News Rankings Research Articles

Online Law Review Rankings

This listing provides a link to submission information for online editions of U.S. law reviews, along with the school's U.S. News Ranking and the Washington & Lee Law Review Ranking.Rankings are posted at Illinois Law Review.

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The Effect of Applicant Publication Volume on the Orthopaedic Residency Match

Research is an important factor used in evaluating applicants to orthopaedic training programs. Current reports regarding the publication rate among prospective residents are likely inaccurate. It is unknown whether research productivity is weighted more heavily at programs affiliated with research-driven institutions. To establish accurate baseline data on publication rate among matched applicants to orthopaedic residency programs and to compare publication rates between applicants who matched at research-focused institutions and those who matched elsewhere. We performed a literature search for each U.S. resident in the 2013-2014 intern class. Number of publications: (1) in total, (2) in orthopaedic journals, and (3) as first/last author were recorded. Publication rate at the top 25 programs (according to medical school and departmental National Institutes of Health [NIH] funding and U.S. News ranking) was compared statistically against all others. Average number of publications per intern for all programs was 1.28 ± 0.15. Number of total and first/last author publications was significantly greater for programs affiliated with medical schools and departments in the top 25 for NIH funding, and at schools in the top 25 U.S. News rankings. Publication rate in orthopaedic journals was significantly higher for programs affiliated with departments in the top 25 for NIH funding and at top 25 U.S. News medical schools. The average matched applicant to an orthopaedic residency program publishes in the peer-reviewed literature less frequently than previously reported. Matched applicants at research-focused institutions tended to have more publications than those who matched at other programs.

Publication Measures of Scholarly Productivity: Norms for Academic Pediatric Pulmonologists

Background: Citation-based indexes may objectively measure scholarly production, and previous studies have shown these to be superior predictors of scientific achievement and academic rank than more traditional measures. However, absolute values of these indexes are discipline specific. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to define normative values of the h-index and m-quotient for academic pediatric pulmonologists. Methods: A sample of 85 pediatric pulmonologists were examined from 10 large academic children's hospitals, chosen from the top 50 U.S. News rankings of children's hospitals in pulmonary departments. H-index and m-quotient were tabulated using Web of Science. Results: Both h-index and m-quotient were significantly associated with academic rank (p<0.001). Median and interquartile ranges were as follows: assistant professor (h-index 1 [1–4], m-quotient 0.25 [0.04–0.50]), associate professor (h-index 10 [4–12], m-quotient 0.57 [0.38–0.66]), and full professor (h-index 23 [12–33], m-quotie...

Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2015: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third

This study explores the scholarly impact of law faculties, ranking the top third of ABA-accredited law schools. Refined by Professor Brian Leiter, the “Scholarly Impact Score” for a law faculty is calculated from the mean and the median of total law journal citations over the past five years to the work of tenured members of that law faculty. In addition to a school-by-school ranking, we report the mean, median, and weighted score, along with a listing of the tenured law faculty members at each ranked law school with the ten highest individual citation counts.The law faculties at Yale, Harvard, Chicago, New York University, and Stanford rank in the top five for scholarly Impact, with New York University moving into fourth position in the 2015 ranking. The other schools in the top ten are the University of California-Irvine, Columbia, Duke, Vanderbilt, and the University of California-Berkeley.Several law faculties achieve Scholarly Impact Scores well above the rankings reported by U.S. News: Within the top 10 for Scholarly Impact (at #6), the University of California-Irvine shows the greatest incongruity with the 2016 U.S. News ranking (at #30). Vanderbilt (at #9) is again within the top 10 for Scholarly Impact but falls outside the top ten for U.S. News (at #17).In the Scholarly Impact top 25, George Mason ranks again at #21, but remains under-valued in U.S. News at #42. Case Western rises to #25 in the Scholarly Impact Ranking, while falling just outside the first quartile (at #59) in U.S. News.The most dramatically under-valued law school is the University of St. Thomas, which ranks inside the top 40 (at #39) for Scholarly Impact, while being relegated by U.S. News outside the top 100 (at #135) — a difference of 96 ordinal levels. Other schools that have made a scholarly impact at least 20 ordinal positions higher than in U.S. News are Cardozo, Brooklyn, San Diego, Hofstra, Pittsburgh, Chicago-Kent, Toledo, DePaul, Rutgers-Camden, and San Francisco.

