Measuring outcomes: Post-Graduation Measures of Success in the U.S. News & (and) World Report Law School Rankings

The U.S. News & World Report annual rankings play a key role in ordering the market for legal education, and, by extension, the market for entry level lawyers. This Article explores the impact and evolution of placement and post-graduation data, which are important input variables that comprise twenty percent of the total rankings methodology. In general, we observe clear evidence that law schools are seeking to maximize each placement and post-graduation input variable. During the 1997 to, 2006 time period, law schools in all four tiers posted large average gains in employment rates upon graduation and nine months, which appear to result from a combination of competition and gaming strategies. In addition, law schools in tiers 2, 3, and 4 have increased 1L academic attrition, which may be an attempt to increase the U.S. News bar passage score. We also use multivariate regression analysis to model the employed at graduation and employed at nine months input variables. We find that the following factors are associated with higher employed at graduation rates: (1) higher 25th percentile Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) scores, (2) more on-campus interviews (OCI), (3) higher percentage of part-time students, (4) location outside a Top 10 corporate law market, and (5) status as a historically black law school. All of these factors except LSAT and OCI activity vanish when examining the employed at nine months data. The U.S. News Lawyer/Judge reputation score is associated with higher employment at nine months. Further research on the Lawyer/Judge survey instrument is needed. After presenting our empirical results, we critique the specific measures of post-graduation success used in the U.S. News rankings and explain how each can be improved. We conclude that the best solution to law schools\u27 complaints about the impact of U.S. News rankings is greater data availability and transparency, particularly on post-graduation outcomes and other factors affecting students\u27 eventual employment prospects

Student Quality as Measured by LSAT Scores: Migration Patterns in the U.S. News Rankings Era

This study examines the change in entering-class median LSATscore, a key input into the U.S. News & World Report ( U.S. News\u27) rankings, between 1993 and 2004. Using multivariate regression analysis, the authors model several factors that can influence the direction and magnitude of this change. The study presents six specific findings: (1) the marketfor high Law SchoolAdmission Test (LSAT) scores is divided into two segments that operate under different rules; (2) initial starting position is a strong predictor of the future gain or loss in LSATscores; (3) the allure of the high-end corporate law firms appears to cause a signficant portion of students to discount the importance of rankings in favor of locational advantages related to the regional job market; (4) students will pay a tuition premium to attend elite law schools but, when deciding among non-elite schools, are willing to forgo a higher-ranked school for lower tuition; (5) there is little or no association between change in lawyer/judge and academic reputation and median LSAT scores; and (6) two well-known gaming strategies for driving up median LSAT scores appear to work. Drawing upon these results, the authors suggest that the current rankings competition among law schools has all the hallmarks of a positional arms race that undermines social welfare. The authors outline the emerging equilibrium in which non-elite schools engage in costly strategies to boost their reputations while elite law schools are able to further leverage their positional advantage. Because this dynamic spawns rapidly escalating costs in the form of higher tuition, continuation of the ranking tournament threatens the long-term viability of the current model of legal education. The authors conclude with four specific recommendations to law school deans and the editors of U.S. News

Measuring Outcomes: Post-Graduation Measures of Success in the U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings

The U.S. News & World Report annual rankings play a key role in ordering the market for legal education, and, by extension, the market for entry level lawyers. This Article explores the impact and evolution of placement and post-graduation data, which are important input variables that comprise twenty percent of the total rankings methodology. In general, we observe clear evidence that law schools are seeking to maximize each placement and post-graduation input variable. During the 1997 to, 2006 time period, law schools in all four tiers posted large average gains in employment rates upon graduation and nine months, which appear to result from a combination of competition and gaming strategies. In addition, law schools in tiers 2, 3, and 4 have increased 1L academic attrition, which may be an attempt to increase the U.S. News bar passage score. We also use multivariate regression analysis to model the employed at graduation and employed at nine months input variables. We find that the following factors are associated with higher employed at graduation rates: (1) higher 25th percentile Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) scores, (2) more on-campus interviews (OCI), (3) higher percentage of part-time students, (4) location outside a Top 10 corporate law market, and (5) status as a historically black law school. All of these factors except LSAT and OCI activity vanish when examining the employed at nine months data. The U.S. News Lawyer/Judge reputation score is associated with higher employment at nine months. Further research on the Lawyer/Judge survey instrument is needed. After presenting our empirical results, we critique the specific measures of post graduation success used in the U.S. News rankings and explain how each can be improved. We conclude that the best solution to law schools\u27 complaints about the impact of U.S. News rankings is greater data availability and transparency, particularly on post-graduation outcomes and other factors affecting students\u27 eventual employment prospects

Student Quality as Measured by LSAT Scores: Migration Patterns in the U.S. News Rankings Era

