Princeton Review Ranks Loyola Law School 3rd for “Best Classroom Experience”

Los Angeles — Loyola Law School, Los Angeles was ranked third in the “Best Classroom Experience” category in the 2011 edition of the Princeton Review’s Best 172 Law Schools. Rounding out the top five were Northwestern Law School, Stanford Law School, the University of Chicago Law School and the University of Virginia School of Law. Loyola placed in the top 10 in two other rankings: sixth for “Best Environment for Minority Students” and seventh for “Best Professors.” Loyola has been ranked at or near the top of the “Best Classroom Experience” category since its inception in 2008. Loyola Law School scored a 94 in the academic experience rating, a 96 in the professors interesting rating and a 93 in the professors accessible rating. The profile praises Loyola as having a “broad range of specialists in a variety of fields,” and noted that professors “set the bar high, but give you all of the tools to use at your discretion to meet that bar.” Loyola’s curriculum was described as providing “a strong foundation in legal theory but also the practical skills necessary to excel in the workplace.”

Campus life received high marks in the review, which noted that daily activities run the gamut from “bowling to benefit the Public Interest Law Foundation to lunches with European patent scholars.” Additionally, the review assessed that the administration “not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.”

The rankings are based on institutional data from the schools and on surveys of 18,000 students attending the schools profiled. The survey asked students questions about themselves, their career plans and their schools’ academics, student body and campus life. Conducted during the 2009-10, 2008-09 and 2007-08 academic years.

Loyola Law School alumni also made news recently when 11 made The Los Angeles Daily Journal’s list of the 100 most influential lawyers in California. With 11 alums on the list, Loyola Law School ranked third among law schools nationwide — and second in the state — for educating the most powerful attorneys in California. Other institutions in the top 10 were the law schools at UCLA, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Columbia, Georgetown, Yale, UC Hastings, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia and Rutgers. The newspaper’s criteria was that the attorneys must be based in California and have done work with a broad impact over the last 18 months.