i

[BassDesire]

[deleted]

[azdezza]

I can't say much to help, other than I'm glad (mainly this post is to tag the thread).
I suspect that the shift to medians gives law schools much more discretion on how to round out their classes.

I don't understand... what significant difference would a change like this make? 

[140am]

tag

[lawstudent3]

I've heard it too, but, like you, it's only been hearsay.  That said, I heard the rumor a while ago now, so I'm inclined to believe it if it's stuck around this long.

[98765432]

USNews used to use medians along with 75 and 25 in their calculations.  But the ABA stopped collecting median info, so USNews stopped asking for it.  But last year USNews reintroduced medians in their calculations, but instead of asking for the schools to report a median, they used a midpoint between the 25 and the 75.  That hurt some schools.  But UWNews said that they didn't want to trust any information that wasn't sent through the ABA.

That's when I stopped paying attention to the story.  I don't know if USNews gave in, or if the ABA is going to start asking for that data again, or if whoever is telling the story just isn't telling it right.  But this started already last year.

[98765432]

I don't believe USNews is considering abandoning 25-75 in favor of medians, but rather just added the medians into the calculations along with 25-75.

[The Name's Dali]

I don't understand... what significant difference would a change like this make? 

By using medians, schools can also admit many more students with low numbers but large soft factors without huring its rating. 

Under the current system, the 25th% of both GPA and LSAT counts, so it has to be high.  The result is that no more than 24% of the class can have low numbers without it hurting a school's ranking.

Under a mean system, every admitted student will have some impact on the rankings, so almost no low-numbered students would be admitted.

Medians allow schools to fill as much as 49% of its class with students whose numbers are significantly below what is now required, as long as the other 51% of the class had solid stats.  This means those people on here (and throughout the country) who had a bad GPA 10 years ago, a traumatic life experinece, or those who just suck at standardized tests can be admitted to better schools.

This is a good analysis.  The problem is that USNews creates an artificial median, by averaging the 25th and 75th percentiles.  Thus, until the ABA collects median data, the "median" will merely be a function of the aforementioned percentiles.

[shae]

when do the new rankings come out?

[The Name's Dali]

Tomorrow.












Just kidding...not for a while.

[shae]

do u guys think there will be any significant changes?  are there ever really any suprises?  I predict a tome T-14s changing spots and maybe UT pulling ahead of UCLA to be the only #15 with UCLA #16- purely a guess, however.

I do think that Texas is trying to get into the Top 14 by using the extra non-resident spots to boost their numbers.