The Coming Law School Admissions Cycle — Brief ...

In this podcast, Mike provides a brief recap of the historic last cycle (2020–2021) as well as the short version of our best predictions for what's to come this cycle (2021–2022). If you'd like a longer and more in-depth discussion of these topics, please listen to our full podcast on these topics, "Recapping the 2020-2021 Law School Admissions Cycle & Predicting the Upcoming Cycle" (featuring Spivey Consulting's data wonk Justin Kane and PowerScore CEO Dave Killoran).

You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

Hi. It is Wednesday, August 18th, and this is Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, admissions. We’re particularly going to focus on admissions in this podcast. I’m going to try and keep it brief, six to ten minutes, and do a general overview of the cycle to come. But, of course, we can’t talk about this coming cycle without talking about last year’s historic cycle.

[00:37] So, what happened last year is, of course, we had COVID, and LSAC, the organization that administers LSAT had to, in an incredibly short amount of time, and kudos to them, it was amazing to watch. Taken historically in-person tests and moving online so that you could take it in your bedroom, living room, wherever. So, that happened and it was miraculous to watch. But, whenever you see amazing things happen in short amount of times, there’s historic precedent for this, there are second generational problems. So, the second generational problems with taking a five section, in-person test and turning it into a three section, online test, was that there were a lot of vectors that went into different test-taking ability that LSAC didn’t account for when they gave a curve. Each test has a curve. It’s negative nine, which means you can get nine wrong to get a 170. Or negative twelve, or negative thirteen. So, the curve, by our estimation in the data experts that I surround myself with was too loose. And it’s not just by anyone’s estimation. You can see that the curve changed. Particularly, at 165 and above. But particularly, particularly from 170 to 180. From 175 to 180, LSAT scores were up 103%. They’re up 57% from 170 to 174. So, you have this massive spike at the top that no one was able, pre-cycle, to account for. I mean, not us, not LSAC, not law schools.

[02:24] So what happened? Law schools generally base admit patterns on historic data. So, they were chugging away, admitting away (most law schools, not all) and all the sudden their classes filled up very early with high scores. We’ll get back to that because that caused over enrollment even at some of the highest ranked schools that hardly ever have faced over enrollment before. And that’s going to impact this cycle. Applications last cycle were up, I believe, 12.6% so that also created to a more difficult cycle. But basically, last year what you saw was a seller’s market. Schools did incredibly well, and you’re starting to see that. And it’s going to get worse. We work with a number of schools and we talk to a number of schools. And, you know, I’m bound by confidentiality. But when more and more of these medians come out, you’re going to see plus two, plus three. You’ll see, I believe, some plus threes in the top twenty which is just unheard of. So last cycle was a once in a lifetime difficult cycle. I hope once in a lifetime.

[03:32] Let’s talk about this cycle. So, you have those overenrolled schools and what a lot of them did, and bears noting, is they offered scholarship incentives to decrease the class size and defer people to this cycle. So, generally every cycle you have some deferrals. But this cycle, you’re going to have, let’s say a school normally starts off the cycle with ten deferrals. They’re ten yards ahead on the track. They may have thirty or forty deferrals this cycle. So now they’re going to be forty yards ahead on the track and the race hasn’t even started yet. That’s not good news, obviously. But I’ll get to the good news. The other piece of bad news is, I posted on our Twitter account. I did a week of free phone calls. The number of people I talked to with 165s and above or 170 and above who were 0 for 8, or 0 for 12, or 1 for 14, that was essentially my entire week. Well, what are those people going to do? They’re going to reapply this cycle. So, early on this cycle, you have the schools with the larger number of deferrals and you have a lot of strong reapplicants. Or people who took the LSAT FLEX last cycle and scored better because people who took the LSAT FLEX scored better in general. Not every single person, but in general, they scored better. So, early on, schools are going to try and maintain these strong medians that are coming in. And you’re going to see a slow pattern of that. Slow pattern because schools are hurt last year that admitted too early, so they’re going to pump the breaks. So slowly and mindfully they’re going to admit people with strong numbers.

