Given the substantial lack of racial diversity within the U.S. legal profession, it is important to understand how to improve the representation of racially minoritized students at law schools. This study uses panel data from the 2010s to consider several types of factors that may shape the number and percentage of incoming law school students…

Despite ongoing debates about their uses and validity, university rankings are a popular means to compare institutions within a country and around the world. Anchoring theory suggests that these rankings may influence assessments of institutional reputation, and this effect may be particularly strong when a new rankings system is introduced. We…

Higher education administrators believe that revenues are linked to college rankings and act accordingly, particularly those at research universities. Although rankings are clearly influential for many schools and colleges, this fundamental assumption has yet to be tested empirically. Drawing on data from multiple resource providers in higher…

Recent studies have suggested that a causal link exists between college rankings and subsequent admissions indicators. However, it is unclear how these effects vary across institutional type (i.e., national universities vs. liberal arts colleges) or whether these effects persist when controlling for other factors that affect admissions outcomes.…

Processes of certification and evaluation are some of the most powerful institutional forces in organizational fields, and in the higher education field, rankings are a primary factor in assessing organizational performance. This article explores the institutional effects of the "U.S. News & World Report" undergraduate rankings on the reputational…