Academic Reputation Scores for Law Schools Continue Their Decline in 2015

This essay summarizes the results of the U.S. News & World Report rankings published in 2015 with respect to the academic reputation scores of law schools. In addition to analyzing the most recent results for the U.S. News rankings, the essay supplements the more extensive longitudinal study published by this author in 2013. The article also includes updated appendices from the prior study that catalog the U.S. News academic reputation scores for every law school between 1998 and 2015.

MP9-19 DO HOSPITAL RANKINGS CORRELATE WITH ACTUAL OUTCOMES?

You have accessJournal of UrologyGeneral & Epidemiological Trends & Socioeconomics: Evidence-based Medicine & Outcomes II1 Apr 2015MP9-19 DO HOSPITAL RANKINGS CORRELATE WITH ACTUAL OUTCOMES? Joel Durinka, Afshin Parsikia, Ryan Flynn, and Jorge Ortiz Joel DurinkaJoel Durinka More articles by this author , Afshin ParsikiaAfshin Parsikia More articles by this author , Ryan FlynnRyan Flynn More articles by this author , and Jorge OrtizJorge Ortiz More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2015.02.379AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Rankings of hospital performances are increasingly prevalent. However, rankings in the lay literature such as US News and World Report may not correlate with actual outcomes after renal transplant. METHODS The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) Database was queried to identify renal transplant outcomes for both patient and graft survival in 2011 at 231 hospitals with active renal transplant programs. In addition, the list of US News & World Report Hospital rankings was used to compare a hospital ranking to the hospitals renal transplant outcomes quantified by SRTR. Outcomes included: 1 Month, 1 Year and 3 year patient and graft survival, Overall Score, Patient Survival Score, Volume, in-house ICU intensivist, technology and “would a specialist recommend their institution”. US News and World Report Rankings were compared with the SRTR database to compare a hospitals transplant outcomes to the hospitals national rank. A statistical analysis using student T-Tests and Logistic regression was used to compare the SRTR with the US News and World Report data and examine whether or not a high national ranking hospital was associated with having a strong renal transplant program. RESULTS More than half of the hospitals not ranked in the US New and World Report Top 50 have a higher than expected patient and graft survival rate. Among hospitals ranked in US News and World Report Top 50 US News ranking, 20(40%) had transplant programs with lower than expected patient and graft survival rate. A logistic regression analysis indicates that the variable of “would a specialist recommend their institution” is statistical significant (p< 0.05) for a good 1 year graft survival (p< 0.05, and odds ratio is 2.075). Additionally, having an in-house ICU intensivist, and modern technology are statistically significant for a strong 3 year graft survival rate (p< 0.05, odds ratio are 0.241 and 1.756). CONCLUSIONS The plethora of publicly available hospital ratings systems does not correlate with actual outcomes. A hospital's national ranking is a flawed indicator of transplant outcomes. Further systematic investigation into which measures predict quality outcomes in renal transplant will benefit both patients and providers. © 2015 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 193Issue 4SApril 2015Page: e109 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2015 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Joel Durinka More articles by this author Afshin Parsikia More articles by this author Ryan Flynn More articles by this author Jorge Ortiz More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...

Strategic disclosure: The case of business school rankings

We empirically analyze disclosure decisions made by 240 MBA programs about which rankings to display on their websites. We present three main findings. First, consistent with theories of countersignaling, top schools are least likely to disclose their rankings, whereas mid-ranked schools are most likely to disclose. Second, schools that do poorly in the U.S. News rankings are more likely to disclose their Princeton Review certification, suggesting that schools treat different certifications as substitutes. Third, conditional on displaying a ranking, the majority of schools coarsen information to make it seem more favorable. The stark patterns in the data help to provide empirical evidence on the strategic elements of voluntary disclosure and marketing decisions.