This study examines the change in entering-class median LSAT score, a key input into the U.S. News & World Report ( U.S. News\u27) rankings, between 1993 and 2004. Using multivariate regression analysis, the authors model several factors that can influence the direction and magnitude of this change. The study presents six specific findings: (1) the market for high Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores is divided into two segments that operate under different rules; (2) initial starting position is a strong predictor of the future gain or loss in LSAT scores; (3) the allure of the high end corporate law firms appears to cause a significant portion of students to discount the importance of rankings in favor of locational advantages related to the regional job market; (4) students will pay a tuition premium to attend elite law schools but, when deciding among non-elite schools, are willing to forgo a higher-ranked school for lower tuition; (5) there is little or no association between change in lawyer/judge and academic reputation and median LSAT scores; and (6) two well-known gaming strategies for driving up median LSAT scores appear to work. Drawing upon these results, the authors suggest that the current rankings competition among law schools has all the hallmarks of a positional arms race that undermines social welfare. The authors outline the emerging equilibrium in which non-elite schools engage in costly strategies to boost their reputations while elite law schools are able to further leverage their positional advantage. Because this dynamic spawns rapidly escalating costs in the form of higher tuition, continuation of the ranking tournament threatens the long-term viability of the current model of legal education. The authors conclude with four specific recommendations to law school deans and the editors of U.S. News. Symposium: The Next Generation of Law School Rankings held April 15, 2005 at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington

An evaluation of the implementation of Georgia's Pre-k program: Report of the findings from the Georgia Early Childhood Study (2002-03)

After ten years, Georgia continues to lead the nation in providing full day, publicly subsidized Pre-K to four-year-olds whose parents choose to enroll them. In this report, we assess the extent to which differences in the way Pre-K is implemented affect children's development. Do teachers with higher levels of education have more positive impacts on children's development? Do teaching styles make a difference in terms of children's outcomes by the end of kindergarten? Do children taught using certain curricula fare better than those taught using others? Answers to questions such as these can assist Pre-K administrators in refining Georgia's program and inform those in other states who are developing or expanding their prekindergarten programs

Thermodynamically consistent description of the hydrodynamics of free surfaces covered by insoluble surfactants of high concentration

In this paper we propose several models that describe the dynamics of liquid films which are covered by a high concentration layer of insoluble surfactant. First, we briefly review the 'classical' hydrodynamic form of the coupled evolution equations for the film height and surfactant concentration that are well established for small concentrations. Then we re-formulate the basic model as a gradient dynamics based on an underlying free energy functional that accounts for wettability and capillarity. Based on this re-formulation in the framework of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, we propose extensions of the basic hydrodynamic model that account for (i) nonlinear equations of state, (ii) surfactant-dependent wettability, (iii) surfactant phase transitions, and (iv) substrate-mediated condensation. In passing, we discuss important differences to most of the models found in the literature.Comment: 31 pages, 2 figure

ASY1 acts as a dosage-dependent antagonist of telomere-led recombination and mediates crossover interference in Arabidopsis.

During meiosis, interhomolog recombination produces crossovers and noncrossovers to create genetic diversity. Meiotic recombination frequency varies at multiple scales, with high subtelomeric recombination and suppressed centromeric recombination typical in many eukaryotes. During recombination, sister chromatids are tethered as loops to a polymerized chromosome axis, which, in plants, includes the ASY1 HORMA domain protein and REC8-cohesin complexes. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation, we show an ascending telomere-to-centromere gradient of ASY1 enrichment, which correlates strongly with REC8-cohesin ChIP-seq data. We mapped crossovers genome-wide in the absence of ASY1 and observe that telomere-led recombination becomes dominant. Surprisingly, asy1/+ heterozygotes also remodel crossovers toward subtelomeric regions at the expense of the pericentromeres. Telomeric recombination increases in asy1/+ occur in distal regions where ASY1 and REC8 ChIP enrichment are lowest in wild type. In wild type, the majority of crossovers show interference, meaning that they are more widely spaced along the chromosomes than expected by chance. To measure interference, we analyzed double crossover distances, MLH1 foci, and fluorescent pollen tetrads. Interestingly, while crossover interference is normal in asy1/+, it is undetectable in asy1 mutants, indicating that ASY1 is required to mediate crossover interference. Together, this is consistent with ASY1 antagonizing telomere-led recombination and promoting spaced crossover formation along the chromosomes via interference. These findings provide insight into the role of the meiotic axis in patterning recombination frequency within plant genomes.Research was supported by grants from the European Research Council Consolidator award SynthHotSpot and Proof-of-Concept award HEIREC and BBSRC ERA-CAPs Grant BB/M004937/1