Advice

01 Aug 2013

...and the OCI Madness begins

A deranged student sent the following email to a close friend and CSO officer this morning. Redacted: I woke up this morning and was disappointed to see that I did not have any job offers from any of the firms I applied to last night. Some of them have had my application materials for nearly 12 hours now, so I went ahead and sent them all very angry and profane letters of retraction. So here is his dilemma. How do you get all of the hiring partners to click on the user recalled email in their

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08 Jul 2013

Majoring in Minor Things

When you are a Dean of Admissions, or an Admissions Consultant for that matter, seemingly innocuous everyday sights have a way of relating back to the admissions process. I saw this shirt and it had me thinking how annoyed admissions officers get when applicants confuse “you’re” from “your” or “there” from “their.” That, then, got me thinking about how annoyances to admissions officers can make all the difference between admit and deny. In other words, you are clicking away, getting to know the

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02 Jul 2013

5 Pieces of Advice From a Recent 1L

A rising 2L was kind enough to submit this piece of advice for everyone heading to Law School. It is both humorous and credited — and much appreciated. Feel free to submit your advice to us at info@spiveyconsulting.com. If it is good, it’ll be on here (…and then up on the top of your resume too). Five observations from a 1L #5: There is such a thing as too much Chipotle. Crafty universities have used the free lunch for decades to keep students from rioting over tuition. Law School is no diffe

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11 Jun 2013

How to Survive the LSAT Score Release Wait

(Guest blog from someone who has been there, and scored in the upper 170s!) If you’re reading this, you’re likely sitting at your desk pondering each LSAT question that you can remember, analyzing score charts, and trying to predict the curve. As a test taker who has survived three score release waits, I’ve compiled some suggestions to help you get through this anxious time. 1. Try to relax. You worked hard to prepare for the LSAT and you gave it your best effort, you deserve to unwind no

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16 May 2013

Want to make a really good first impression to an admissions dean or hiring partner?

This is a simple way to differentiate yourself, yet my experience has been that only about 1% of applicants and 5% of law students do it. But 50% of professionals do. Before I reveal it, a very quick backstory is necessary. Without this understanding, I think it is hard to genuinely “get” what I am about to say. The backstory is simply that professionals are really busy, often stressed, and at times frantic. Moreover, they know all of this. Anything tedious that requires a shred of time increas

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23 Apr 2013

Mistake #1: You are too nice

See previous – Mistake #2: Shangri-Law [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/mistake-2-shangri-law/] This was an easy “#1 mistake for 2012/2013″ because while the amount of scholarship money available is on the rise, I have not seen a corresponding increase in the amount of leverage admitted students exercise or sophistication with which they negotiate. Indeed, if anything, I have seen an increase in anxiety this year — perhaps because there is more money on the line. Even the advice of some of the

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17 Apr 2013

Mistake #2: Shangri-Law

See previous – Mistake #3: The Fight Club In You [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/mistake-3-the-fight-club-in-you/] Disclaimer: this relates to those seeking BigLaw and not government, clerkships, academic jobs or anything that is not BigLaw. This could, and perhaps should, be about a few things. Law school itself is not exactly Shangri-La. Nor is trying to get into the best law school, and to go, at all costs. But you guys are preached about this over and over — in the media, on blogs, by fa

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16 Apr 2013

Mistake #3: The Fight Club In You

See previous — Mistake #4: The Waiting is the Hardest Part [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/mistake-4-the-waiting-is-the-hardest-part/] (Note: Data updated to include the 2016-2017 cycle) Fight Club was a great book, a really good movie, and gave the world one of its best aphorisms when referring to humans — “unique and beautiful snowflake.” Perhaps in no place is this more applicable than in admissions. So much so, I’ve already blogged about it in our Mistake #10 [http://blog.spiveyconsultin

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16 Apr 2013

Mistake #4: The Waiting is the Hardest Part

See previous – Mistake #5: "Oxymoronic" LSAT Advice [https://spiveyconsulting.ghost.io/mistake-5-oxymoronic-lsat-advice/] Update 3/27/2020 There is nothing more difficult in the admissions process than being wait-listed. For 175+ years as a company we have seen students in law school admissions who have been admitted, wait-listed and denied, and they nearly universally express that the denial was easier than languishing on a wait-list for a drawn-out period. The irony is that just about every

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03 Apr 2013

Mistake #5: "Oxymoronic" LSAT Advice

See previous – Mistake #6: "Help my GPA has fallen and it can't get up" [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/mistake-6-help-my-gpa-has-fallen-and-it-cant-get-up/] Here you have it – two pieces of advice that are not only going to contradict a great deal of what you read online, but which also seem to contradict each other: 1. If you retake the LSAT your score is not likely to go up substantially or beyond the measurement of error for the first test. 2. You should likely retake the LSAT. In

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