Penn and NYU move up in the law school rankings

The new USNWR law school rankings have been leaked.

Penn is now tied for 6th place with Chicago. This is really big. For a long time, Columbia, NYU, and Chicago have comprised the bottom three schools of the Top 6, but now Penn joins into the Top 7.

I find it odd that NYU's law school moved ahead of Columbia. How is it that an institution whose undergraduate school was considered a "safety school" back when I was applying to college is able to have such a highly ranked law school? (Part of it has to do with geography. Manhattan is the nation's biggest legal market.)

What remains immutable is that the same Top 14 schools always remain in the Top 14.

Comments

[David Alexander]

How is it that an institution whose undergraduate school was considered a "safety school" back

I remember back when I applied to NYU for computer science in 2001, it still has some taint of its former past of safety school rich white kids and an aspirant school for local proles like myself.

Now NYU is a high ranking school that has shed its past, and supposedly, financial aid has become much stingier to keep the poor out. Plus it's helped that Manhattan is now cool for "normal" upper class whites.

NYU had a "taint" in 2001!? I went to college from 1993 to 2000. I didn't even bother to apply to NYU as I knew I had no chance.

[David Alexander]

I remember reading that NYU during the 1980s was deemed as a safety school, and during the 1970s the university closed down their University Heights campus in the Bronx for financial reasons, and almost considered shutting down the Washington Square campus as well.

Even with my mediocre grades (94.5 GPA with honours), the guidance counselors at my school thought that I'd have a chance for applying into NYU. Luckily, I wasn't accepted, but forced into the useless School of Continuing and Professional Studies which I declined.

[dearieme]

Even the recent antics of academics at Duke won't budge it? Pity. How on earth could anyone teach law at Duke with a straight face? Innocent until proved guilty indeed.

[Steve Sailer]

The big decline in crime rates has helped some urban schools like NYU and USC attract better students.

[Alex]

The big decline in crime rates has helped some urban schools like NYU and USC attract better students.

USC is still in a crappy area. A student last year got mugged and killed walking home from school. Thus, UCLA is still the campus to go to in LA since it is in a MUCH better area (Westwood).

I do, however, agree with you about NYU. Its rise in recent years has been largely due to the drop in crime in New York City.

[russ]

"Even the recent antics of academics at Duke won't budge it? Pity. How on earth could anyone teach law at Duke with a straight face? Innocent until proved guilty indeed."

Dumbest comment ever

[Peter]

I do, however, agree with you about NYU. Its rise in recent years has been largely due to the drop in crime in New York City.

Washington Square Park, which is NYU's unofficial campus gathering spot, is a notorious hangout for marijuana dealers ("Weed? Weed?") Students probably consider the dealers an edgy but basically nonthreatening bit of local color. There always are police on duty in the park but they make no attempts whatsoever to stop the dealers, in fact it wouldn't surprise me if some of the "dealers" are undercover cops trying to snag NYU students.

Just don't ask about the crime around UPenn and Temple. However, UPenn does a better job of glossing that kind of stuff over.

[Half Sigma]

Philadelphia west of the Schuykill is pretty crappy, but Penn has it's own police force (they are real Philadelphia police officers and not security guards).

[Peter]

Yale has long had a problem with crime. It's located not too far from some rough parts of New Haven, and rather than being a physically self-contained (and easy to secure) campus it consists of a number of quadrangles surrounded by public streets. The quadrangles themselves can be secured, but not the streets.

[superdestroyer]

How about George Mason being 34th on the list and being ahead of law schools that have been around much longer and at much richer schools?

HS,
Temple has their own police force too and they are real cops as well, not just security. The Temple campus is pretty secure, I went to grad school there, but the neighborhoods around it are terrible. Even the neighborhod around St. Joe's has had its problems. The people that live there (mostly black) hate the students (mostly white), but often times not without good reason. Town vs.Gown I guess, that shit has been going on forever.

[SFG]

Is there a place one can get the past ten years or so of USNWR rankings? I would be very surprised if the top 14 were really some imutable group, and would instead expect glacial movement up and down over time between schools.

[David Alexander]

Philadelphia west of the Schuykill is pretty crappy, but Penn has it's own police force (they are real Philadelphia police officers and not security guards).

What's interesting about West Philadelphia is that it's very poor and working class, but from my experiences, it seems considerably better than areas north of Centre City. Admittedly, one of the biggest shocks that I've seen on my railfan trips has been the transition on SEPTA's Route 11 crossing 49th Street where it leaves the UPenn sphere and influence and moves into a decidingly depressing lower class, yet oddly not high density community.

The Temple campus is pretty secure, I went to grad school there, but the neighborhoods around it are terrible.

