2012 USNWR Law School Rankings St. John's # 95

curious to know the rank of the pharmacy school. My interns have told me LIU has actually ranked better on the boards lately too. 
 
There is a very real and inevitable tension in play, expecially at the undergraduate level. The Vincentian mission of reaching out to the poor and disadvantaged leads to students being admitted who are not in the top tier, resulting in lower rankings. On the other hand, those kids who work hard and get their degree from SJU want it to be valuable and held in esteem, i.e., for the school to be highly ranked. This is simply not a fully solvable problem. In recent years at the undergrad level, the school has been moving up in some of the categories that lead to higher ranking (e.g., new facilities, faculty hires, etc.) If we were to actually become a top 50 undergrad school, however, I would be very concerned about how we are fulfilling the mission.

At the grad and professional school level, however, it is a different story. There is no reason not to strive for excellence in every respect, still admit bright kids from poorer backgrounds, and be known for the quality of the school. Frankly, we could do better.

I have always believed that we should offer an engineering program (and not the interschool hybrid that we pretend is a program). Engineering is an excellent "up-and-out" major for kids who are first in the family to college, offers great jobs, and provides the skills to do good in the world by designing and building products and services that meet peoples' needs. I have told this to Fr. H numerous times, but he always politely nods and then changes the subject. I am hoping that someday this will get a real hearing from the trustees/board, or at least some sort of a feasibility study. I would happily take a leave from the school where I teach (Harvey Mudd College, ranked #1 in undergraduate engineering for non-Ph.D. programs, BTW) to help with that.

We are....
 
 The US News rankings need to be taken with a grain of salt and a shot of tequila! The quality of our students is as good, if not better, than schools rated much higher in the latest list. Tennessee is rated 56 with LSAT admitting range of 156-162. Seton Hall is rated 61 with LSAT range of 155-161. SJ is rated 95 with a range of 156-161. With a new sheriff at the Law School expect some changes for the better and some new professors!
 
Two points here SJU Law went from like tied with SH Law at 70 something to the 90's, in one year after the year before that jumping about 15 spots from the high 80's to the low 70's, so I have to ask how meaningful are these stats.

Also, the self-reporting of employment success 6 months after graduation hurts, apparently due to the horrible NYC NYS economy the jobs for our Law grads plummeted and we reported that honestly, maybe other schools whose rankings did not fall did not do so. 

SJU Law will be back, we have a real good dean whose mission is to bring the school back to past glory.
 
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