US News, Rankings, and the Possible Change to the Formula

US News is considering changing the formula for computing rankings of law schools.  Right now, the magazine uses the median LSAT and GPA from the full time divison.  The magazine is considering using the median from the combined full time and part time divisions.  Because for most schools the part time division has lower LSAT medians, the impact of combining the two will be a drop in the median for at least some, if not many, of the schools with an part time division.  The change is, therefore, being watched with great interest.  The latest pronouncement?  Continued uncertainty.  As the US News Blog noted last month:

• Still undecided: In terms of the overall law school rankings, at this time, U.S. News is still studying the idea that was raised in my blog post "Changing the Law School Ranking Formula,” where we discussed the possibility of combining both full-time and part-time entering student data for median LSAT scores and median undergraduate grade-point averages in the calculation of the school's overall ranking. Our current law school ranking methodology counts only full-time student admissions data. Just to be clear, U.S. News is carefully contemplating the potential impact of such a methodology change: We will not make a decision until January 2009.