students into the profession.”
Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning criticized a U.S. News indicator that measures student debt at graduation. Manning says the metric does not “distinguish whether this metric reflects a school’s generous financial aid or a high percentage of wealthy admits who do not require student loans.”
Another reason UVa Law withdrew from the rankings, Goluboff wrote, is because the list that U.S. News creates for 2024 will not be as accurate as the ones created in prior years. With the majority of the top 10 law schools declaring that they will not submit their school’s data to be considered for the ranking, Goluboff says U.S. News has failed to change its formula in ways that are transparent or meaningful.
Goluboff says she is open to revisiting UVa Law’s decision to remove itself from the U.S. News rankings but is taking matters into its own hands in the meantime. The school created a new web page called “What Prospective Students Should Know About UVA Law” with all of the fast facts that potential students usually find on U.S. News.
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