Weighted-Average Methodologies for Evaluating Bar Examination Passage Rates

There are few truly “national” law schools in the United States. Most American law schools in the United States have a “dominant” state bar. A greater number of the graduates of nearly any law school take the bar examination administered by one state than any other bar examination. The American Bar Association and U.S. News and World Report's law school rankings rely on bar passage rates for the single largest cohort within any school’s graduating class. But the modal passage rate is misleading as a measure of any one school’s overall bar passage rates. The modal passage rate also fails to facilitate direct comparisons of bar examination performance at different schools.To evaluate the overall bar examination performance of the graduates of any law school, I propose the use of weighted-average methodologies. Ideally, we should be able to measure, by use of weighted averages, each school’s bar passage z-score. Since the data needed to conduct proper standard scoring is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to procure, I propose a simplified weighted-average methodology. The weighted average of school-specific bar passage rates by jurisdiction, minus the weighted average of passage rates from all jurisdictions where its graduates, enables us to evaluate each school's bar exam performance, relative to the bar passage rate in its modal state, and relative to the weighted average bar passage rate across the entire United States.In the interest of completeness, I propose two other methodologies. One of those methodologies is based on ratios, in emulation of U.S. News and World Report’s law school rankings. The other is based on what I consider a reasonable parametric estimate of standard deviations in state-wide bar passage rates weighted by school, through which we can estimate z-scores for bar exam passage rates for all states and all schools.

Strategic Disclosure: The Case of Business School Rankings

We empirically analyze disclosure decisions made by 240 MBA programs about which rankings to display on their websites. We present three main findings. First, consistent with theories of countersignaling, top schools are least likely to disclose their rankings, whereas mid-ranked schools are most likely to disclose. Second, schools that do poorly in the U.S. News rankings are more likely to disclose their Princeton Review certification, suggesting that schools treat different certifications as substitutes. Third, conditional on displaying a ranking, the majority of schools coarsen information to make it seem more favorable. The stark patterns in the data help to provide empirical evidence on the strategic elements of voluntary disclosure and marketing decisions.

Identification of U.S. pharmacy school characteristics that correlate with pre-requisite rigor

BackgroundSpecific pre-requisite course requirements vary widely in pharmacy education from direct-from-high-school admission to requirement for a bachelor’s degree. There is a lack of published studies that have attempted to determine school or university characteristics that may shape the selection of either basic or advanced pre-requisites. MethodsPharmacy schools were grouped by either requirement for at least one selected advanced scientific course or by pre-requisite hour requirements of ≤72h, >72h or a bachelor’s degree. Pre-requisite groupings were then compared to the school’s U.S. News ranking, tuition for the first professional year, incoming class size, public/private status, and university’s offering of at least one other professional doctoral degree program. ResultsTwo characteristics associated with higher science course requirements were the school’s public/private status and in private schools, the presence/absence of another professional school. When grouped by categories of increasing hours, the existence of another professional school was positively associated with increased admission standards (both advanced science courses and hours) at private pharmacy programs. ConclusionThis study indicates that PharmD programs with advanced pre-requisite science requirements tend to be public. In private programs, both lack of requirement for an advanced science course and lower pre-requisite hours were found in institutions lacking additional professional doctoral degree programs.

Examining the Ethical Utility of Social Work Program Rankings in the US: Are We Measuring One Thing and Selling Another?

Social work program rankings are frequently used in the US to communicate program identity, and no ranking structure has become as commonly accepted as the one compiled by US News & World Report. However, the metrics used to assemble these rankings, and what the rankings have been used to communicate, have come under question over recent years. This project details an analysis that was conducted on the relationship between US News rankings for social work programs in the United States (n = 200) and Carnegie research designations for the universities with which those programs are affiliated. Findings suggest that as institutional size increases, so do rankings. This study assesses the strength of that relationship and questions the ethical utility of this ranking system, particularly when used as a tool to recruit students (a common practice in the United States). Additional metrics are suggested to help potential students make more informed decisions in reference to program selection.