IIRC, isn't Temple in heart of Philadelphia's murder belt? I'm amazed that they managed to find whites willing to go there, especially since it's a state school.

I went to grad school at Temple for 2 major reasons: I got in and I could afford it. I am not ashamed to say that I had good grades, but I had some really great recommendations from some undergrad professors.
West Philadelphia is a dump to put it mildly, they had the Lex Street Drug House murders there among other unsavory stuff. Yes, Temple is in a truly shitty area, but the school expands every now and that is not a bad thing. (Parts of North philadelphia rsemble Dresden after the Allies bombed it, facades and rubble behind it, etc...) If you want to visit a really fucked up area in Philadelphia that I had the distinct displeasure of traveling through every now and then, try Kensington, which surprise, is pretty white in make-up. I have been through there on the way to school and drugs, prostitution, degeneracy and decay, you name it, all before 10am on a Tuesday morning. I always kept the engine gunning on my bike even when I was stopped at a light or something through there. They used to call that neighborhood "White Town" but I don't know if it referred to the populace or the heroin. However, when i was living down there, due to the lack of teeth of many I'd say that crank was making inroads.

[David Alexander]

Parts of North philadelphia rsemble Dresden after the Allies bombed it, facades and rubble behind it, etc...

If you ride the Market-Frankfort El, you get a pretty good vantage point into many of the abandoned apartment buildings. West Philly may be a dangerous, but it's not laden with empty abandoned buildings. I saw considerably more of those in North Philadelphia, and what exacerbates the problem is the excessive residential abandonment combined with rotting industrial and railway infrastructure that sits unused and probably will stay that way due to various ownership issues and soil contaminants.

try Kensington, which surprise, is pretty white in make-up

Ahh, yes, the poor white trash who restore my faith that black people are not the only fuck-ups in the world who lost at the IQ lotto.

One of the things that I've found interesting about Philly is its poor white population which still manages to remain in the city. Their equivalents in New York were pushed out ages ago and now live in the extreme edges of the suburban area.

I'm wondering if Philadelphia's fledgling gentrification movement in Northern Liberties will spread northward at some point or another, especially if real estate prices fall. I've always pictured Philadelphia as a dumping ground for New Yorkers who want urban living and closeness to NYC, but at much cheaper prices. Given the the 1:05 to 1:30 run via Amtrak between the two cities, it's not that bad a commute, and some people do this commute already...

[superdestroyer]

David,

You really need to get a undergraduate degree so that you can go into urban planning. Maybe you should consider public administration.

On universities, many of them are in what is now "poor" parts of town because they have been there for a very long time. I was on campus as USC in 1989 and the neighborhood looked tough. The same probably goes for Johns Hopkins, Catholic University of America, Case Western, University of Chicago, University of Houston, Wayne State, and others.

Even as a benign a sounding place as the University Of Colorado Health Sciences Center is is one of the worst parts of Denver.

Another problem that all of those schools probably have is the lack of parking since they usually put the emphasis of buildings instead of parking.

[David Alexander]

You really need to get a undergraduate degree so that you can go into urban planning. Maybe you should consider public administration.

Somebody finally figured out my long-term plans.

On universities, many of them are in what is now "poor" parts of town because they have been there for a very long time. I was on campus as USC in 1989 and the neighborhood looked tough.

In New York, the same can be said for Columbia which has occupied its Morningside Heights Campus since the 1890s and City College since early 1900s. Nobody back then could have imagined that the areas surrounding the both schools would have become crime ridden and dangerous especially when there were few established large scale residences. Luckily for both schools, the crime rate has fallen considerably.

Another problem that all of those schools probably have is the lack of parking since they usually put the emphasis of buildings instead of parking.

Since these schools that you've listed tend to have some selectivity, they're residential schools and focus strictly on dorms and such. Having very little parking is a great way to discourage commuter students who only help to ruin the reputation of a school.

[superdestroyer]

David,

Many commuter schools are in bad neighborhoods such as Memphis, Houston, Wayne State of those I know.

I assume that there are many others.

[aposter]

Some of these posts sound ridiculously elitist and arrogant. So what some of these schools are in poor and crime-ridden areas. Use caution when traveling...as you need to do in ANY neighborhood. People are people regardless of economic status or ethnicity. This means, a rich WHITE person is just as likely to commit a crime as a poor BLACK or "WHITE TRASH" person, although the details and motivations may be somewhat different. Bottom line is, absolutely NO ONE is exempt from the potential to find themselves having to live in one of these blighted neighborhoods because you don't know the future. In other words, it could happen to you. And, no, I did not grow up in one of these neighborhoods. Chill out and humble yourself!