Brian Leiter Student Quality, 2005

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No feasible measure of student quality is ideal, but LSAT scores are the best, crude proxy we have available. GPAs are hard to compare, without knowing about the undergraduate institutions the students are coming from, and the courses of study they pursued. It would be useful to know about students in the incoming class with advanced degrees, or high quality work experience, but such data is not available, nor is it easily comparable. Class size is a further factor complicating comparisons, since the midpoint of 500 is not like the midpoint of 200, though each provides pertinent information.

Below are two rankings of the top 40 schools in terms of student quality as measured by LSAT. The first ranking looks only at the top quarter of each class; the second ranks schools by the mid-point LSAT (that is, the mid-point between the 25th and 75th—a figure more reliable than the medians, which are not currently reported to the American Bar Association [this will soon change]). Many academics favor 75th percentile rankings, because they do not penalize schools for “alternative admissions” procedures which may drag down the numerical credentials of the bottom end of the class. Others point out that the number of “top students” is more important than the “average” (“top students” set the tone, it is said). On the other hand, some believe the average matters more, and mid-point LSAT is the best proxy we have for the average. In any case, both kinds of rankings appear below for readers to consider. Remember: LSAT scores are very crude proxies for academic qualifications, and are notoriously weak predictors of performance in law school. Listings like those below leave out what, in my experience over thirteen years of law teaching, are far more significant factors like the undergraduate academic course of study of the students and the percentage of students with advanced degrees in other fields. There is, alas, no public data permitting comparisons on factors like these. What may be relevant in these rankings are clusters of schools, not the ordinal rankings themselves.

In the ranking by 75th percentile LSAT, we have also listed the 75th percentile GPA, though it was not factored into the ranking. But dramatic differences in GPA between schools with comparable 75th percentile LSATs are probably significant: see, e.g., Stanford versus Columbia and NYU; or Berkeley versus Duke, Cornell, and UCLA.

Class size (rounded to the nearest 50) served as a tie breaker: the larger school with the same LSAT credentials was ranked higher. For Harvard to boast a 75th percentile LSAT of 175, just like Yale, requires Harvard to recruit nearly three times as many students as Yale with those credentials. That speaks both to Harvard’s attractiveness, and to the existence at Harvard of an enormous pool of highly credentialed students, a fact, needless to say, that prospective employers register. The Fordham student body, with a 75th percentile LSAT of 167, is clearly a stronger student body than Washington & Lee, with the same 75th percentile LSAT, but one third as many students. If Texas were the size of Northwestern, the 75th percentile LSAT would be 170 or 171 and the mid-point LSAT 167 or 168. There are more complicated statistical techniques, to be sure, for making comparisons between fractions of differently sized groupings, but the tie-breaker device is, we thought, the easiest to understand and involves the least intrusive manipulation of the data.

Fordham and Cardozo may be the main surprises in the rankings below, but the huge pool of qualified students who want to be in New York City obviously helps them recruit a student body with strong numerical credentials (though one suspects the credentials top off not far from the 75th percentile, given the regional competition).

(Note: all figures are for the day class, which, in most cases, makes a difference--figures for the additional 150 or so part-time, evening students at Georgetown are a good bit lower, for example.)

