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Is law school admissions the most numbers-oriented of the professional graduate schools?
Dates & advice for law school forums and fairs.
From September through late November, most admissions officers are on the road. They crisscross the nation visiting colleges and universities (which is a pretty wonderful way to get paid). The nearly only downside is that this travel gets repetitious — not just in staying in hotel beds every night, but in hearing the same thing at every school. But it is because I lived through this repetition that I can dispel just about every bad piece of admissions advice you have heard from a fellow student.
For the record we (and many law admissions officers we know) don’t necessarily agree with the terminology “gap” — which originated to describe the space between a year off before going to undergraduate. But semantics be damned, here [http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/articles/2015/05/14/smart-ways-to-make-the-most-of-gap-years-before-law-school] is the article. - Getting ready t
Dear Spivey: Do you think there are many schools that admit (a) nobody with both a below-their-median LSAT and a below-their-median UGPA, or (b) no both-below folks other than diverse students?
What will the 2015-2016 law school admissions cycle look like?
We measured 28 dimensions and received over 3,000 votes. The following is a rank order of what matters most in selecting which law school one ultimately attends:
We reached out to a number of friends at law schools and at firms and companies to see what things applicants did that made them grouchy (pro tip — it isn’t in your best interest to make them grouchy!) This is what we got, not surprisingly a good deal related to emails. - 1. When they launch into a sales presentation about themselves the moment we meet -* CEO of Company* 2. Sending emails without subjects
Highly likely it’s not. Unless the applicant is some form of “special interest,” meaning that they have people who are donors interested in their admission, connections to the law school itself, etc. you really wouldn’t defer someone just to intentionally deny them later. That isn’t doing either you or them any favors. Rather, you defer them to see how your numbers look throughout the entirety of the cycle. At some point almost every school, including T3, will say “our medians look like x and z
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews best-selling author Brad Stulberg (whose books include Master of Change, The Practice of Groundedness, Peak Performance, and The Passion Paradox) on how to make real and lasting change in your life. Brad and Mike discuss why we resist change, elective vs. forced change, identity, and how to actually make your New Year's Resolution stick.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Dr. Peter Grinspoon—physician, Harvard Medical School instructor, and author of Free Refills: A Doctor Confronts His Addiction, in which he writes about his struggles with and recovery from opiate addiction. Mike and Dr. Grinspoon discuss mental health and wellness for high performers, why lawyers have such high rates of addiction and depression, antidotes for the factors that lead to these high rates, the story of Dr. Grinspoon's 2019 debate on medical marijuana at Yale Law School, and more.
Listeners of this podcast are welcome to contact Dr. Grinspoon via his website, www.petergrinspoon.com—he loves talking to students, is able to discuss sensitive and confidential questions, and responds to all communications personally.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco, Spivey Consulting's new President, discusses common mistakes that applicants make in the second part of their admissions cycle—after they've submitted their applications.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna has a conversation with Joe Pollak—one of Spivey's consultants and a former admissions officer at the University of Michigan Law School—about differences and similarities in law school admissions today vs. ten years ago. Anna brings the perspective of someone who was applying to law school a decade ago, while Joe brings his perspective as a Michigan Law admissions officer at the time. They talk about changes in the competitiveness of admissions, the LSAT, the availability of standardized data and good information, what applicants are doing differently, what admissions offices are doing differently, and more.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, current applicant and Redditor Extension_Ad_1432, who we call "Julia," interviews Spivey Consulting's new President, Anna Hicks-Jaco—unscripted and unprepared, "Ask Me Anything"-style—on anything and everything that was on her mind. They discuss factors impacting this cycle, advice for applicants who applied early but still haven't heard back, weighing law school choices between a higher scholarship or a higher ranked school, scholarship reconsideration, public interest career goals, and more. Huge thank you to "Julia" for some insightful questions and a great conversation!
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this brief episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses the changes U.S. News made to their methodology this year.
You can view the full list of new law school rankings (with +/-) here. You can listen to Mike's last podcast, "Why Rankings Matter to People (& Why They Should Not)," here.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
Please note: When Mike discusses U.S. News rounding up or down at .5 for different "schools," we mean "metrics" and not schools.
