It can be difficult to obtain an accurate and comprehensive law school ranking system. In fact, a significant portion of the publishing industry has developed around publishing a comprehensive law school ranking system that can allow an individual who is looking for an objective law school ranking system. One complication that can develop in looking for a law school ranking is that the factors that may move one law school higher on a law school ranking list of one person may be the very thing that removes the law school from consideration for another person.
The annual US News Law School Rankings publication is one of the more prominent law school evaluation tools. In addition to the US News Law School Rankings, the Gourman Report and the Educational Quality Rankings, or EQR, all provide competing sets of law school raking options. These law school ranking systems all have different criteria behind bestowing the title of the top school. The Gourman Report law school ranking system published the original law school ranking, which determines its ranking based on the academic quality of the graduate and undergraduate programs.
The Educational Quality Ranking bases its law school ranking on three criteria: the quality of the faculty, the quality of the student body, and the quality of the teaching. The US News Law school rankings are a combination of a quality assessment, separate assessments by academic and legal professionals, the school's selectivity, the median LSAT and undergraduate GPA scores, the employment and bar passage rates for graduates.
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