GAMING THE LAW-SCHOOL RANKING SYSTEM:

In addition to student expenditures, there are ways that law schools can affect the 11 other “measures of quality” that U.S. News uses in assembling its rankings. When they hire their own new graduates as temps, that pumps up their employment figures; when they admit weaker applicants through backdoor mechanisms, that makes their admissions standards look stronger.

“Insofar as these polls affect student choices, the notion that I’m losing students because of this is insane,” says Larry Kramer, dean of Stanford Law. He is considering whether he might include water, garbage removal, electricity, plumbing and property taxes as part of the university’s spending per student. Stanford (U.S. News No. 3) is feeling the heat from Yale (No. 1), Harvard (No. 2) and Columbia (No. 4) – schools that report 120, 64 and 83 percent, respectively, more than Stanford in indirect expenditures and overhead for each full-time student, according to the confidential American Bar Association data.

Mr. Kramer chalks up the difference to accounting practices: unlike many schools, Stanford Law does not write the check for its utilities. Instead, the central university receives the law school’s tuition, deducts an amount for utilities and hands a portion of the remainder to the school. “Now I have to think about going to the university and saying that I need you to disaggregate the law school from this administrative process to get that money counted for U.S. News,” Mr. Kramer says.

An obsession with rankings is usually a sign of small-mindedness, but law schools feel very real impacts from changes in those numbers, so the temptation to put one’s best foot forward is tough to resist.