Insider Higher Ed Reports on USN&WR's Ranking of Baylor

The story that U.S. News & World Report ranked Baylor University School of Law based on the wrong LSAT and GPA numbers has expanded beyond the blogosphere. See Rob Capriccioso, False Rank, Inside Higher Ed, June 28. I'm very happy to hand the matter over to professional reporters, as I remain uncertain what to do when someone tells me something important "off-the-record" or, even more perplexingly, when someone wants to retract a statement. I gather that Capriccioso and his ilk have ethical guidelines fitted to such problems.

Those and other aspects of the reporter's craft remain opaque to me. I thought Capriccioso did a fine job of offering a balanced report about the Baylor controversy. (Moreso, to be sure, than the catty commentators on his story.) So far as I can tell, he quoted me accurately. I thought it was funny, though, that he repeated this part of my explanation of why I wanted to created a model of the rankings: "I’m kind of a geek when you put me in front of Excel." I'd offered other, more sophisticated reasons for my obsession. Perhaps he thought he'd zeroed in on my real motivation. Perhaps he did.

At any rate, those who share my obsession will want to read Capriccioso's story. He offers some tidbits I'd never heard before, such USN&WR's explanation that the person they'd hired to catching errors such as the one in Baylor's numbers "has since left the publication for a new job." Capriccioso's story does not address the similar discrepancy in Florida's numbers, though he and I did talk about that puzzle. Perhaps he plans a future report on that topic.

Earlier posts about the 2007 USN&WR law school rankings:

• Change to U.S. News Law School Rankings Methodology
  
• "Financial Aid" Revised in U.S. News Methodology
  
• How USN&WR Counts Faculty for Rankings
  
• Whence Come the LSATs and GPAs Used in the Rankings?
  
• Gains and Losses Due to USN&WR's Use of Reported Median LSATs and GPAs
  
• How to Model USN&WR's Law School Rankings
  
• Why to Model USN&WR's Law School Rankings
  
• The ABA and USN&WR's Law School Rankings
  
• Accuracy of the Model of USN&WR's Law School Rankings
  
• Z-Scores in Model of USN&WR's Law School Rankings
  
• Further Tinkering with Model of USN&WR Law School Rankings
  
• Baylor's Score in the USN&WR Law School Rankings
  
• What USN&WR Asks About Law Schools' LSATs and GPAs
  
• USN&WR and Baylor on that School's Data
  
• The University of Florida's Score in the USN&WR Rankings
  
• Baylor Explains the Data it Reported for the USN&WR Rankings
  
• More Edits to Model of USN&WR's Law School Rankings