O'Hara: Law School rankings flawed, incomplete
By KIFLIN TURNER
Assistant News Editor
What's in a rating?
For some, it means the difference between choosing one school over another, while others claim that it's an arbitrary ploy for big money corporations to sell magazines. For Notre Dame Law School, it means another year has gone by without Notre Dame reaching the widely acclaimed top 25 law school position.
At the 27th slot, just a mere two spaces away from top 25 status, Notre Dame shares the position along with four other universities. And with such a small margin of difference between the top 25 most heralded schools, recent debate has focused on whether there truly is a significant difference between a 25th rating and a 26th or 27th rating.
Moreover, the U.S. News and World Report's rating system that has shut Notre Dame out of the top 25 status for a second consecutive year has drawn criticism of the system as one that is partial and inaccurate in measuring the real quality of a law education.
Patricia O'Hara, dean of Notre Dame Law School expressed doubt of the measuring ability of the rankings system as one that simply doesn't work.
"I regard the rankings as a flawed system," said O'Hara. "In general rankings systems omit a number of variables that factor into a decision made to attend a law school."
The rankings are based on a set of arithmetic formulas, said O'Hara. Variables that are themselves inaccurate in measuring the immeasurable — the quality of specific programs, faculty, students — are in essence, marginalizing the most important aspects of a law program.
The ranking system is far from comprehensive, according to O'Hara. As such, giving any significant consideration to the system is shortsighted. As a response to the inaccuracy of the system in ranking the excellence of law schools, over 175 out of 183 deans of American Bar Association (ABA) approved law schools have compiled and issued a letter to U.S. News and World Report. "These rankings systems are inherently flawed because none of them can take your special needs and circumstances into account when comparing law schools," according to a statement endorsed by the deans from the Law School Admission Council.
"You really can't reduce 183 varied schools of law schools to a single number each and then rank order them," O'Hara said. Insisting that the rankings tend to be flawed and arbitrary, O'Hara expressed little concern over the present ranking of the law school, as she does not give the ratings much clout.
"You're trying to use objective indicia of what are often times subjective decisions—and what may a very good school for one person is not necessarily the right school for another person, and those kinds of differences are not well captured in the ratings," said Jay Tidmarsh, Notre Dame Law School professor.
Annually U.S. News and World report, evaluates a law school program based on 12 factors, two of which are subjective. These two variables depend on the judgment of academics, lawyers and judges based on biased information of a school's reputation. Out of the 12 factors, the reputation variable determined by academics carries a 40 percent weight in figuring the overall score, compared to a mere 15 percent for a university's faculty resources.
Whether the ranking system is flawed or not, the fact still remains that a considerable amount of the applicant pool are influenced by the opportunity to attend a top 25 law program. "We cannot dismiss the ranking since we know applicants have the tendency to look at them," O'Hara said.
Rudy Monterrosa, an eighth year law student, admits that the rankings effect the perception of a schools reputation.
"When I first applied to the law school, it was like in the top 25, so it did sort of effect your decision to sort of attend this school as opposed to another," said Monterrosa
"I guess when you're first applying, you want to be able to say that you're going to a top 25 school. Once you start looking for a job, it's going to be easier if you graduate from a top 25 school, than if you would have graduated from a school that wasn't as highly ranked."
The current status of the law school as one that is not included in the top 20 or 25 schools may discourage potential students who give considerable credit to the rankings.
"It's fair to say that it's an important tool for students in choosing a law school, but they don't capture everything, or what's important about a law school," said third year law student, Kristen O'Connor. "The most important things about Notre Dame just can't be quantified," said O'Connor
Monterrosa also does not ascribe to the claim that the rankings are comprehensive as a system measuring excellence as he believes that Notre Dame has a lot more to its law program than a ranking.
"I believe that we're still going to attract a lot of people here because of the fact that it is Notre Dame, and because we do have that strong academic reputation—and you have that name brand recognition.
To those students who pay particular attention to the rankings system, some faculty members would prefer they not choose Notre Dame if they primarily use the rankings as a deciding factor in choosing a law school.
"To those students who are captivated by going to whichever school is more highly ranked this year, if that's they're primary criteria, we'll lose those students to one's that are 26 or 22, or 18 or wherever—I'm not so sure that I mind that loss, because if that's the only basis on which they are making a decision, I think it's a rather ill-informed judgment," said Tidmarsh.
"If you make your decision on a one year thing, knowing that the next year, the ratings are going to be somewhat different, that's a pretty irrational way of choosing the right law school for you," said Tidmarsh.
It is primarily up to the student to investigate programs of interest in gaining an accurate idea of a law school's potential according to Monterrosa.
"As far as students are concerned, I think it is a matter of the applicant doing a lot of research as to why they want to go to a certain school. And I think regardless of whether we're in the top 25 or not, when you come to Notre Dame—to this law school, you have a very strong alumni support," said Monterrosa
Continuing to improve the quality of Notre Dame's Law School is important, but is certainly not a reactionary decision based on the rankings according to O'Hara. When asked what action might be taken to improve the resources of the law school, O'Hara claimed that first the distinction needed to be made in the motivating factors behind making any changes. Any improvements made would not be in reaction to the ratings, but as an effort independent to the rankings to advance the academic status and student experience of the law school in keeping with the University's vision.
"We make our decisions based on remaining true to our vision of continuing to make a great law school," O'Hara said. "Our vision is not driven by the ratings."
The rankings may not be the initiating factor in bringing about change, but it may indirectly draw attention to some areas necessitating improvement.
"I would personally like to see the law school invest more in public interest and encourage students in public interest regardless of ratings," said third year law student, Laura Weiler.
Improving available resources, expanding space, and recruiting top demanded faculty members are not measures taken to simply gain preferred ranking status said Monterrosa.
"I don't think they're doing it in response to the ratings, they're improving just because the law school is always looking to improve itself," said Monterrosa. "As far as I'm concerned, the ratings don't really matter—what matters is the quality of education that you're receive at an institution, and that you're happy with your education," said Monterrosa.
All News Stories for Wednesday, April 25, 2001
