Marquette Prof. Offers Alternative Rankings

[Norm]

What do you all think of these?

http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/files/the_us_news_and_world_report_rankings_without_the_clutter.pdf

[loki13]

These can't be correct. Thomas Cooley ranked themselves 16 in their latest rankings... but this Marquette guy has them ranked at 177. Clearly, Marquette (like US News and WR) is part of the vast anti-Cooley conspiracy.

http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/overall2006.htm

[Bob D]

From the perspective of the student, the only ranking that counts is how well the degree gets you the job you want. So this Marquette professor has the wrong idea.

[xferlawstudent]

I didn't compare this side-by-side with USNEWS, but it doesn't seem very different.  A few schools moved a couple of spots, but I didn't see huge changes (that I noticed).

Another good thing about this ranking is that one can compare T3/T4 schools with each other, as the USNEWS rankings list those tiers alphabetically.

[Bob D]

These can't be correct. Thomas Cooley ranked themselves 16 in their latest rankings... but this Marquette guy has them ranked at 177. Clearly, Marquette (like US News and WR) is part of the vast anti-Cooley conspiracy.

http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/overall2006.htm

I followed the link, and the web page is surreal. Somehow one of the crappiest law schools in the nation is ranked #16.

To add to the irony, at the top of the page appears the word "ethics." It's ethical to tell prospective students that Cooley is one of the nation's top 16 law schools?

[LegalLatin78]

Check out their criteria for their ranking (Cooley's).  This will shed some light on how they pegged their school 16th...

[TheNewGuy]

Check out their criteria for their ranking (Cooley's).  This will shed some light on how they pegged their school 16th...

My 3 favs:

1. Total library (and non-library) square footage
2. Number of part-time faculty
3. Total J.D. enrollment

read the explanation
http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/intro_8th_general.htm#factors

have they ever been sued for those flyers they send out of their rankings list? (Not advocating a position, but you'd think students might claim they were mislead and thus victimized, no?)

EDIT: Ok so I do obviously think this is unethical.

[plex]

What do you all think of these?

http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/files/the_us_news_and_world_report_rankings_without_the_clutter.pdf

For the Marquette rankings posted above:

Looks pretty similar to US News on the top end, in the bottom half, there were a few drastic shifts, some schools US news ranked as Tier 4 jump to Tier 2. Giving less weight to regional factors seems to give a clearer view of how well the schools place nationally.

For the Cooley Rankings:
What they are posting should be a crime, it is such a ridiculous and unrealistic set of criteria specifically intended to mislead people to "buy" the school's product.

[xferlawstudent]

Wow!  Cooley is better than Duke, Stanford, UCLA, and Univ. of Chicago, just to name a few.  I should have transferred there!

[LegalLatin78]

The sad part is that a young woman I work with asked me about Cooley the other day.  When she started discussing the rankings, I realized she was referring to the Cooley (self) rankings.  I guess some people really do buy into them.  Nothing ceases to amaze me anymore.

Here was my favorite on the Cooley rankings - "No doubt, our prejudices shaped the selection of factors and ranking order we use."  Uh, you think so?  I hear that next year they are going to include "website design and user-friendliness" in their rankings.  Lookout Stanford!