University of Florida, Fredric G. Levin College of Law

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2500 SW 2nd Ave, Gainesville, FL 32611 | Google Map

T: 352.273.0890 | F: 352.392.4087 | www.law.ufl.edu

Founded 1909 | ABA Accredited 1925

Rankings

POLL OF POLLS#46

SELECTIVITY RANK#38

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.

Michelle Adorno

BETTER KNOW A DEAN

"If a student is waitlisted, it means that enough admitted students placed their deposit to secure their seat in the entering class and that..." - Michelle Adorno Assistant Dean for Admissions, UFlorida Law

Go To Interview

September 20, 2009 \\ This is the fourth installment of our 224 part series, Better Know A Dean. Today we posted our interview with Michelle Adorno, Assistant Dean for Admissions at UFlorida Law -- The Fightin' UFlorida Law's!

Prior to joining UF Law, Dean Adorno served as the Director of Admissions at New York University School of Law from 1998-2009. She received a B.A. in Spanish Linguistics from Cornell University (1986) and a J.D. from Cornell Law School (1989). After graduating from Law School, she joined the New York offices of Kelley, Drye and Warren where she worked as a litigation associate. From 1994-1998, she served as the Assistant Director of Admissions and later the Director of Recruitment, at St. John’s University School of Law in New York. She has served on the Law School Admissions Council's (LSAC) Misconduct and Irregularities in the Admissions Process Subcommittee, the LSAC Diversity Initiatives Committee and also served as the Chair of the AALS Section on Pre-Legal Education and Admission to Law School.

AD	It's a question that's on everyone's mind, so we might as well deal with the 900 lb. gorilla in the room: Will Tim Tebow win a second Heisman Trophy this year?
MA	Good question – we sure hope he does! We are all very proud of our football team and it's really exciting to be part of a community that has such strong school spirit.
AD	You recently came to UF Law from NYU School of Law. How do you find the schools similar and what differences, if anything, do notice?
MA	The two schools are different in several ways that make each school unique and attractive to applicants: location in a large city versus a smaller (more suburban) city; large urban campus versus very large sprawling traditional campus; private versus public institution and therefore corresponding in-state versus out-of-state tuition rates. As for similarities, both law schools are fully integrated into vibrant universities, yet there is a “community” feeling within each law school where everyone knows one another; both are national law schools recognized across the country for specific strengths in certain areas of law and actually, both are renowned for their strength in Taxation.
AD	In which state(s) and/or geographic region do most of UF Law's graduates end up practicing?
MA	Most practice in Florida, but we have strong alumni representation throughout the country, and even internationally. The top areas for our graduates outside Florida are Atlanta, New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and the northwestern states.
AD	Classrooms with people of diverse backgrounds and experiences often lead to a richer learning environment, but applications to law school among minorities who are traditionally underrepresented in the legal profession have been consistently down over the past several years. Despite the smaller applicant pool, UF has seen minorities in its 1L class increase slightly from 23% in 2005 to 24% in the 2008-09 admissions cycle. What is UF currently doing to successfully promote diversity at the law school, and in what areas does it think it can still improve?
MA	At UF Law we believe that legal education is enhanced in a student body composed of people with different backgrounds who contribute a variety of viewpoints to enrich the educational experience. The College of Law therefore seeks to admit and enroll students who collectively bring a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, interests and perspectives. We convey this in our application materials and on our Web site. We recruit in cities and at undergraduate institutions where there are large concentrations of minority students. We also have active minority student organizations on campus that help new minority students feel welcome on campus, and I think that overall, applicants and admitted students understand that diversity is an important part of the law school experience at UF Law. Given that it is such an integral part of the law school experience, we continue to try to improve our diversity – and ultimately that of the legal profession – each year.