Harvard Law School

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1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138 | Google Map

T: 617.495.3109 | www.law.harvard.edu

Founded 1817 | ABA Accredited 1923

Established in 1817, Harvard Law School is among the oldest law schools in the country with its origins dating back to Isaac Royall, Jr. who in his Last Will and Testament gave land to Harvard University to establish the school’s first professorship in law. Royall’s heirs subsequently inherited and sold the remainder of his estate, and used the proceeds to establish Harvard Law School.

Located in an urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Law School typically ranks among the top three law schools in the country according to U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking. In the 1870s, Harvard Law School’s then dean, Christopher Columbus Langdell, introduced the Socratic Method to the law school and founded what is now the typical first-year law school curriculum. Today, Harvard Law School has a broad curriculum consisting of over 400 courses with a wide variety of offerings, including, but not limited to clinical placements, research programs, independent writing projects, and opportunities to study abroad. In addition, the Cambridge area is ripe with opportunities for students to explore the law outside the classroom as it offers law students access to federal, state and local courts and agencies, correctional facilities, private law firms and legal aid organizations.

NOTABLE ALUMNI

Barack Obama, President of the United States John Jay Osborn, Jr., Author of The Paper Chase John G. Roberts, Chief Justice, United States Supreme Court Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International Abram Nicholas Pritzker, Founder, Hyatt Hotel Chain

Rankings

POLL OF POLLS#2

SELECTIVITY RANK#2

US NEWS

No US News Data

LEITER
(STUDENT NUMERICAL QUALITY)

No Leiter Data

About Rankings Data

All law school rankings are flawed. At least to the extent that they purport to equate the quality of the educational experience of a law school to a specific number, that is.

That aside, law school rankings are popular, and they can also be informative. So here's what we've collected and analyzed for you to use:

USNEWS Rankings. USNEWS has, by far, the most popular and most discussed law school rankings. Many have critiqued their methodologies and you can find those critiques elsewhere on the internet. To the extent they are are useful, however, we have tried to make them even more so by analyzing 3 years worth of them and also averaging them, so you could see trends in the USNEWS rankings as well as possible outlier years. When our 3-year average results in a fraction, results are rounded to the nearest whole number.

Leiter Rankings. Professor Brian Leiter teaches at The University of Chicago Law School and his website LeiterRankings.com provides some of the most thoughtful analysis of trends in law school rankings. AdmissionsDean displays Professor Leiter's annual ranking of the 40 Top Law Schools by Student (Numerical) Quality. Again, we provide 3 years worth of these rankings and also average them to make them even more informative.

AdmissionsDean Selectivity. While no rankings system is perfect, we have created the AdmissionsDean Selectivity Ranking which tries to capture how selective a school is when choosing its students. Our selectivity score is calculated by assigning weights to two almost universal admissions data points: the 75th percentile LSAT score and the 75th percentile UGPA of a law school's matriculating students. There is much discussion among admissions officers and academics alike on whether the 75% LSAT score is more effective than the median or 25% LSAT score at a particular school. We think the 75% LSAT score advocates have the better arguments, because the top of the class better reflects the the ability of a law school to attract the most competitive law students possible. In addition, each law school has a different policy with respect to diversity and non-traditional candidates, who often disproportionately fall below the median LSAT score. Similarly, there is much debate on the utility of 75/25/median GPA data, principally because, on their own, they fail to account for the strength/competitiveness of the colleges and universities where those GPAs were earned. Clearly, earning a 3.5 GPA from School X is not the same thing as earning that grade at School Y, but GPA rankings do not take into account the distinction. Nevertheless, law school admissions offices almost universally factor applicants' GPA into their admissions decisions, and attempt to normalize GPAs through various methodologies. With this caveat in mind, we have adopted the 75% GPA ranking as part of our AD Selectivity ranking. Although each law school assigns different weight to LSAT and GPA scores, in our experience in talking with admissions officers, law schools in the aggregate roughly assign 65% weight to LSAT scores and 35% to GPA scores, so we will adopt this split. Thus, our AD SELECTIVITY SCORE = (RANK_OF(75% LSAT) * .65) + (RANK_OF(75% UGPA) * .35). It's not perfect, but it gives a rough approximation of a law school's selectivity using objective metrics.

AdmissionsDean Poll of Polls. Not unlike an unweighted presidential election poll of polls, to arrive at our Poll of Polls score we simply average the rankings from any available ranking system including USNEWS, Leiter, and AdmissionsDean Selectivity.

