When Should You Reach Out to an Admissions Offi...

In this short episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses a question that tends to come up frequently this time of year—“Should I contact x law school's admissions office to ask for an update since I haven't heard back yet?”—then talks generally about when it can be advantageous to reach out to admissions, why, and how you should do it.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

Welcome to Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, law school admissions, a little bit of everything. Today is going to be law school admissions. I had promised a podcast on U.S. News rankings—we're waiting for a bit more information on these lines. I think the rankings are going to come out late March just FYI. And I think that there's going to be waves of merit aid offers and admits after the rankings come out, because right now no one knows the weights of the metrics, so no one knows if the LSAT’s going to double or half in weight, if the GPA is going to double or half, selectivity probably won't move much. So next week we'll have the rankings one up.

I saw a post on Reddit this morning, “Should I call an admissions office and ask them about the status of my application?” So I thought this would be a good time to do a podcast, a quick podcast on how to reach out to admissions offices. There's multiple ways, but the only two ways to initially reach out that you should consider are phone calls or emails, right? So don't message them on LinkedIn or find their Twitter account, etc. Don't do that.

It is all the more appropriate—I mean it's their job—to call or email them. But I want to click on why you should call, why you should email. I've talked about this before. To the post I saw, “Should I call the admissions office and ask them for the status of my application?” there's a heuristic I use: Are you doing it to placate your nervousness, anxiety—understandable, waiting—or are you doing it to enhance your chance of admission? So calling and saying, “What's the status of my application?” is not enhancing your chance of admission. If they had a status, they would tell you. The second a decision is rendered whether it's waitlist, denial, admit, or if they're putting a group in a holding pattern, they're going to let you know. So calling and saying, “Hey, what's the status?” is not beneficial at all. Emailing saying “what's the status” is not beneficial at all.

On the flip side, let me just give you the best ones: emailing and saying, “I’m deeply interested in…”—we’ll say Princeton Law School. Until there's a Princeton Law School, and a Dean of Princeton Law School to get mad at me for using their school name, it's going to be Princeton Law School. So emailing Princeton Law School and saying, “Hey, I know it's a long cycle, and I completely understand, but is there anything I can do to enhance my application? I'd love to visit. I would love to speak to an admissions officer on the phone. I can update my resume.” There's the value-add. If you have new things to offer, a visit, a phone call. But again, not a phone call saying, “Hey, what's the status?” A phone call saying, “You're my top school. I would attend and matriculate if offered”—incredibly value added.

So, an email with a new resume, if you got a new job, saying, “Please find my updated resume, I have a new job,” a letter of continued interest. I'm a big fan of letters of continued interest about five, six days after school seat deposits are due if you're on the waitlist, because that's when they get a sense for how many people they're going to take off the waitlist. So, an email saying, “Attached is my letter of continued interest, please know that blah, blah, blah,” you can say your number one choice, if it is your number one choice. Or you can say, “You're my top choice,” which a student can have three or four top choices. So, that verbiage is not startling or alarming to me. The thing I would hesitate for you to say is “You're my number one choice” if it's not. Because what could happen is they admit you, and then all of a sudden you blow them off—this doesn't happen often, but it does happen—they say, “Well, you said, ‘you're my number one choice,’ and we admitted you, we didn't hear from you.” So, there is a process that goes through LSAC's committee of infractions where they could give your name to other law schools. And if it's found out that you're telling every law school [they’re your] number one choice, that might not go away. That's why I'm a fan of “top choice.” Obviously, you can have a dream school, you can have a number one school, and you should be telling that school you would matriculate if admitted.

