Coruscation

The algorithm used by U.S. News puts a heavy emphasis on college grade-point averages and Law School Admission Test scores. Together, those two numbers determine about 22 percent of a school's ranking. The bar passage rate, which correlates strongly with undergraduate G.P.A.'s and LSAT scores, is worth an additional two points in the algorithm. In short, students' academic credentials determine close to a quarter of a school's rank -- the largest factor that schools can directly control.

So the point of most merit scholarship programs, Professor Organ said, isn't merely to tempt prospective students who might otherwise not attend, though that clearly is one result.

"What law schools are buying is higher G.P.A.'s and LSATs," Professor Organ said. In other words, the schools are buying smarter students to enhance their cachet and rise in the rankings.

Each does it a little differently.

The University of Florida's law school requires students to maintain a 3.2 G.P.A. to keep their scholarships; at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan, it's a 2.95. The Chicago-Kent College of Law has a number of grant offerings, one of which sounds like the refueling options for a rental car: students can get a $9,000 annual scholarship guaranteed for all three years, no matter what their G.P.A., or $15,000 a year on the condition that they earn a 3.25 or above. If they get between a 3.0 and 3.25, they keep half the scholarship. Below a 3.0, it's gone.

Some elite schools don't give any merit scholarships, and some give them conditioned only on maintaining good academic standing -- which translates to "don't flunk out." But merit stipulations -- or stips, as they are known by students -- are used by 80 percent of law schools for which information is publicly available, Professor Organ found.

And it's not just institutions in the bottom half of the U.S. News rankings. If your school is ranked 35th, perhaps you're gunning for No. 30 and you can see No. 40 creeping up in the rear-view mirror.