Dean explains William & Mary’s slip in rankings

College of William & Mary law dean Davison M. Douglas says the school’s drop on the U.S. News & World Report list this year resulted primarily from the number of unemployed graduates.

The W&M law school fell from 27th to a tie for 35th in the U.S. News rankings.

Douglas said the drop is tied to the number of students employed nine months after graduation – a key criterion in the U.S. News calculations. William and Mary’s figure was 86.9 percent, down 7 percentage points.

The dean said many law schools pay for temporary jobs for their graduates to make sure they’re employed on Feb. 15 – the nine-month-after-graduation date for U.S. News.

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