Updated projected 2025-2026 USNWR law school rankings (to be released March 2025 or so)
The updated 509 data from the American Bar Association discloses a good deal of public information about law school admissions and law school faculty that is ultimately used in the USNWR law school rankings. We now have about 75% of the information that USNWR uses in its rankings and can do a pretty good job estimating it, subject to some methodological quirks that are hard to replicate and subject to the survey data that won’t be revealed until the spring (but that is notoriously sticky). It’s also possible USNWR modifies its methodology, of course. But I took the opportunity to update my projections from last spring now that we have even more data. I tried to add precision from the last go-around, so that can explain some changes; otherwise, changes to LSAT or UGPA medians, student-faculty or student-librarian ratios, or admissions rate may have moved schools around slightly. For more about (projected) changes in rankings to schools like NYU and Cornell, check out this blog post I wrote from last year about the changes in methodology. And one more note, the new methodology means more compression and volatility, so proceed with caution! Note: tied schools are not listed alphabetically, but by raw score—so that means there’s a higher likelihood that in a tier of tied schools that the top one could move up or the bottom one could move down depending on methodology tweaks or data errors.
| School | Projected Rank | This Year's Rank |
| Stanford | 1 | 1 |
| Chicago | 2 | 3 |
| Yale | 3 | 1 |
| Virginia | 4 | 4 |
| Penn | 4 | 4 |
| Harvard | 4 | 4 |
| Duke | 7 | 4 |
| Michigan | 7 | 9 |
| Northwestern | 7 | 9 |
| NYU | 10 | 9 |
| Columbia | 10 | 8 |
| UCLA | 12 | 13 |
| Berkeley | 13 | 12 |
| Washington Univ. | 14 | 16 |
| Vanderbilt | 14 | 19 |
| Texas | 16 | 16 |
| Georgetown | 16 | 14 |
| North Carolina | 16 | 20 |
| Cornell | 19 | 14 |
| Notre Dame | 20 | 20 |
| Minnesota | 21 | 16 |
| Boston Univ. | 22 | 24 |
| Georgia | 22 | 20 |
| USC | 24 | 20 |
| Texas A&M | 24 | 26 |
| Wake Forest | 24 | 25 |
| Boston College | 24 | 28 |
| Ohio State | 28 | 26 |
| Florida State | 28 | 48 |
| William & Mary | 28 | 36 |
| BYU | 28 | 28 |
| Florida | 28 | 28 |
| George Mason | 28 | 28 |
| Alabama | 28 | 33 |
| Washington & Lee | 28 | 33 |
| George Washington | 36 | 41 |
| Irvine | 36 | 42 |
| Utah | 38 | 28 |
| Wisconsin | 38 | 36 |
| Iowa | 38 | 36 |
| Emory | 38 | 42 |
| Baylor | 42 | 46 |
| Fordham | 42 | 33 |
| SMU | 42 | 42 |
| Arizona State | 45 | 36 |
| Indiana-Bloomington | 46 | 42 |
| Colorado | 46 | 48 |
| Illinois | 48 | 36 |
| Villanova | 48 | 48 |
| Davis | 48 | 55 |
| Connecticut | 48 | 55 |
| Temple | 48 | 54 |
| Pepperdine | 53 | 52 |
| Kansas | 54 | 46 |
| Washington | 54 | 48 |
| Tennessee | 54 | 52 |
| San Diego | 54 | 68 |
| Missouri | 58 | 61 |
| Oklahoma | 58 | 55 |
| Arizona | 60 | 55 |
| Penn State-Dickinson | 60 | 75 |
| Maryland | 62 | 55 |
| Loyola-Los Angeles | 62 | 61 |
| Kentucky | 62 | 61 |
| Houston | 65 | 68 |
| South Carolina | 65 | 66 |
| Penn State Law | 65 | 68 |
| Cardozo | 65 | 61 |
| Wayne State | 65 | 55 |
| Pitt | 65 | 91 |
| Tulane | 65 | 78 |
| Cincinnati | 65 | 78 |
| UNLV | 73 | 78 |
| St. John's | 73 | 68 |
| Catholic | 73 | 94 |
| Seton Hall | 73 | 61 |
| Nebraska | 73 | 82 |
| Northeastern | 73 | 68 |
| Drexel | 73 | 75 |
| Marquette | 80 | 68 |
| Florida International | 80 | 68 |
| Richmond | 80 | 66 |
| LSU | 80 | 91 |
| Georgia State | 84 | 75 |
| Maine | 84 | 120 |
| Belmont | 86 | 91 |
| Loyola-Chicago | 86 | 78 |
| Miami | 86 | 82 |
| Texas Tech | 86 | 82 |
| Denver | 90 | 89 |
| UC Law-SF | 90 | 82 |
| Drake | 90 | 82 |
| Duquesne | 90 | 94 |
| Stetson | 94 | 98 |
| Oregon | 94 | 82 |
| Lewis & Clark | 96 | 82 |
| St. Louis | 96 | 94 |
| Chapman | 96 | 108 |
| Buffalo | 96 | 108 |
| Montana | 100 | 103 |
| Regent | 100 | 108 |
| Rutgers | 100 | 103 |
| American | 100 | 98 |
| Hawaii | 100 | 127 |