Methodology: 2016 Best Law Schools Rankings

The U.S. News rankings of 198 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association are based on a weighted average of the 12 measures of quality described below. Data were collected in fall 2014 and early 2015.
Specialty rankings are based solely on nominations by legal educators at peer institutions.
[See the Best Law Schools rankings.]
Quality assessment (weighted by 0.40)
Peer assessment score (0.25): In fall 2014, law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments and the most recently tenured faculty members were asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark "don't know."

A school's score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of "don't know" counted neither for nor against a school. About 58 percent of those surveyed responded.

Assessment score by lawyers/judges (0.15): In fall 2014, legal professionals, including the hiring partners of law firms, practicing attorneys and judges, were asked to rate programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark "don't know." Names of those surveyed were provided to U.S. News by the law schools themselves.

A school's score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of "don't know" counted neither for nor against a school.

The three most recent years of the lawyer and judge surveys were averaged and weighted by 0.15. Assessment data were collected by Ipsos Public Affairs.

Selectivity (weighted by 0.25)

Median LSAT scores (0.125): These are the combined median scores on the Law School Admission Test of all 2014 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program.

Median undergraduate GPA (0.10): This is the combined median undergraduate grade-point average of all the 2014 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program.

Acceptance rate (0.025): This is the combined proportion of applicants to both the full-time and part-time J.D. program who were accepted for the 2014 entering class.

Placement success (weighted by 0.20)
Success is determined by calculating employment rates for 2013 grads at graduation (0.04 weight) and nine months after (0.14 weight), as well as the bar passage rate, explained below.

In recent years, enhanced American Bar Association reporting rules have led to a great deal more information becoming available from law schools about the many types of positions law students take after they graduate. Each year, the schools are required to report to the ABA how many of their most recent grads had various types of jobs lined up by nine months after graduation.

The ABA standards require the law schools to go into a great deal of detail by reporting 56 different job types, as well as employment status and duration. That includes, for example, whether each graduate's employment was long term – defined as lasting at least a year – or short term; was full time or part time; and whether it required passage of a bar exam.

U.S. News collected these same statistics when we surveyed the schools for our annual rankings, and we gathered the same data on members of the class who were employed at graduation. U.S. News also collected data on students' jobs when the law school was unable to determine length of employment or full- or part-time status, as well as when employment status was unknown.

For the third year in row, U.S. News incorporated this rich data into our computation of the employment measure for the class of 2013 at graduation and nine months later. Placement success was calculated by assigning various weights to the number of grads employed in 43 of these different types of post-J.D. jobs, employment statuses and durations.

U.S. News Releases 2016 Best Graduate Schools Rankings

Find out which schools came out on top for business, law, nursing and more.

Fewer U.S. citizens are headed to graduate school, and the decision not to go could put a dent in their paychecks.
First-time enrollment of U.S. citizens and permanent residents shrank by about 1 percent between fall 2012 and fall 2013, according to a September report from the Council of Graduate Schools. But a 2014 Pew Research Center analysis of the latest available salary data showed that median monthly earnings for young adults with master's degrees were 24 percent higher than for those with bachelor's degrees. Graduates with professional or doctoral degrees had earnings that were 51 percent higher.
For prospective students interested in the potential payoff and other benefits, figuring out where to go to graduate school, what to study and how to pay for it can take months. To help with those decisions, U.S. News has released the 2016 Best Graduate Schools rankings, which include admissions information for those aspiring to study law, business, medicine, education and engineering.
For the first time, U.S. News is also offering expanded rankings and data for nursing schools.
Graduate schools in these six disciplines, which are ranked annually, are evaluated on standardized test scores of newly enrolled students, employment outcomes of graduates and other criteria. The rankings methodology varies across disciplines to account for differences in each graduate program. The MBA rankings, for example, take into account the mean starting salary and bonus for graduates from full-time programs, while law schools are evaluated in part by the ratings of each program's quality by practicing lawyers and judges.
In one notable change to the law school methodology this year, U.S. News altered the way it evaluates students' success at landing jobs after graduation. Less weight was given to jobs for graduates if they were funded by the law school or the university.
[Video: See highlights of the new graduate schools rankings.]
Business: The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University took the No. 1 spot for top business schools, followed by Harvard Business School in second and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in third.
Those three schools topped the rankings in a tie for first place last year. But other institutions moved significantly. Mays Business School at Texas A&M University rose 10 spots to No. 27, where it's tied with two other schools. Wake Forest University's business school, which tied for No. 58 in last year's rankings, leaped to a tie for No. 45.
Among part-time MBA programs, the University of California—Berkeley's Haas School of Business again took the No. 1 spot, followed by the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago in second place and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in third. The Fox School of Business and Management at Temple University saw one of the largest changes in the rankings, moving from a tie at No. 53 to a tie for No. 20.
[See photos of the 20 top-ranked business schools.]
Law: Yale Law School remained No. 1 among the top law schools, but there was some reshuffling among other schools. Harvard Law School kept the No. 2 spot, but had to share it with the law school at Stanford University.
The School of Law at the University of California—Irvine, which was not ranked last year, advanced to No. 30. The law school at Wake Forest University fell from No. 31, where it was tied with several other schools, to a tie for No. 47.