What's new for the upcoming 2011 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools? For the first time, U.S. News has separate peer assessment survey instruments that use a five-point scale for part-time law J.D. programs and part-time M.B.A. programs. As a result, U.S. News is contemplating significant methodology changes in both of these popular rankings. The 2011 edition of the rankings will be published in April 2010.

What will these changes mean for the upcoming part-time law J.D. program rankings?

This fall, we have asked law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments, and the most recently tenured faculty members to rate 99 part-time J.D. programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those respondents who do not know enough about a law school's part-time J.D. program to evaluate it fairly are asked to mark "don't know." A part-time law J.D. program's peer assessment score will now be based on the average of all the respondents who rated it.

In addition to having a peer score on a 5.0 scale, U.S. News is contemplating including other factors in the upcoming part-time law J.D. program rankings. Additional ranking variables under consideration include:





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