Brooklyn's Incorrect US News Rankings

[JayCLS]

This is the legal profession. We are supposed to value and teach honesty/the pursuit of truth and a high standard of ethics.  If you don't punish Brooklyn then what stops every school from blatantly cheating the rankings.  Again, if they are embarrassed at the numbers of their part time students then they should change their admissions process.  It is not fair that Brooklyn wants to play by one set of rules while other schools do the right thing.

Also if you think what Brooklyn did was merely a clerical error then I challenge you with this.  Wouldn't submitting no numbers at all be the more obvious thing to do if Brooklyn really wanted to protest the rankings?  Clearly they submitted partial numbers because they were hoping the fact that they were not complete would go unnoticed.

What they should do is rank Brooklyn last based on a 0.0 GPA/0 LSAT. Then put an asterisk on it.

Again, not fair to the other schools who properly report their numbers. If Brooklyn is embarrassed about the numbers of their incoming part-time students then they can change that on their own.  They are responsible for it.

No, it should either rank Brooklyn based on accurate numbers or leave Brooklyn out of the rankings altogether, listing its full-time numbers as full-time numbers.  It doesn't make sense to compound the errors in the rankings by using even more inaccurate information in the rankings.  This desire to somehow punish Brooklyn doesn't make sense to me.  If you care about whether applicants have access to good data, you should want U.S. News to publish and use the best data available.

It's perfectly "fair" for Brooklyn to choose to omit the part-time numbers as long as it is upfront about doing so and accepts the consequences.  What's not fair is for U.S. News to rank Brooklyn using full-time numbers when it ranks all other schools with part-time programs using both full-time and part-time numbers.

[Miss P]

This is the legal profession. We are supposed to value and teach honesty/the pursuit of truth and a high standard of ethics.  If you don't punish Brooklyn then what stops every school from blatantly cheating the rankings.  Again, if they are embarrassed at the numbers of their part time students then they should change their admissions process.  It is not fair that Brooklyn wants to play by one set of rules while other schools do the right thing.

I just question the notion that the USNWR rankings are an appropriate teaching instrument for your moral lesson.  The rankings exist, presumably, to provide a service to prospective law students and legal employers.  They should therefore contain the best information available.  Listing Brooklyn with a 0.00 GPA and 000 LSAT and in the fourth tier is hardly useful to anyone.  Why not list (a) the full-time numbers or (b) last year's ABA numbers, and leave Brooklyn unranked for its failure to provide information about the whole class for the current year.  That information might actually matter to applicants, and publishing it doesn't create any incentive for Brooklyn or other schools to submit inaccurate data.  Leaving Brooklyn out of the rankings would have been embarrassment enough. 

Most schools will not blatantly cheat in the rankings for fear of being caught.  The bad publicity itself is the punishment.  Schools are also supposed to submit the same information they submit to USNWR to the ABA. I find it hard to believe that schools would deliberately, and so clumsily, deceive one of the accrediting bodies in the profession.

Also if you think what Brooklyn did was merely a clerical error then I challenge you with this.  Wouldn't submitting no numbers at all be the more obvious thing to do if Brooklyn really wanted to protest the rankings?  Clearly they submitted partial numbers because they were hoping the fact that they were not complete would go unnoticed.

The form requests information for the full-time class, the part-time class, and the whole class.  Brooklyn says that it sent a letter protesting the change in methodology to include part-time numbers in the rankings (not the rankings themselves) and, in accordance with this protest, filled out only the full-time numbers on its submission.  Then, as the result of an administrative error, someone listed the same numbers in the blanks for the whole class.  I realize that this is a somewhat unsatisfying, and not immediately credible, explanation.  That said, the alternatives don't make a lot of sense either.  Brooklyn certainly can't have hoped to hide the existence of its part-time program on a form where it listed all sorts of other information about the part-time program (tuition, etc.), especially after writing a letter acknowledging that its part-time students have lower numerical entry credentials than its full-time students. 