[05:11] Here comes the good news. And this happens every year. Every year schools gun for high LSAT scores early and then sort of start losing some of that battle. Last year it didn’t happen because even if they lost high LSAT scores, they had other high LSAT scores to replace them with. So, this year, come around February, March, April, May, June, July, August, if you’re an applicant and you have a 172 and you apply to twelve schools, in that month bandwidth I told you about, you’re going to have to tell eleven schools “no.” And now multiply that by 5,000 other people in the 170 to 180 range or whatever. 3,000 other people telling eleven schools “no”. So those schools have to start going to other people to admit. Well, again, last cycle they had other people in this stable of high scores to admit but I don’t see that happening this cycle because I think that LSAC, a learning organization, is going to start accounting for the vectors of taking a test at home versus in person. The test questions were no less rigorous and that’s LSAC’s amazing ability to put together very consistent test questions was almost their crux last cycle because they just factored in that it’s the same caliber of tests. And I think this cycle, they’re going to be factoring in more study time, less anxiety, state dependent learning. All of those psychometric, psychological factors that led to the LSAT FLEX test takers in general scoring better. I’ve seen the scaling data. I can’t talk about it, but they scored better. I think LSAC is going to control for that and tighten up the curve. So, later this cycle, we’ll call it past January, schools will start losing people. And then they’ll really start losing people come seat deposit deadlines. That’s when you see them shifting targets from where their current medians are, which is again daunting, I get that. I think they’re going to have to shift down one, two and in some cases three LSAT points to new, lower LSAT points because they’re going to run out of numbers. To be determined because they can also decrease class sizes. Obviously if your class size is 200, and your dean says, “Okay, well we can make it 100,” it’s a lot easier to bring in high numbers. But I don’t think many schools will have the ability to do that financially. They need the revenue. So, I think if they maintain class sizes around normal levels, the LSAT medians and maybe to a slightly lesser extent, GPA medians, but mostly LSAT medians, are going to come down a point or two from what you’re seeing posted online. On our blog, we are posting these scores online. So, it’s going to be a slow cycle, don’t get me wrong. But this cycle is going to favor those who proactively, professionally wait. And what I mean by that is, if you’re waitlisted at a school, or if you applied in September and it’s February and you haven’t heard from a school, you are so far from dead in the water. In fact, you might be in a great way once these numbers start coming down.

[08:29] I hope this was helpful. We’ll do many more of these, so feel free to subscribe. I think there’s a button on our YouTube channel. This was Mike Spivey of the Spivey Consulting Group.

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September 8, 2026

Interview Prep for Law School Admissions, with Meg Krishnan

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco is joined by Spivey consultant Meg Krishnan, former Director of Admissions and Programs at UChicago Law, for a conversation about preparing for law school admissions interviews. Meg spent nine admissions cycles at UChicago Law, ultimately running the school’s interview program and personally conducting thousands of admissions interviews. She shares what admissions offices are looking for in interviews and how applicants can prepare in a way that feels confident, natural, and intentional.

They discuss the different roles interviews can play in the admissions process and the different formats applicants may encounter (3:51); what an interviewer may review from your application before speaking with you (6:55); how to prepare your “why law” answer using Meg’s “ghosts of Christmas” framework of past, present, and future (9:08); and how to start researching and preparing for “why this law school?” questions well before receiving an interview invitation (12:18). Meg also shares a simple method for keeping track of school-specific research over time (15:52); what to prioritize once you actually receive an interview invitation, from logistics to reviewing your own application materials (19:35); and why applicants should practice from bullet points rather than scripting and memorizing their answers (24:28).

Anna and Meg also dive deeper into what makes a strong “why X” answer and the importance of connecting what a law school offers back to your own experiences and strengths (28:54); common interview mistakes and how to recover when something goes wrong (31:55); strategies for building confidence before an interview, including an exercise from psychologist Dr. Guy Winch (41:09); and practical ways to reduce distracting filler words and become more comfortable with pauses (43:36). They close with advice on taking care of yourself throughout the process, learning how to reset after a difficult moment, and remembering that receiving an interview invitation itself means the law school is interested in you (51:43).

