US News to Correct Some Data – Not Changing Rankings
Bob Morse just posted this on his blog:
U.S. News is not going to recalculate the rankings because of these mistakes, but we are soon going to correct the data on our website.
Two law schools made errors in how they reported the information used to calculate the percentage of their 2007 graduating class that was employed nine months after graduation, which affected the new law school rankings. Both of these law schools would have ranked higher if these data had been used in the rankings. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s corrected rate of 2007 law graduates employed nine months after graduation is 96.2 percent. The correct rate for the University of Hawaii (Richardson) is 100 percent.
Nebraska and Hawaii both fell to the third-tier in this year’s rankings thanks to these errors. Bob Morse also addresses the Brooklyn situation:
In another law school ranking issue, we have received reports that Brooklyn Law School in New York appears to have given U.S. News only its 2008 full-time entering class admission data for the LSAT, undergraduate grade-point average, and applications and acceptances instead of the requested data combining full-time and part-time students for those same variables. U.S. News is waiting for the American Bar Association (ABA) to publish its 2008 ABA Annual Questionnaire information in order to cross-check Brooklyn Law’s and other schools’ statistics with the association’s official data. U.S. News asked each law school to report the same data to U.S. News that they reported to the ABA on its 2008 annual questionnaire used for accreditation. The bar association has told us that its goal is to publicly post these data on its website by May 22.
Still no word on Brooklyn’s lack of a part-time ranking. We assume Bob asked Brooklyn directly for this information – we wonder if they refused or, rather, sent back the same numbers.
We will compare the ABA data with the US News data on May 22 and report back with any inconsistencies.
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6:17 pm on May 7th, 2009
WOW
Brooklyn students should be ashamed of their terrible law school. Pathetic.
7:30 pm on May 7th, 2009
STAY CLASSY BROOKLYN!
7:47 pm on May 7th, 2009
I remember when the commenters were saying that brooklyn shouldn’t respond to LSH. I wonder how they feel about brooklyn not responding to the US News
8:14 pm on May 7th, 2009
Bob Morse didn’t say anywhere in the post that U.S. News investigated or questioned Brooklyn about the data. You all are leaping to conclusions again.
@Crroooklyn, I don’t really know why you think students should be ashamed of any administrative oversight — or overt deception, if it is that — with respect to the U.S. News submission. We didn’t have anything to do with it.
U.S. News appears to be deflecting criticism onto Brooklyn, but remember, it has some reputation on the line here too. Brooklyn has a large part-time program about which U.S. News has published statistics for years. The editors obviously should have known that something was up if it didn’t get part-time numbers from Brooklyn, but it waited until anonymous tipsters from a fledgling blog and some JD Undergrounders said something? There’s something a bit fishy about this, too, and I urge all of you to keep an open mind as you watch the situation.
@LSH admin: I think now is a good time for you to publish your rankings since you said you would publish them if U.S. News failed to take corrective action and U.S. News has now stated unequivocally that it is not going to revise the rankings. Earlier, you seemed concerned that law students and applicants see accurate rankings. Given your confidence in your model, why not publish yours?
8:44 pm on May 7th, 2009
@ Occam
The US News operates on the honor code. Do you realize how much data they collect? They are not the ones falsifying data.
You seem so bitter about all this. Playing antagonist to LSH is getting pretty lame btw.
9:20 pm on May 7th, 2009
@ Crroooklyn
Playing antagonist to Brooklyn is also getting pretty lame. What’s the point? This is my law school you’re talking about. I don’t know what your horse is in this race.
I never suggested that U.S. News falsified data. I said maybe the editors made a mistake. Which would make sense given the fact that they were using a new methodology and running late. I just don’t understand the haste to blame Brooklyn for an error that is clearly at least partially the magazine’s. They’re supposed to be journalists. If they could see that data was missing, they should have contacted the school and/or noted the missing data in the rankings and left the school unranked; if they couldn’t see that data was missing, either (a) they are well behind everyone else around here or (b) the data wasn’t actually missing and the problem lies in U.S. News’ analysis or publishing.
