News

24 Apr 2025

Implications of Executive Branch Order Targeting College Accrediting Bodies, Including the American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to The Bar

On April 23rd, the White House issued an Executive Order titled “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education,” targeting the accrediting bodies of colleges, law schools, and medical schools. This, among other things, would seem to aim to embolden the federal government’s decision-making process through which colleges, universities, law schools (where we will focus), and medical schools can access billions of dollars in federal student loans and Pell grants. Put in other terms, it coul

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09 Apr 2025

Law School and Higher Education Rankings Thoughts

I've been asked too many times to count to comment on the U.S. News 2025 law school rankings release a few days ago.

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24 Feb 2025

Statement on the February 14, 2025 “OCR Dear Colleague letter” sent by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights

On February 14th, Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights for the Department of Education, sent the following Dear Colleague memo. Note that this has precedent. The OCR has sent numerous Dear Colleague letters in the past, none of which are legally binding. At face value, they are simply memos with no authority, although they do serve as leading indicators of potential legal action that the Department of Education may consider trying to adopt. But, as the Ninth Circuit Court o

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15 Dec 2023

List of Law Schools with Authorization to Accept JD-Next (with no LSAT/GRE)

Thirty-three law schools have obtained variances from the ABA to accept the JD-Next exam results in lieu of the LSAT or GRE. Here's a list of those 33 schools!

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17 Nov 2023

Upcoming Growth & Diversification at the Spivey Consulting Group

Today has a special meaning to me, and I write to outline our firm’s upcoming growth and diversification of services in 2024.

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11 Jul 2023

Podcast: Dean Z on the Future of Law School Admissions + Other Admissions Questions (Part 2)

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike continues his conversation with Dean Sarah Zearfoss (also known as "Dean Z").

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01 Jul 2023

Podcast: What the SCOTUS Admissions Decision Means for Law School Applicants

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses the recent Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court decision—which ruled against the legality of race-conscious admissions or "affirmative action"—and what it means for law school applicants, particularly applicants of color.

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11 May 2023

2023-24 U.S. News Law School Rankings: This Year vs. Last Year (+/-)

After a long, winding, grueling path to get here, we finally have the 2023-2024 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. Here are the new rankings with +/-.

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17 Apr 2023

What's Going On with the U.S. News Rankings Delay?

Just as the most tumultuous rankings season we have ever seen seemed to be settling, and U.S. News had both publicly released their top 14 law schools and the full embargoed rankings to all law schools, the following email was sent to deans.

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12 Apr 2023

U.S. News Significantly Reduces the Weight of LSAT/GRE & GPA. What's Next?

A few months ago, many law schools announced they would boycott sending U.S. News direct (and non-third party audited) data, essentially forcing U.S. News to change their methodology. The rates of the admissions metrics were significantly reduced. What does this mean?

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