The Leaky-Boat World of U.S. News

As everyone at any law school anywhere knows by now, the U.S. News law school rankings are leaking all over the internet (so to speak).  As I have said before, I find it unfortunate that those rankings don't reward (and, in fact, probably hinder) innovation in law teaching.  Like everyone else who seems to opine on such things, I wish these rankings did not matter so much (of course, those heading up the list are less fervent in their critique than those headed the other way). 

But, they do matter.   Students too often choose a school based on the rankings, and academics pay attention to rankings when considering jobs.   Donors care, as do currently enrolled students.  Everyone's parents, for some reason, seem to follow these damn rankings.

They won't go away.   Maybe they shouldn't go away.  But I do have an idea about what could be done to mitigate the effect this one set of rankings has.

Not so long ago, college football's Bowl Championship Series began ranking teams by using a composite of other rankings.  They were not all weighted equally-- rather, the major press and coaches rankings were given greater weight.  With the proliferation of rankings these days, perhaps we need to create a Bowl Championship Series ranking system, creating a composite which gives the U.S. News rankings a stronger weight than others.

If so, which other rankings should be included?  I would be willing to create this composite once the official rankings are out.

-- Mark Osler