N/R. Not ranked (N/R) simply means that a data point is missing for a specific school which prohibited it from being ranked. For example, some newer schools may not have three years of USNEWS rankings to calculate a 3-year average. Alternatively, some schools may fail to report a 75% LSAT or GPA score to the ABA and that would prohibit us from calculating that school's AdmissionsDean Selectivity score.

Josh Rubenstein

BETTER KNOW A DEAN

"Like most, I had read One L, watched the Paper Chase, and even seen Legally Blonde. I was certainly expecting an experience that..." - Josh Rubenstein - Assistant Dean For Admissions, Harvard Law

Go To Interview

January 11, 2010 \\ This is the 11th installment of our 224 part series, Better Know A Dean. Today we posted our interview with Josh Rubenstein, Assistant Dean for Admissions at Harvard Law School -- The Fightin' Harvard Laws!

Known on most law school discussion boards simply as “JR,” Dean Rubenstein attended Washington University in St. Louis as an undergrad and then worked as Senior Staff Assistant for U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt before entering Harvard Law School in 2003. After law school, Dean Rubenstein worked as a Case Team Leader with the global business and strategy consulting firm, Bain & Company, before returning to Harvard in 2009 as its Assistant Dean for Admissions.

AD	Thanks so much for your time, Dean Rubenstein. I know you’re in the midst of your busy season, so I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and answer these questions for our readers. Before we begin, though, I have to ask you what you thought about AdmissionsDean, specifically: is it a great website or the greatest website for researching law school admissions?
JR	So many choices… In all seriousness, I applaud what you’re doing. I think the more information an applicant can have the better and it seems like you’re offering a new perspective.
AD	Jeez, I’m tempted to pull a “George Costanza” and end the interview now – leaving on a high note! But let’s talk about football. Since 1989, when the USNEWS first came out with its law school rankings, HLS has always lost out to Yale; however, when you look at the Harvard-Yale football rivalry during that same period, Harvard leads Yale in wins 13-8. What’s more important to you: winning “The Game” or finally beating Yale in the USNEWS rankings?
JR	[Laughing] Now, that’s a tough one! While I think that it’s great that US News and other organizations put so much information out there, I think ultimately rankings are only meaningful to the extent that they reflect what’s important to you. So, for example, if you were to add football prowess to the mix, the numbers might come out slightly differently… For now, I’ll pass on this one, at least until next Thanksgiving.
AD	It is well known that President Obama graduated from HLS and was the President of Harvard Law Review. He’s just one of literally hundreds of HLS graduates who have ascended to hold leadership positions in state/federal government and the judiciary. How does it feel to know that – in all likelihood – you are passing judgment on whether to admit a future leader in this country?
JR	It really is humbling to help build such a talented class of future leaders. Every day it feels like I learn of a new alum doing amazing and ground-breaking work. You hear quite a bit about our DC alums these days, from the President and First Lady on down, but I’m equally impressed by our alumni serving as judges, leading non-profits, teaching, and running businesses and law firms. It’s interesting to note that’s it’s not only US leaders, but also International ones, that get their start at HLS. Each year many members of our JD class, and virtually our entire LLM program, come from other countries to join us in Cambridge. Many will return to be leaders in their respective countries. We’re fortunate in that each year we have many more academically qualified applicants than we could possibly admit – thus, a lot of our admissions decisions are made based on other factors, such as leadership ability, impact potential, and character. More importantly, I’m just a small part of our Admissions team that helps build our class; much of the selection process is actually run by our Faculty. So at least I’m not alone in these decisions.
AD	Many other law schools out there use merit scholarships as a way to improve their LSAT and GPA numbers and, by extension, their rankings. Harvard Law doesn’t offer merit scholarships; instead, according to the Class of 2012 fact sheet, 40% of your entering class received need-based scholarships. I think it’s phenomenal that you are providing financial aid to qualified candidates who cannot otherwise afford to attend. What are your thoughts about law schools that offer only merit scholarships and not need-based scholarships?
JR	I’m not enough of an expert on financial aid to really say anything insightful about the program at any other school. Our need-based policy is based on two central goals: first, to make a legal education accessible to every student admitted to the JD program and second, to preserve the broadest range of career options for graduates, through our need-based loan repayment assistance program (LIPP). Practically speaking, I’m a little bit relieved that we maintain separation between admissions decisions and financial aid ones. The applicants that make it through our process are almost all superstars so I’m not sure I’d want the task of choosing who was offered aid and who wasn’t.