So, reaching out to law schools, theme of this podcast—and I promise it's going to be short, mostly because I have to run somewhere, and I felt like I owed Reddit message boards something—I’m a big fan of reaching out, it shows interest. I'm a big fan of measuring your pace. So, please don't reach out every other week. Once every month and a half, and then you can increase the pace because the risk-reward factor changes over time. And also, late in the cycle when schools' medians are locked in. Remember it’s medians not means. This is greatly to your favor. When medians become locked in, if you just happen to email someone on the right day, and all of a sudden their medians are locked in, and they had three people drop off… this is why also I’m always a fan of a signature block; if you're going to email someone or, look, if a Dean of Admissions gave you their cellphone number at a forum or a fair and you text them—I get these texts all the time, “Hey Spivey, blah blah blah,” and then there's no who this is. So, if you're going to text them, say who it is. If you're going to email them, have a signature block with your phone number in the signature block. Why? This is going to amaze you, but this happens every year. They can just mash the button on their phone and call you and say, “Hey, we do need to make a few admits. We want to know, would you attend if we admitted you?” And if you say yes, you can get an admit on the spot, just because you’ve made their lives easier to call them. That kind of admit happens late cycle, not right now—it's a slow cycle.

Someone asked what my admissions friends are saying. What my admissions friends are saying right now is, and this is—I don't mean this to sound judgmental; it's just the view from the admissions offices—“We are getting bombarded with incredibly anxious people. And we get it, we're going slowly, but it’s doing them no good to be incredibly anxious.” So, a very calm professional email—even better by my estimation, a very calm professional phone call—to the admissions office, “Hey, this is Mike Spivey”—by the way don't say that, but—“Hey, this is Mike Spivey, I'm an applicant. And I just wanted, if anyone had time, I know you all are super busy, two to three minutes, just to let an admissions officer know you're my top school.” That kind of phone call differentiates because so few people do it. The kind of phone call where it's, “Hey, this is Mike Spivey and it's been four months. When am I going to get in the decision?” That also differentiates, but differentiates in a poor way.

So, let me end on the heuristic. If there's an update, if you're going to do something value-add, if you're going to do something upbeat and calm, if you're going to do something professional, fire out that email. But on the flip side, if you're really just reaching out to calm your own nerves, which are incredibly understandable. I'm nervous for people. It’s an incredibly slow cycle. But admits are coming, and they're going to let you know when you're admitted or waitlisted or denied. They're going to let you know. So, if you're doing it for those reasons, just to get an update, no, it's not a good idea to reach out. I hope this was helpful. This was Mike Spivey of the Spivey Consulting Group.

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Admissions

Employment

November 11, 2025

GW Law Dean Dayna Matthew on Law School Admissions, Employment, & the Future of Legal Education

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike has a conversation with Dayna Bowen Matthew, Dean of the George Washington University Law School, where she has led the law school since 2020. Prior to her time at GW, she was a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, the University of Colorado Law School, and the University of Kentucky College of Law, and she has served as a Senior Advisor to the Office of Civil Rights of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She is a graduate of Harvard University (AB), the University of Virginia School of Law (JD), and the University of Colorado (PhD).

Mike and Dean Matthew discuss the increase in law school applicants this cycle (7:42 and 18:11), advice for applying during a competitive cycle (12:16), how the large firm hiring process in law school has changed into something that "bears no resemblance" to how it worked for decades (5:11), how the public interest and government hiring process has changed as well (6:27), how AI could impact legal employment in the future (24:10), why she chose the law school where she attended (2:33), what she would do differently if she were applying today (3:36), how to assess law schools' varying "personalities" (13:22), the fungibility of a JD (16:45), advice for law students (18:53), and what it's like being a law school dean in 2025 (28:53).

You can read more about Dean Matthew here.

We discussed two additional podcast interviews in this episode:

Note: Due to an unexpected technical issue during recording, Mike's audio quality decreases from 7:35 onward. Apologies for any difficulties this may cause, and please note that we have a full transcript of the episode below.

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

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Correction: Dean Matthew's family reminded her that she actually applied to three law schools rather than two, including Harvard Law, where she received a denial.

As Emmy-winning news anchor Elizabeth Vargas stated in one of our recent episodes, "There is nobody out there who is at the top of their field, in any field, who has not been told 'no.'"