Modeling Change and Variation in U.S. News &amp; World Report College Rankings: What would it really take to be in the Top 20?

University administrators may invest significant time and resources with the goal of improving their U.S. News & World Report ranking, but the real impact of these investments is not well known since, as other universities make similar changes, rankings become a moving target. This research removes the mystique of the U.S. News ranking process by producing a ranking model that faithfully recreates U.S. News outcomes and quantifies the inherent “noise” in the rankings for all nationally ranked universities. The model developed can be a valuable tool to institutional researchers and university leaders by providing detailed insight into the U.S. News ranking process. It allows the impact of changes to U.S. News subfactors to be studied when variation between universities and within subfactors is present. Numerous simulations were run using this model to understand the effect of each subfactor individually and to determine the amount of change that would be required for a university to improve its rank or move into the top 20. Results show that for a university ranked in the mid-30 s it would take a significant amount of additional resources, directed in a very focused way, to become a top-ranked national university, and that rank changes of up to ± 4 points should be considered “noise”. These results can serve as a basis for frank discussions within a university about the likelihood of significant changes in rank and provide valuable insight when formulating strategic goals.

From popularity prediction to ranking online news

News articles are an engaging type of online content that captures the attention of a significant amount of Internet users. They are particularly enjoyed by mobile users and massively spread through online social platforms. As a result, there is an increased interest in discovering the articles that will become popular among users. This objective falls under the broad scope of content popularity prediction and has direct implications in the development of new services for online advertisement and content distribution. In this paper, we address the problem of predicting the popularity of news articles based on user comments. We formulate the prediction task as a ranking problem, where the goal is not to infer the precise attention that a content will receive but to accurately rank articles based on their predicted popularity. Using data obtained from two important news sites in France and Netherlands, we analyze the ranking effectiveness of two prediction models. Our results indicate that popularity prediction methods are adequate solutions for this ranking task and could be considered as a valuable alternative for automatic online news ranking.

The international market for MBA qualifications: The relationship between tuition fees and applications

This paper explores the relationship between tuition fees charged by MBA programmes and the number of applications to these programmes, using a panel dataset comprising universities from countries across the world. Using Three-Stage-Least-Squares methods for simultaneous equations, we find a two-way relationship between tuition fees and applications: higher application numbers encourage universities to charge higher fees in the future, but higher fees in turn curtail application numbers. We find evidence that higher GMAT scores of existing students increase applications, as do higher post MBA salaries. Meanwhile, university and programme professional accreditations do not impact on student application choices, nor do alumni ratings of programme quality. Published MBA programme rankings appear to have little impact on applications, and where an effect can be identified, it appears that a better ranking discourages applications. Only US News rankings have a significant effect on applicants to US MBA programmes.

Law School Libraries and the U.S. News &amp; World Report Rankings: An Empirical Defense of Library Investments in the Era of the Rankings Regime

Using both simple correlation and multiple regression analyses, this paper explores how measures of academic law library quality, like materials expenditures and number of librarians employed, have significant positive effects on law school rankings outcomes – an important point to make in this era of law schools’ collective obsession with the U.S. News & World Report rankings.

The Effect of Law School Marketing Materials on U.S. News and World Report Rankings

In the last few years, law schools have inundated each other with glossy brochures, postcards, magazines, and other marketing materials in an attempt to influence their “peer assessment scores” in the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings. This article describes a study that attempted to determine whether law schools’ print marketing efforts to one another have an impact on their U.S. News rankings data. From June to December 2011, the author’s school collected and coded all of the materials it had received from schools, including materials that it itself had sent to others. In total, 427 unique pieces of marketing were received from 125 of the 191 schools that were the subjects of this study. They varied considerably in size, format, content, and audience. A number of statistical tests were conducted to compare a school’s marketing efforts with its overall rank, overall score, peer assessment score, and tier, along with any change in those variables from the 2011 rankings to the 2012 ones. The results showed that there was some correlation between a school’s marketing efforts and its U.S. News data. Schools that sent marketing materials had, on average, higher tier placement and peer assessment scores; however, there was not a significant change in year-to-year rankings variables. The number of pieces a school sent during the study period was, for the most part, not significant. On the other hand, the number of pages in its materials was correlated with a number of U.S. News variables. Schools that sent longer, magazine-type publications geared towards a specific audience had higher U.S. News scores and also showed a slight improvement in their overall score between the two years of rankings data in this study. However, it is possible that a co-variate, such as institutional financial resources, may be causing the results. Additional study is needed to determine whether marketing materials have a longer-term effect on U.S. News ranking variables that cannot be captured in a one year study.

