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[quote=Exlawdean][quote=Anonymous]I’m a retired lawyer following up on the Harvard poster’s criticism of the OP.  I’m not a Harvard guy.

I agree with the criticism.  I think the OP is out of touch and that much of what he says is demonstrably wrong.  I don’t think, for example, that Harvard is now going to start awarding merit scholarships to maintain or move up in the rankings, and neither will the other schools who have boycotted the publication.  One of their core stated reasons for the boycott was that it led too many good law schools to award merit aid at the expense of need based aid and that was bad for the system.  The boycotting schools aren’t about to reverse course now.

[i]I don't know, with certainty, that any one of the selective law schools that have not given merit aid in the past will start doing so. But I do know that majority of applicants to law school utilize USNWR. Maybe that will change. But without truly massive changes in applicant behavior re USNWR, there will be pressure on schools with falling USNWR rankings to do something. If such schools fail to do something, and students continue to use USNWR rankings to select their law schools, then such schools risk having reality conform to the rankings. The quality of their students will trend towards their new, lower ranking. And, year by year, hiring executives at large firms will start to take this into account. I suspect that some (perhaps not most) selective schools in such a situation will decide to start offering merit scholarships. This is, of course, all theory. In the next five years we can see how this all plays out. Stay tuned.[/i]

Interestingly, OP uses Chicago as an example of an elite school that “clearly” gives merit aid, while failing to mention that it’s also the one elite school that didn’t boycott the rankings.  So it’s the exception that proves the rule actually.  [i]I think you only have part of the story. Approximately years ago U Chicago Law's ranking had fallen to 6, consistently. The quality of students was trending in that direction. The then-dean of law and the President got together and decided to start aggressively using merit scholarships to attract better students and move up in the rankings. It worked. So Chicago is an example of exactly the phenomenon I was describing.[/i]

The one thing I will disagree with the Harvard guy about is his claim that Harvard has always been the number one most in demand law school. US news ranking or otherwise, the “number one” distinction belongs to Yale and has for a long time. It is without question, the nation’s most selective law, school and when given the choice between Yale and Harvard, the majority of students accepted to both pick Yale. That is a fact, not conjecture. [/quote] [/quote]

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