April 14 (Reuters) – UPDATE IN BOLD U.S. News & World Report on Friday said it will delay the release of its graduate school rankings—including its closely watched annual list of best law schools—by one week.
The list had been slated to publish on April 18 but will now come out on April 25, U.S. News said in a statement.
“This year, we received an unprecedented number of inquiries from schools and are devoting additional time to comprehensively address these inquiries,” the statement said. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The delay comes as U.S. News is under unprecedented pressure from law schools, medical schools and undergraduate colleges that have said they will no longer provide it with data for the rankings.
Nearly a quarter of law schools this year declined to provide U.S. News with any internal data for its rankings, including 12 of the top 14 schools, which said the publication’s methodology hurt student diversity and affordability. In response to the boycott, U.S. News overhauled the methodology of the law school rankings to rely largely on ABA data, to place more weight on bar passage and employment, and to reduce the emphasis on Law School Admission Test scores.
U.S. News releases its rankings to graduate schools at least one week ahead of publication, allowing them time to review the lists on the condition that the schools do not reveal the contents. That process this year led to more questions than normal, it said.
It’s not the first time U.S. News has had to modify its rankings plans. It adjusted the law schools rankings twice in 2021 before the list was made public due to errors.
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