Universities Weblog

(Source: Yale Law School)Everyone who's read One L or seen The Paper Chase on TV knows that the first year of law school is grueling. Year two gets a bit easier, largely because students have learned the lingo and know how to dissect cases. Year three? Some think it's a waste of time, a way for law schools to bilk students out of more tuition, while others favor adding rigor to that final year.

So as some schools (not elite ones) are experimenting with a two-year law degree, most in the legal establishment have other thoughts. Consider:

…there are also signs the third year is as entrenched as ever. The ABA's requirements are still stringent. The legal profession wants to keep quality — and in some critics' eyes, salaries — high, so it doesn't want to make it too easy to become an attorney. Also, the legal recruiting process is built around a three-year schedule; summers are when law students earn money and take the internships that lead to jobs, so many will be reluctant to give them up.For now, then, you're still looking at three years to earn that J.D., even though year three remains the target of further debate.

(Source: Harvard Business School)Do top business schools pander to the rankings in magazines such as U.S. News and Business Week? Sure they do. But what are the consequences?

A few professors think they've figured that out, according to a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. A snippet:

In the paper, "What's Really Wrong With U.S. Business Schools?," the scholars argue that a focus on rankings, like those published in Business Week, divert resources from research and other academic areas in favor of quick fixes for M.B.A programs. [....]

An overrreliance on rankings also distorts the M.B.A. curriculum, it says, and leads to poorer quality in programs for undergraduates, other graduate students, and Ph.D. candidates.

You can find the paper online here. For an appetizer, try the abstract:

U.S. business schools are locked in a dysfunctional competition for media rankings that diverts resources from long-term knowledge creation, which earned them global pre-eminence, into short-term strategies aimed at improving their rankings. MBA curricula are distorted by "quick fix, look good" packaging changes designed to influence rankings criteria, at the expense of giving students a rigorous, conceptual framework that will serve them well over their entire careers. Research, undergraduate education, and Ph.D. programs suffer as faculty time is diverted to almost continuous MBA curriculum changes, strategic planning exercises, and public relations efforts. Unless they wake up to the dangers of dysfunctional rankings competition, U.S. business schools are destined to lose their dominant global position and become a classic case study of how myopic decision-making begets institutional mediocrity.

Once again, we're reminded that rankings are the tail wagging the dog.

Another day, another reality TV show. This time, college Athletes compete for a walk-on spot on the Texas Tech basketball team, coached by the infamous Bobby Knight (he of the chair-throwing, player-choking, media-bashing tirades).

Knight, of course, will be the star of the show, as he prefers. Sixteen kids will vie for the privilege of joining his team. Along the way, they'll learn (in "Knight School") about life metaphorically through basketball—or at least Knight's view of the world.

The real winner here figures to be Texas Tech. "Knight School" will feature the campus prominently, much like "The Scholar" highlighted USC.

Stay tuned.

(Source: MIT)Number eight on my list might also seem counterintuitive, as perhaps did my number nine (Princeton). Let's get to it.

#8: MITMIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has to be considered the world's premier technological university. Its programs in engineering, Aeronautics, computer science and physics are among the very best. Economics is also outstanding, as are political science and psychology. And throw in a top-five school of business (Sloan). Simply put, MIT is technology (though the folks at Caltech might argue a bit).

Yet, like Princeton, MIT doesn't offer enough breadth to compete with other elite universities. It has no law school, medical school, or education school, for instance. What's more, programs in arts, humanities and the "softer" disciplines don't command similar respect. When you think of technology and science, you think of MIT, and the institute continues to attract the best like-minded students and faculty. Nobel prizes are as commonplace as perfect SAT scores.

But that's not sufficient to crack the top five. MIT is the best at what it does, but it doesn't do enough, nor does it maintain the same level of excellence across all programs. That's why it ranks eighth.

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(Source: Princeton University)So I continue my climb up the ladder of this country's top ten universities, as determined solely by my opinions. We now arrive at number nine (Duke was number 10), perhaps the most controversial choice on my list.

#9: PrincetonPrinceton? I must be joking, right? I'm simply reflecting my Penn Quaker Bias, no? No. While magazines like U.S. News rank Princeton among the elite (as high as number one), I don't think it deserves that honor. Why? It's simple: Princeton is outstanding at what it does, but it doesn't do enough. It doesn't have a law school, business school, medical school, dental school, school of social work, school of education or school of fine arts. Sure, it offers master's degree programs in architecture, engineering, finance, and public affairs (through the world-class Woodrow Wilson School). But as a comprehensive university, it can't compete with Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley et al. Princeton is a top-notch college with a relatively limited array of graduate and professional programs. Again, it excels in almost everything it does, but its breadth of offerings doesn't compare with those of others on my list. Keep in mind I'm ranking universities based on their comprehensive excellence, not just on their undergraduate programs, like U.S. News does.

So that's why Princeton ranks ninth, in my humble opinion.