You must need glasses. Read the comments again... the article itself and the absolut majority of the comments are pro-Stanford, some of them even saying the school could be #1 soon. One or two guys wrote against Stanford... cmon man, quit saying nonsense... which big professor left Stanford?

probably meant also this one, number 42 then number 45:
30: You completely misread 27's point. He wasn't saying NYU and Columbia don't compete with Stanford. He was saying so long as NYU and Columbia keep accepting 400-plus students, they can't compete because US News is based significantly on the amount of money spent on students. If NYU and Columbia dropped their enrollment numbers to 200, both would leap over Stanford. This is true not only because their selectivity would be increased, their amount of money per student would rise, but also because as was noted earlier, the quality of the faculty at Stanford has been on the decline for about a decade.

42 is correct. You really can't compare the large law schools (Harvard, Columbia, NYU) with the small law schools (Yale, Stanford, Chicago). They're really two different types of animals. At best, USNews has arbitrarily balanced the advantages of the two types by the weights it places on various criteria,

If you made Columbia or NYU much smaller without changing anything else, they'd rocket ahead of Stanford. However, in reality, they'd have to fire a lot of their profs (can't have that giant of a faculty for classes of only 180 students), so who knows how the rankings would ultimately end up. The same goes for if a small school like Stanford or Chicago expanded to ~400 students. That would result in lower selectivity, but also in a hiring binge of top profs from other schools to fill out increased faculty needs. This might actually cause Stanford or Chicago's reputation to increase. You can't really speculate with any certainty either way.

I am not "defensive" about my school, you are "offensive" about yours thinking that it will reach 3 anytime soon, even if it is not even 4. I never said my school will be number 1 anytime soon, I am not like you... please note that the article that you just forwarded is saying it could be, but I dont agree... but you prefer to consider the comments of a few students (that certainly are envy and in a smaller number compared to the good comments btw), instead of the article itself. I see no person agreeing with you in this post, although, according to you, "the market is saying".... interesting that, according to your posts you are planning to seat for the Bar, however, you know what is going on in the "market" like if you were a Hiring Partner at Skadden... there are "300" rankings about several different subjects suggesting that NYU will not be top 3 anytime soon, but you, a student from NYU, saying it will be. How funny is that?! According to all information in the world, except a student from NYU, the answer is "NO". I am not saying my school will be top 3 forever, I am saying yours will not be top 3 in the foreseeable future. But I am sure you know more, right? I hope you got a job in the US, because if not, it is explained the reason.

I don't know, that last post sounded very defensive to me. You should cool down a little, take a breath. I never said that NYU is better than Stanford or anything like that. I am just communicating things that I've heard. Comments like I showed you and others. Again, the talk about NYU topping number 3 one day was already in this forum last year and you can search for it. NYU reached number 4 and will probably again. In the future it might reach 3. It might not. You want to be argumentative go ahead. I really don't think you should be panicking so much. How funny is that - I don't think it's funny at all. It might be funny seeing you , ex Stanford student, have to be respond if you're so sure that this ranking won't change, but who knows.... I already have a job, do you. Good day then !

I do have a job and the Bar. NYU was 4 for four times and 5 for six times in the last ten years. Stanford was 2 for eight times and 3 for two times. Harvard was 3 for five times and 2 for five times. Columbia was 4 for seven times and 5 for three times. The word on the streets is that University of Houston will be number 1 soon... "who knows?"

True, we don't know. Although your example is stupid because Houston wasn't 4 four times in the last ten years so it will probably be a bit of a jump. But that aside, you're right, we don't know. We can talk about it, calmly, we can actually use our brains to think and to make educate guesses, but we don't know. In 1997 though Stanford was number 4 and Chicago was number 3. Way back in 1990 Harvard was somehow number 5. Things happen.

I agree with Gloss and the rest of the commentators here. I'd like to commence by saying that if my initial comments were seen as offensive, then I definitely apologize Dumdedum but I think everyone else is correct and I stand by the import of my statement. It's quite one thing to make a completely unsubstantiated statement and declare it your own. A statement like "I THINK my school is the best" is fine - other people of course have a different view on that but that's beside the point. A statement like "THE MARKET SAYS my school is the best" is begging to be asked the attendant question: which market is this? Especially when the statement flies in the face of conventional wisdom. And that was glass' point: You added "market" in your statement to give it certain legitimacy - in that context, Gloss' counter about Houston hit the nail on the head and the question of where Houston is, as you are arguing now, is quite irrelevant since Gloss' point was that we must take him seriously since he can, like you, hide under the veneer of "market" talk so that he doesn't have to defend his position. "Market" talk after all, is not dependent on the school's current position surely?

No, unfortunately Stanford wasnt 4 in 1997. US News published a later version of the same ranking stating that Stanford was number 3 and Chicago 4. One of the numbers used in the calculations was wrong. If you research better you will find that information. Anyway, it would be an honor to be number 4 after Chicago, I have no problems about that. BTW, I am a huge fan of Posner. I agree that things happen, but I do not agree that you may believe that anytime soon NYU will be top 3. Maybe in 20 years, yes. Not anytime in the next 10 years (foreseeable future), which means that you cant predict, based on any of the facts of the present, that NYU will be top 3. I dont see NYU getting better, the school went from 4 to 5 from 2007 to 2008, not the opposite. It was 4 for two times before and came back to 5. Why would now go up like a rocket? Who knows...

