The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.
Small classes in law school can result in more intimate discussions and greater access to professors.
But it can also mean a higher likelihood of getting called on to answer questions.
Among the 190 ranked law schools that submitted these data to U.S. News in an annual survey, the average number of upper-division courses with fewer than 25 students during the 2015-2016 school year was 118. The average figure is significantly higher among the 10 schools with the greatest number of upper-division classes of that size: 310.
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The Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School tops the list with 561 upper-division courses that had fewer than 25 students. To compare, the next school on the list — American University’s Washington College of Law — had 377.
The U.S. News 2018 Best Law Schools rankings for the 10 law schools on the list range from No. 6, New York University , to Cooley Law School and The John Marshall Law School in Illinois, which both fell into the category of Rank Not Published. This means that the schools ranked in the bottom one-fourth of their category. U.S. News calculates ranks for those schools but has decided not to publish them.
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There are also many schools with much fewer classes of this size. Among them are the University of the District of Columbia’s Clarke School of Law and Drake University in Iowa, both of which reported 38 smaller upper-division course sections in 2015-2016.
Below is a list of the 10 law schools that had the greatest number of upper-division courses with fewer than 25 students during the 2015-2016 school year. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
| School (name) (state) | Number of upper-division courses with fewer than 25 students | U.S. News rank |
| Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School | 561 | RNP |
| American University (Washington) (DC) | 377 | 86 (tie) |
| The John Marshall Law School (IL) | 373 | RNP |
| Fordham University (NY) | 285 | 36 (tie) |
| George Washington University (DC) | 281 | 30 (tie) |
| University of Texas–Austin | 275 | 14 |
| Loyola University Chicago (IL) | 242 | 82 (tie) |
| Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | 240 | 62 (tie) |
| Temple University (Beasley) (PA) | 232 | 53 |
| New York University | 230 | 6 |
Don’t see your school in the top 10? Access the U.S. News Law School Compass to find class size data, complete rankings and much more. School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed 203 schools for our 2016 survey of law programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News’ data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Law Schools rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News’ rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The class size data above are correct as of Aug. 15, 2017.
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10 Law Schools With Small Classes originally appeared on usnews.com
