US NEWS Ranking Criteria

US News reports that its rankings are based on the following 12 measures of "quality" with associated weights:

Faculty Reputation (.25) 25%
Lawyers /Judges Rep (.15) 15%
Median LSAT (.125) 12.5%
Median U'grad GPA (.1) 10%
% Applic. Accepted (.025) 2.5%
Employ at Grad (.06) 6%
Employ after 9 mo. (.12) 12%
Bar Passage % (.02) 2%
School expenditures /student for instruction, library, & supporting services (.0975) 9.75%
Student/Teacher Ratio (.03) 3%
Avg. / student spending on all other items, including financial aid (.015) 1.5%
Total # of library volumes (.0075) 0.75%


If you add up the weights, you'll see that leaves precisely 0.00000 % for "percentage of graduate / class giving".

I think we need to make it clear to students that their participation or non-participation in pledging future income to W&L DOES NOT AFFECT how US News ranks our school.

And, personally, I'm tired of being told how my $0 contribution is going to doom W&L's future reputation.

***UPDATE: Tyler Wood is looking into where the information (myth?) that giving % influences our ranking came from ***