Ranking by 75^th Percentile LSAT for 2005

Rank	School	75^th Percentile LSAT	75^th Percentile GPA	Class Size
1	Harvard University	175	3.94	550
2	Yale University	175	3.96	200
3	Columbia University	173	3.83	400
4	New York University	172	3.85	400
5	Stanford University	172	3.94	150
6	University of Virginia	171	3.82	350
7	University of Pennsylvania	171	3.81	250
8	University of Chicago	171	3.78	200
9	Georgetown University	170	3.80	450
10	Northwestern University	170	3.78	200
11	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	169	3.77	350
12	Duke University	169	3.83	200
13	University of California, Berkeley	168	3.90	250
	University of California, Los Angeles	168	3.84	250
15	Cornell University	168	3.76	200
16	University of Texas, Austin	167	3.79	450
17	Fordham University	167	3.78	300
18	Washington University, St. Louis	167	3.70	250
19	University of Southern California	167	3.76	200
20	University of Notre Dame	167	3.77	150
21	Washington & Lee University	167	3.77	100
22	George Washington University	166	3.78	400
23	Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University	166	3.64	300
24	Boston College	166	3.75	250
	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	166	3.81	250
26	Vanderbilt University	166	3.80	200
27	Brigham Young University	166	3.86	150
	University of Washington, Seattle	166	3.84	150
29	George Mason University	166	3.80	100
30	University of California, Hastings	165	3.73	350
31	Boston University	165	3.76	250
	Emory University	165	3.62	250
33	College of William & Mary	165	3.82	200
	University of Illinois	165	3.64	200
35	Wake Forest University	165	3.60	150
36	Loyola Law School, Los Angeles	164	3.58	350
37	Brooklyn Law School	164	3.57	300
38	University of North Carolina	164	3.79	250
	University of San Diego	164	3.60	250
40	Indiana University, Bloomington	164	3.74	200
	Lewis & Clark College / Northwestern School of Law	164	3.51	200
	Southern Methodist University	164	3.84	200
	University of California, Davis	164	3.72	200
	University of Georgia	164	3.82	200
Runners-Up for the Top 40
	University of Arizona	164	3.69	150
	University of Colorado, Boulder	164	3.84	150
	University of Connecticut	164	3.58	150
	Tulane University	163	3.73	350
	Temple University	163	3.76	250
	University of Iowa	163	3.82	250
	University of Wisconsin, Madison	163	3.64	250

Rankings by Mid-Point LSAT for 2005

Rank	School	Mid-Point LSAT	Class Size
1	Harvard University	172	550
2	Yale University	171.5	200
3	Columbia University	170	400
4	New York University	169.5	400
5	University of Chicago	169	200
6	Stanford University	169	150
7	University of Virginia	168.5	350
8	University of Pennsylvania	168.5	250
9	Georgetown University	168	450
10	Northwestern University	168	200
11	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	166.5	350
12	Cornell University	166	200
13	University of California, Los Angeles	165.5	250
14	Duke University	165.5	200
15	Fordham University	165	350
16	University of Southern California	165	200
	Vanderbilt University	165	200
18	University of Texas, Austin	164.5	450
19	University of California, Berkeley	164.5	250
	Washington University, St. Louis	164.5	250
21	University of Notre Dame	164.5	150
22	Washington & Lee University	164.5	100
23	George Washington University	164	400
24	Boston College	164	250
25	Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University	163.5	300
26	Boston University	163.5	250
27	Emory University	163	250
	University of Minnesota, Twin Cities	163	250
29	Brigham Young University	163	150
30	University of California, Hastings	162.5	350
31	Brooklyn Law School	162.5	300
32	College of William & Mary	162.5	200
	University of Illinois	162.5	200
34	University of Washington, Seattle	162.5	150
	Wake Forest University	162.5	150
36	George Mason University	162.5	100
37	University of San Diego	162	250
38	University of California, Davis	162	200
39	University of Connecticut	162	150
40	Loyola Law School, Los Angeles	161.5	350
Runners-Up for the Top 40
	University of Colorado, Boulder	161.5	150
	Indiana University, Bloomington	161	200
	Lewis & Clark College/Northwestern School of Law	161	200
	Rutgers University, Camden	161	200
	University of Alabama	161	200
	University of Richmond	161	150
	Tulane University	160.5	350
	American University	160.5	300
	St. John's University	160.5	250
	Temple University	160.5	250
	University of North Carolina	160.5	250
	University of Georgia	160.5	200

Top Ten Student Bodies at Large Schools
(350 students or more)

Rank	School	75^th/ Mid-Point LSAT
1	Harvard University	175/172
2	Columbia University	173/170
3	New York University	172/169.5
4	University of Virginia	171/168.5
5	Georgetown University	170/168
6	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	169/166.5
7	University of Texas, Austin	167/164.5
8	George Washington University	166/164
9	University of California, Hastings	165/162.5
10	Loyola Law School/Los Angeles	164/161.5

Top Ten Student Bodies at Small Schools
(200 students or less)

Rank	School	75^th/Mid-Point LSAT
1	Yale University	175/171.5
2	Stanford University	172/169
3	University of Chicago	171/169
4	Northwestern University	170/168
5	Duke University	169/165.5
6	Cornell University	168/166
7	University of Southern California	167/165
8	University of Notre Dame	167164.5
9	Washington & Lee University	167/164.5
10	Vanderbilt University	166/165

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