It's so annoying when you're gaming the system and they change the system without telling you.

The Wall Street Journal describes how U.S. News changed the way they calculated the LSAT factor in the Law School rankings and had a big effect on some schools who'd figured out a way to do well on the LSAT factor under the old approach. The old approach, which admissions people assumed still applied, used the median LSAT as reported by the law schools themselves. Suspecting some false reporting, they switched to a combination of the to 25th-percentile and 75th-percentile scores from the ABA and averaging those two numbers.

"We want to look good in U.S. News and World Report," says Greg Crespi, chair of admissions at Southern Methodist in Dallas. "But we have our own agenda of diversity and holistic assessment." With the old ranking method, "We were free to depart downwards as far as we chose in the interest of other objectives." He also complains about being surprised by the change; U.S. News often has informed schools of past changes, but didn't disclose this one until the magazine was printed. "We feel like we played a basketball game and they've gone back and taken away all our three-point shots retroactively," he says. Referring to admissions as a game may trouble some people. But those are the incentives the rankings create.

Mr. Crespi estimates that the change meant a difference of about 10 spots for Southern Methodist: He guesses that under the old method, SMU would have risen from 47th to about 41st, rather than falling into a tie for 52nd, and could have moved even higher. (Southern Methodist says its median LSAT was 163 this year; but U.S. News used a number of 160.) "We were hoping to make a national splash about climbing 10 places into the top 40," Mr. Crespi says. Now, he says the school must decide whether to trim diversity or risk remaining out of the top 50. John Attanasio, dean of Southern Methodist law school, says he expects the school will prioritize diversity over the rankings.

I like the way the admissions chair uses a basketball analogy that reveals the game-playing mindset, but the dean acts like they place their principles above gaming the system.