The GW Law School climbed two spots to number 23 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings released April 10.
GW tied with Boston College and the University of Illinois.
The school’s relatively low acceptance rate and high LSAT scores of incoming students set it apart from other universities. But GW’s high student/faculty ratio and reputation among academics and legal professionals kept it out of company with some competing universities, including No. 14 Georgetown.
The school’s 17.1-percent acceptance rate marked the lowest of all universities, except top three, Yale, Stanford and Harvard universities. Harvard was the only university in the top 30 with a higher student/faculty ratio than GW’s 18.2:1 ratio.
Ninety-seven percent of 1998 graduates were employed six months after graduation, and 90.3 percent of students taking the bar exam in New York passed, according to U.S. News statistics.
Michael Young, dean of the Law School, said one of the weak points of the University is the school’s limited space on campus. He said the small number of nooks and corners to find a place to sit and study in the school hurt GW in the rankings. Proposed expansions, which include linking the school’s library to neighboring buildings and constructing a larger law library, will improve GW’s space problem, he said.
He also said he would like to improve the visibility of the school’s underrated faculty nationwide.
Some students, who said they were impressed by GW’s quality of education and professors, said they feel the school’s limited building space and poor facilities may hurt the University in rankings.
We’re learning good stuff, it’s just that we’re learning in a hut, second-year student Amber Hunsinger said. She said the school’s poor computer lab technology, frequent ceiling leaks and uncomfortable student lounge make her question where her tuition dollars are going.
Although she thinks the U.S. News rankings place too much emphasis on universities’ name-recognition, Hunsinger said prospective students often rely on the rankings to make their decisions.
Even though they don’t say they look at (the rankings), they do, she said.
Roger Trangsrud, associate dean for Academic Affairs of the Law School, agreed.
Students shouldn’t let some peculiar methodology at U.S. News influence their decision, he said.
Young said the rankings, which are designed to sell magazines, do not account for some important factors, such as quality of education and professors. He also said the methodology used in the rankings is misleading and problematic because criteria change yearly.
Universities’ reputation weighed most heavily (40 percent) in the U.S. News rankings. Selectivity was the second most important factor (25 percent), followed by placement success (20 percent) and faculty resources (15 percent).
Ranking universities based on easily calculated statistics, like reputation scores, is like ranking prospective students solely by their LSAT scores, Young said.
Young cited the improvement of the school’s international law, intellectual property and health care law programs as examples of successful initiatives he would like to continue.
I want better professors, more professors, Young said. I want more programs. And we’re doing that.