6:01 am on May 8th, 2009
Here’s more on the Brooklyn situation.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202430524801&US_News_looks_into_Brooklyn_Laws_survey_response_&slreturn=1
Sounds like they have an explanation for intentionally submitting the full-time data only, but also claim it was inadvertent. Pretty inconsistent explanation.
7:10 am on May 8th, 2009
If you read the Brooklyn statement, it’s not inconsistent. The story goes “We left out the part-time numbers on purpose and told U.S. News we were doing so. On the form, there were three sets of blanks, one for part-time numbers, one for full-time numbers, and one for a total of the two, which was to represent the entire class. We left the part-time numbers blank. We also should have left the numbers for the entire class blank, but we inadvertently filled that section out with the full-time numbers.” You may not believe the story, but it’s perfectly coherent.
In any case, Brooklyn’s statement makes absolutely clear that U.S. News should have done better. Brooklyn alerted U.S. News to the fact that it was not going to supply part-time numbers on principle, and it left those entries blank despite supplying copious other information about the part-time program. There’s no excuse for U.S. News’ ranking Brooklyn with numbers it knew to be inaccurate and waiting until two weeks after the rankings were published to acknowledge that something went wrong — and then only because of some anonymous tipsters? I know I sound like a broken record, but I really don’t understand why all of you are so eager to pin this on Brooklyn. U.S. News should be held at least as — and, to my perspective, more — accountable.
7:39 am on May 8th, 2009
Tough break on going to Brooklyn pal.
7:41 am on May 8th, 2009
Save your sympathy. I like it, and I’m graduating debt-free with a job. Good luck to you in all your future endeavors.
7:46 am on May 8th, 2009
If Occam’s razor is correct, and the intention was to leave the combined full-time/part-time numbers blank, was the intent then to let US News rank them without that information? Like if you take a test and leave a question blank — get a 0 on that question which counts for X % of your score. I am guessing they drop to the fourth tier if that were the case,
7:49 am on May 8th, 2009
@ Harvey
If you read the statement, Brooklyn clearly states that it intended to leave the part-time numbers blank and alerted U.S. News to the fact that it would be doing so on principle. And sure, U.S. News would then be free to disregard the data entirely and leave Brooklyn unranked. But it didn’t.
7:51 am on May 8th, 2009
Yeah ok Occam, US News is to blame for being mediocre policemen.
gtfo with that.
7:54 am on May 8th, 2009
Play nice everyone, don’t make us play moderator.
7:54 am on May 8th, 2009
@ Anonymous
They’re not “policemen,” they’re journalists compiling rankings — rankings which are the single most profitable thing the magazine does all year. I honestly don’t understand either your hostility or your incredulity that someone would try to hold a magazine accountable for the rankings it publishes.
8:01 am on May 8th, 2009
>>>> U.S. News would then be free to disregard the data entirely and leave Brooklyn unranked. But it didn’t.
US News wasn’t given the chance to disregard the blank space left by Brooklyn in the combined full/part time numbers because Brooklyn did not leave a blank space there.
8:19 am on May 8th, 2009
@ Harvey:
Of course it was “given the chance.” It just lazily accepted the numbers as accurate when all signs pointed otherwise. That’s poor journalism, regardless of whether Brooklyn’s bad data was a purposeful misrepresentation or just a stupid mistake.
9:09 am on May 8th, 2009
I would disagree that “all signs” pointed to the numbers as inaccurate. The numbers that Brooklyn presented to US News — showing no part time students (by leaving blanks there) and therefore full-time numbers which equalled the combined numbers — would look internally consistent.
9:40 am on May 8th, 2009
Except that:
1. U.S. News was aware Brooklyn had a part-time program due to past responses and other data about the part-time program Brooklyn supplied; and
2. Brooklyn notified U.S. News of its intention to omit the part-time LSAT and GPA data.
The “internal consistency” you point out actually lends some credibility to Brooklyn’s account. I can imagine a low-level administrator filling in the totals of the part-time (null) and full-time numbers before submitting the form. It does not, however, absolve U.S. News of its responsibility to investigate obviously bad data. U.S. News was on notice and failed to do anything about it. I mean, seriously, the editors of this blog, JD Undergrounders, and dozens of ATL posters were on this as soon as the rankings were leaked. It was not hard to figure out.