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Scholarships

October 28, 2025

Financial Aid & Student Loans After the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with Sydney Montgomery & Kristin Shea

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Spivey consultant and former admissions dean Nikki Laubenstein discusses the financial aid and student loan considerations that prospective law students should be thinking about post-“Big Beautiful Bill,” joined by Sydney Montgomery, who is the Executive Director & Founder of Barrier Breakers, and Kristin Shea, who has led the law school financial aid office at Syracuse University for almost a decade as a part of a 20-year career in legal education.

Nikki, Sydney, and Kristen talk about the changes to student loans and student loan caps resulting from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (9:53), the changes to repayment plans (36:08), who those changes apply to (5:31), the differences between undergraduate financial aid/scholarships and law school financial aid/scholarships (21:02), understanding tuition vs. total cost of attendance and how that relates to scholarship reconsideration and student loan caps (24:27), possible ways schools could help fill the gap especially for students targeting public interest jobs (38:31), advice for those planning to work while in law school (41:10), why prospective law students should start thinking about financial aid earlier on in the admissions process than most do (30:57), and more.

Barrier Breakers is a nonprofit that has worked with 7,000+ first-generation and other marginalized students on the college and law school application process. Sydney Montgomery, the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant mother and military parents, was the first person from her high school to go to Princeton University and then later Harvard Law School. She has dedicated her life and career to supporting first-generation students and has a particular passion for financial aid. She is a member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council and has been featured in Inc., Forbes, FastCompany, Medium, CNBC, and others.

Kristin Shea is a higher education professional with twenty years of experience, including law school enrollment management, recruitment, and financial aid; alumni, donor, and employer relations; and marketing and communications. The last decade of her career has been dedicated to financial aid, and she is passionate about helping law students make smart, thoughtful financial plans for their education. She holds a bachelor's degree in biology and psychology and an MBA from Le Moyne College.

We hope to do a follow-up episode in the spring with more information on how law schools are addressing these changes. We also encourage you to reach out to the financial aid offices of schools you're considering once admitted to learn about any programs they may offer and any assistance they can provide. As Kristin says in this episode, "The map may have some alternative directions, but you can still reach your destination, and there are many people who want to help." We have also linked a number of financial aid resources below.

Financial Aid & Student Loan Resources

Federal Student Aid:

AccessLex Institute Resources:

Student Loan Calculator | AccessLex
Student Aid Policy and Action Center | AccessLex
Paying for Law School | AccessLex
Guide to Private Student Loans | AccessLex
Scholarship Databank | AccessLex – includes more than 800 law scholarship and writing competitions (totaling more than $3M).

Free Credit Report:
Annual Credit Report.com - Home Page

Equal Justice Works – LRAP FAQ
Important Questions to Ask About Any LRAP - Equal Justice Works

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

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Well-Being

Motivation

October 14, 2025

Emmy-Winning News Anchor Elizabeth Vargas on Overcoming Professional Setbacks and Anxiety

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Elizabeth Vargas, journalist and television news anchor, on her journey to learning how to cope healthily with lifelong anxiety and panic attacks, on overcoming professional setbacks, and on advice for young people facing the stresses of the LSAT, law school admissions, law school, and finding legal employment.

Elizabeth Vargas anchors “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” (weeknights, 7 p.m. ET), an hour-long weekday news program that debuted April 3, 2023 on NewsNation. Vargas has traveled the world covering breaking news stories, reporting in-depth investigations, and conducting newsmaker interviews. She previously hosted the hit newsmagazine show “20/20” on ABC for 15 years, served as Co-Anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, and was a news anchor and frequent host of “Good Morning America.” She also hosted A&E Investigates, a series of documentaries that still air on Hulu.

In 2016, Vargas released her memoir, Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction, which spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won numerous awards. Vargas is a member of the board of directors for the non-profit Partnership to End Addiction and hosts “Heart of the Matter,” a podcast focused on addiction, recovery, and the stigma so many face in their effort to heal.

Vargas mentions and recommends writer Mary Karr's books, The Liars' Club and Lit, in this episode.

Mike also discusses our interview with Justin Ishbia, who was the last person admitted to Vanderbilt Law from the waitlist when he applied and now owns the Phoenix Suns.

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

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