Ranking Law Schools Using Reported California Bar Exam Results: Some Observations and Conjectures

Law school rankings are ubiquitous and inevitable. That should not be surprising, since they may help prospective law students decide where to study and prospective employers decide which law schools’ graduates to hire. Unfortunately, none of the existing law school rankings are substantially based on measures of student learning outcomes, and most are not helpful in evaluating the relative performance of non-elite law schools. This article attempts to fill the gap in the literature by ranking law schools using the California bar exam results reported by the State Bar of California for first-time takers over the period from 1997-2011 and especially 2007-2011. There are problems with this ranking too. The data are incomplete, the California bar exam has probably varied in difficulty over the period of the study, and bar exams probably do not adequately test law graduates’ preparation for the practice of law. Nonetheless, most law graduates need to pass a bar exam before they can obtain satisfying legal jobs. Moreover, bar exams arguably test law graduates on at least some of the knowledge and skills they will need to succeed in their legal careers. In these respects, at least, bar exam results provide a measure of student learning outcomes that should be important for most prospective law students. Some of the results of this study are interesting and surprising: Yale appears to outperform all other law schools, and Virginia and Emory appear to outperform their US News rankings. Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, Northwestern, and Cornell appear to underperform their US News rankings. There appears to be a surprisingly strong in-state advantage on the California bar exam, and Californian schools generally appear to outperform higher-ranked out-of-state schools, but some Californian schools appear to outperform others: USC, Pepperdine, Loyola, California Western, and Chapman all outperform Californian schools that the US News ranks higher; UC-Davis, UC-Hastings, and San Diego underperform Californian schools that the US News ranks lower. Some Californian schools had such low California bar passage rates over the period of this study that one can only wonder whether they might be at risk of accreditation problems, and some out-of-state schools had passage rates that were even lower and atrocious by any reasonable standards.

African American Student Enrollment and Law School Ranking

The director of the U.S. News law school rankings, Robert Morse, has initiated discussion about how – if at all – racial diversity should be included in the U.S. News rankings. This essay explores the relationship between African American student enrollment and U.S. News peer assessment scores of law schools. It explores this first at all ABA-approved law schools, and then within tiers of law schools. It finds a positive, though slight, relationship between African American student enrollment and peer assessment scores for the 26 most elite law schools, a marginally stronger relationship for the top 103 schools, and a slight negative relationship for the remaining schools. These findings are supplemented with data on the relationship between schools’ U.S. News peer assessment scores and their proportions of Asian American students, Hispanic students, and minority faculty.

Role of Reputation in Top Pediatric Specialties Rankings

Although the role of reputation in determining the relative standings in the U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) annual rankings of the top 50 hospitals has received analytical attention, the role of reputation in the best children's hospitals pediatric specialty rankings has not been quantified. Our goal was to quantify the role of reputation in determining the relative standings of the top-ranked pediatric specialties and their associated hospitals in the 2008-2010 editions of the USNWR best children's hospital rankings. A cross-sectional study of USNWR data collected from the top 30 hospitals in each of 6 (and later 10) specialties was performed. The main outcome measures were rankings based on total USNWR scores and subjective reputation scores. On average, rankings based on reputation scores alone correlated with USNWR overall rankings; correlation coefficients ranged from 0.80 to 0.98 (Spearman Correlation; mean P < .001). This relationship was consistent over all 3 survey years. The relative standings of the top 30 pediatric hospitals in each of 10 specialties are largely explained by the compelling correlation between subjective reputation scores and ranking scores.