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&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;US News&lt;/em&gt; is considering extending the numerical rankings for law schools into the third tier, reports &lt;em&gt;The National Law Journal&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It&#39;s something that we&#39;re looking into,&quot; Morse said [at an AALS meeting in San Francisco last week]. &quot;We do have ranking scores for all law schools but, editorially, we didn&#39;t want to say, &#39;This is the 188th law school [representing last place].&#39; &quot; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Only the top 100 law schools are ranked by &lt;em&gt;US News&lt;/em&gt;, while the remaining 88 schools are grouped into third and fourth tiers and ordered alphabetically. Not a good thing for Wayne State University Law School, which is why its dean welcomes the prospect of change.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;I think we would prefer to be listed by rank rather than alphabetical order,&quot; he said. He noted that the latter tends to place his institution toward the bottom of the list. &quot;Psychologically, I think it makes a difference that we are listed at the end of the third tier,&quot; Ackerman said. &quot;I think people would make less of a distinction between schools ranked 1 through 150 than they now do between the second and third quartile.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many critics of the tier format likened the third-tier to &quot;outer darkness,&quot; saying it creates an artificial distinction. Other deans from third-tier schools thought the change wouldn&#39;t make much of a difference or be a benefit (presumably for the upper half of the third-tier). As the &lt;em&gt;NLJ&lt;/em&gt; piece notes, bloggers have already used the rankings methodology to rank schools past the top 100.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Others, like New York Law School Dean Richard Matasar, thinks &lt;em&gt;US News&lt;/em&gt; should rank less schools not more. At least that would better reflect reality where most schools outside the top 20 all really offer similar-level-quality educations and remain beyond the recruiting arm of the most prominent law firms.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Considering the degree to which the rankings already push law schools to mislead or lie, I don&#39;t think it wise to rouse that kind of culture of deception at even more schools. I&#39;m with Matasar: rank less, not more.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[National Law Journal]&lt;/p&gt;

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