A note on interview formats: Much of the advice in this episode is most directly applicable to invited interviews and one-on-one interviews with a human interviewer. However, many of the preparation strategies discussed also apply to other formats, including Kira and other prerecorded interviews.

Related resources: For a broader overview of law school interviews, including different interview formats and additional preparation advice, see our Interview Strategy Deep Dive with Former Law School Admissions Officers podcast. For more on the types of questions applicants may encounter, listen to Five Categories of Law School Admissions Interview Questions & How to Answer Them, with former Harvard Law Director of Admissions Karen Buttenbaum—including a bonus sixth category of curveball questions.

For more advice and resources on researching individual law schools and developing a strong, differentiated “why X,” see our Why X Essay Deep Dive: Advice from Former Law School Admissions Officers podcast episode. Anna also references our earlier conversation with psychologist Dr. Guy Winch, Dr. Guy Winch on Handling Rejection (& Waiting), which includes the confidence exercise discussed in this episode.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

August 25, 2026

Dr. Gabor Maté on Self-Doubt, Stress, Anxiety, & the Pressure to Succeed (Re-Release)

Originally published in 2021, this conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté explores self-doubt, stress, anxiety, addiction, and the pressures that can come with pursuing ambitious academic and professional goals.

Mike Spivey speaks with Dr. Maté, world-renowned physician and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, When the Body Says No, and The Myth of Normal, about how these challenges can affect prospective law students and others navigating high-pressure environments.

One of Dr. Maté’s insights for prospective and incoming law students:

“You're going to look at all your confident classmates, and you're going to go in there with all manner of self-doubt. You're making the big mistake of comparing their outside with your inside. You have no idea what their inside is like. And believe me, you're not the only one.”

This episode is a re-release of our 2021 conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté.

Law School Preparation

August 11, 2026

Inside BigLaw Hiring with Dr. Milana Hogan, Sullivan & Cromwell Chief Talent Officer

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike is joined by Dr. Milana Hogan, Chief Talent Officer at Sullivan & Cromwell, and Rob Baker, a former law firm hiring committee member and BigLaw attorney, for a conversation about the increasingly front-loaded BigLaw recruiting process and what prospective and current law students should know about navigating it. Rob has held recruiting roles at large, medium, and boutique-sized law firms, while Dr. Hogan has spent nearly two decades at Sullivan & Cromwell working in talent, associate development, and recruiting.

The group discusses how law firm recruiting has shifted earlier over time and the market pressures driving that change (7:41); whether hiring could move even earlier and why first-semester law school grades may serve as a practical stopping point (13:48); whether 0Ls should already be reaching out to firms and how to approach those conversations from a learning rather than a “will you hire me?” posture (17:13); the value of LinkedIn, low-pressure outreach, and building relationships before recruiting formally begins (20:53); and why the current system may create new opportunities for 2Ls and 3Ls who missed out earlier in the process (24:39).

They also discuss how AI is affecting BigLaw work and hiring, including Sullivan & Cromwell’s use of AI as one part of its holistic hiring process (28:34); what can turn hiring partners off in an interview and why trying too hard to demonstrate how smart you are can backfire (31:47); the importance of curiosity, humility, and a willingness to learn from more experienced lawyers (34:45); and why students should take ownership of their careers, seek out opportunities, and practice interviewing before the real thing (37:52).

Related resources: Mike references NALP Executive Director Nikia Gray’s article, The “Cruel” Recruiting Timeline, which examines the history of OCI and the market forces behind the increasingly accelerated law firm recruiting process. He also references a South Park episode parodying Black Friday’s increasingly early start as an analogy for how BigLaw recruiting has continued moving earlier.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

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The Coming Law School Admissions Cycle: Brief Thoughts

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The Coming Law School Admissions Cycle: Brief Thoughts

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