No offense but you both are spoiling this board! Please, if you want to continue this "very" health and helpful dispute about in how many years NYU will kick Stanford out or vice versa, use the PM resource.
Really, I don't mean to offend anybody but it sounds a little too much of a personal dispute instead of a topic that is of public interest.

Bests,

You're right Gab2009, good point... sorry. I don't understand why argue over opinions/predictions. Btw, old law school rankings for whoever is interested: http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_school_ranking

You're right Gab2009, good point... sorry. I don't understand why argue over opinions/predictions. Btw, old law school rankings for whoever is interested: http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_school_ranking

I lke people who spend their best efforts to support their standpoint, but still something is missing here. History and prestige cannot suddenly be taken away after over 150 years. NYU's LLMs are known as milking cows...not exactly what you hear about Yale, Harvard or even Stanford...I want to point out once again that I don't care about law firms and lawyer, but I had many chances to hear from Goverment and IIOO people; they all said, with no exception, that recruiters seek for whom has studied at one of the historical top 5 (Harvard Yale Stanford Columbia Chicago)...neither NYU nor Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, NU made it...one last noteworthy issue...during the last weeks we have heard about many applicants choosing where to go to school this fall...I have never read -and I can tell you I've been very present on this blog- about anybody choosing NYU over Stanford (Harvard too) if no generous scholarship was granted...

I'm always rife to get into an unnecessarily fractitious debate like this one but this time, I have to say that I agree with Stagista completely. Whatever the merits of a ranking system, which for obvious reasons is by definition inherently flawed, I really cannot see anyone putting NYU over Stanford (or Harvard or Yale for that matter), except for the Tax LLM (the Tax LLM, of course, is one of the best in the business!). The argument, as Stagista11 pointed out, also doesn't make sense from a historical perspective. I would agree with his classification of CLS and Chicago in the top 5 as well, particularly when it comes to LLMs, save that I would also add that the first three are quite far ahead of any other school (and this includes CLS and Chicago) in terms of prestige and reputation and that equally reasonable and plausible arguments could be made that NYU should trump Chicago.

I met many people from Chicago since I came to the US. My feeling always was that they get jobs easily because of the size of the class. I was always impressed with that. People that only use rankings, with regards to Chicago, could make a bad decision if they want to work in the US. I dont know if historical ranking makes sense, but I always say that having a small class of LLMs helps a lot finding a job. In the end, lots of times you compete with your own classmates and particularly the classmates from your own country. So, if you are only 2 or 3 from your country, that is awesome for job searching purposes... some of them even sometimes already have internship which makes things even better.

While I agree that YHS is far above everyone else, I disagree with the recent posts here. Firstly, reading this back I don't think it was suggested by anyone that NYU is currently 3rd or close to it today; but the person was right about the trend where everyone is talking how awesome nyu is, "dream school" link in the post by dumdedam is no coincidence... true they dropped to 5th but the overall trend was nyu getting better and aiming at the top...

while definitely agreeing that YHS is better i must say neither chicago nor cls have ANYTHING on nyu, au contraire.. and as for jobs I hear nyu's job placement office is freaking excellent. it's true small program might have advantages but nyu is NOT bigger than cls or harvard in any meaningful way... that "milk cows" comment is infantile, no law firm/professor/anyone talks this way about nyu llm's. it's just infantile talk of people that were rejected. keep in mind nyu accepts only 20% of the llm applications, so as big as it may be... and for jd's it's more selective than cls based on lsat just fyi.

I do agree with you. class size is (was?) one of my main concerns after having been admitted...besides, it's also true competition will be mainly among fellow nationals. all that said, my program is so little that a fellow Italian will be welcome...one week to read the 2010 rankings issued by US News...wish NU gains a position eheh...

20% is a little to high to talk about how selective NYU is...what about Yale, Stanford, and even Harvard? 20% against 2-3-5%??? this is maths, I mean. NYU class size is Yale + Stanford + Harvard + Columbia...we can argue about the "dream school" factor, which also depends on NYU's setting (try to imagine a foreign student coming for the very first time to the US...he/she is very unlikely to be choosing Ann Arbor over NYC...with all respect)...here we're talking about LL.M program, and not about JD...I'm very curious to see how many foreign lawyers will be placed in NYC law firms upon graduation...nowadays, with the current financial meltdown and thousands lawyers laid off in the last 12 months...

The person was right about the trend where everyone is talking how awesome nyu is, "dream school" link in the post by dumdedam is no coincidence... true they dropped to 5th but the overall trend was nyu getting better and aiming at the top...

that "milk cows" comment is infantile, no law firm/professor/anyone talks this way about nyu llm's

maybe it's me but i don't understand if u're talking about jd's or llm's. i said for jd's it's more selective based on LSAT scores. for llm's i know it's 20%. u say for llm's it's 2-5% for YHS? is that what u're saying? for yale seems true, it's really selective crazy. for harvard i doubt it's that low. if u know the stats say them. how many for cls? how many for chicago? then i said dream school. this is for all american students, not just jd's, and not for llm's. lawyers true market sux for everyone, but if u have to be anywhere it's probably yhs or nyu or other big names.

yeah i'm going to nyu for international law. i was accepted also to cls. you should read that dream school article. the huge trend in recent years towards nyc in general and nyu in particular over some old big name schools (not yhs, but south ones), "rocks in nowhere", is something pretty common every1 is talking about, yeah. thanks, u too. anyway, i do doubt real academic told u to avoid nyu, what country is that u're coming from? u sure they didn't try to apply as scholar visitiors like the 1000's that try to every year and were rejected..