Finally, as an aside, I find it slightly unseemly for an upperclass student at a T5 law school to jump into this thread and criticize a second-tier law school for messing up the second-tier and part-time rankings, particularly when he doesn't appear to have read the school's explanations and USNWR's statements.  I don't mean this as a personal attack; I have always liked you rather well.  I just think a more humble approach was in order here.

EDIT

[simonsays]

Finally, as an aside, I find it slightly unseemly for an upperclass student at a T5 law school to jump into this thread and criticize a second-tier law school for messing up the second-tier and part-time rankings, particularly when he doesn't appear to have read the school's explanations and USNWR's statements.  I don't mean this as a personal attack; I have always liked you rather well.  I just think a more humble approach was in order here.

EDIT

Are you PT or FT at Brooklyn?

[Matthies]

This is the legal profession. We are supposed to value and teach honesty/the pursuit of truth and a high standard of ethics.  If you don't punish Brooklyn then what stops every school from blatantly cheating the rankings.  Again, if they are embarrassed at the numbers of their part time students then they should change their admissions process.  It is not fair that Brooklyn wants to play by one set of rules while other schools do the right thing.

I just question the notion that the USNWR rankings are an appropriate teaching instrument for your moral lesson.  The rankings exist, presumably, to provide a service to prospective law students and legal employers.  They should therefore contain the best information available.  Listing Brooklyn with a 0.00 GPA and 000 LSAT and in the fourth tier is hardly useful to anyone.  Why not list (a) the full-time numbers or (b) last year's ABA numbers, and leave Brooklyn unranked for its failure to provide information about the whole class for the current year.  That information might actually matter to applicants, and publishing it doesn't create any incentive for Brooklyn or other schools to submit inaccurate data.  Leaving Brooklyn out of the rankings would have been embarrassment enough. 

Most schools will not blatantly cheat in the rankings for fear of being caught.  The bad publicity itself is the punishment.  Schools are also supposed to submit the same information they submit to USNWR to the ABA. I find it hard to believe that schools would deliberately, and so clumsily, deceive one of the accrediting bodies in the profession.

Also if you think what Brooklyn did was merely a clerical error then I challenge you with this.  Wouldn't submitting no numbers at all be the more obvious thing to do if Brooklyn really wanted to protest the rankings?  Clearly they submitted partial numbers because they were hoping the fact that they were not complete would go unnoticed.

The form requests information for the full-time class, the part-time class, and the whole class.  Brooklyn says that it sent a letter protesting the change in methodology to include part-time numbers in the rankings (not the rankings themselves) and, in accordance with this protest, filled out only the full-time numbers on its submission.  Then, as the result of an administrative error, someone listed the same numbers in the blanks for the whole class.  I realize that this is a somewhat unsatisfying, and not immediately credible, explanation.  That said, the alternatives don't make a lot of sense either.  Brooklyn certainly can't have hoped to hide the existence of its part-time program on a form where it listed all sorts of other information about the part-time program (tuition, etc.), especially after writing a letter acknowledging that its part-time students have lower numerical entry credentials than its full-time students. 

Finally, as an aside, I find it slightly unseemly for an upperclass student at a T5 law school to jump into this thread and criticize a second-tier law school for messing up the second-tier and part-time rankings, particularly when he doesn't appear to have read the school's explanations and USNWR's statements.  I don't mean this as a personal attack; I have always liked you rather well.  I just think a more humble approach was in order here.

EDIT

Agreed it comes off as pissing contest for no reason other than to bash a school you don’t go to. Having a reasonable conversation about the issue is one thing, using charged language and making blanket accusations is another and seems pretty lame if you don’t have a horse in this race.

[Miss P]

Are you PT or FT at Brooklyn?

FT (and, as of last week, finished). 

[JDat45]

Way to kill the conspiracy theories there with facts, logical speculation and stuff, next you’re going to tell me we actually landed on the moon.   

I do my best to ruin every bit of fun anyone might have in my midst.

I still thinks its more likely that a group of Watergate type burglars broke into USNEWS offices and used white out to change the numbers.   

I heard it was correction tape.

I actually LOL'd.