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This week, the American Bar Association published this year's required 509 disclosures—standardized data on admissions, enrollment, scholarships, faculty, and more. We took a look at that data, and here are our early takeaways.
There is often a shroud of mystery among applicants once they submit their applications. As former admissions officers, we'll walk you through how the process tends to work.
A list of how the top 50-ish schools refer to themselves in their marketing materials.
As we have podcasted on before, misinformation in the law school admissions process comes from all directions, and law school admissions consulting firms claiming to be experts (with little or no real admissions experience) are a growing source.
When will law school applications open for the 2024-2025 admissions cycle? Here's the full list.
In this post, we hope to help you think through the mountain of information and choices out there so that you can set yourself up for a successful application cycle.
There are thousands of ways to differentiate yourself in law school admissions—here's a list of some of those ways.
We have received many questions about law schools' new life experience/perspective essays (formerly categorized as diversity statements). Here are our answers to the most common ones.
Here are some thoughts and guidelines on how to navigate the use of generative AI tools in your law school application process.
In this episode, Mike and our consultant Danielle Early (former Associate Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School) talk about safety schools and backup plans. How do you choose the right range of schools where your worst-case scenario is an outcome you can live with? For some that might be a law school where they're well above both medians; for others that might be taking a year off to continue their job or gain new work experience. If you take a year off, how will you strengthen your application? Should you plan to matriculate to a safety school but then transfer out? When is too late in the cycle to add a safety school to your list? Mike and Danielle discuss these possibilities and the factors to consider when you make your backup plan — which everyone applying to law school should consider, especially in a competitive cycle.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, we continue our interview series with "Barb," a current applicant. Barb is a splitter with a 176 LSAT and a 3.1 GPA, and she's also a non-traditional applicant with 10+ years of full-time work experience after college. In this interview, she and Mike discuss the many emotions and anxieties that come up after you hit that "submit" button, what to expect as far as a timeline for hearing back from schools, and the potential implications of the Omicron variant for admitted students' days.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
Another note, for applicants who may be beginning to think about preparing for the academic rigors of 1L — our Pre-L program just started accepting students, and we are temporarily offering last year's rates through January 15. More below:
Prepare for 1L with Our One-on-One Pre-L Classes
To help you get a jumpstart on what law school actually entails and on 1L preparation, we are launching our eighth year of Pre-L packages for applicants enrolling in Fall 2022.
This year, we’re offering last year’s Pre-L rates for anyone who signs up by January 15th. The 2022 packages have added content and resources, but we have locked in our 2021 prices through that date. The sessions can take place later in the year; the discounted pricing applies to those who sign up before the 15th.
Pre-L offers one-on-one training in law school prep, career prep, and/or writing training. We have different packages to prepare you for the hidden curriculum of 1L, the turbulent job market, and the rigors of learning lawyers' key skill: legal writing. We've helped students at top schools earn the results they want and prepare for a fast-paced job cycle. If you're interested in reserving a spot, send a note to info@spiveyconsulting.com, and we'll set up time for a quick phone call to discuss availability and which package/s would work best for you.
In this episode, Mike and one of our Spivey consultants Karen Buttenbaum (former Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School) catch up with u/lightningmcboops (who we call "Megan"), one of r/lawschoolsadmissions' regular posters from last cycle, who went through the most difficult cycle we have ever seen without receiving a single rejection. After ultimately choosing Stanford Law over Harvard, Megan matriculated to law school in fall 2021 and just completed her first semester.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, Mike speaks with an applicant from Reddit who we'll call "Ryan Reynolds" (you know, just for fun). Ryan has a 178 LSAT and a 3.8 undergraduate GPA, and while he blanketed the top 20 law schools, he has received only waitlists and denials so far this cycle (as of February) despite having applied early on. Mike and Ryan discuss the factors that have likely contributed to this, both at the larger-scale level as far as the nature and pace of this 2021-2022 cycle, and more specifically as it pertains to his application and potential points for improvement.
After reading Ryan's applications, we are very confident that he will be receiving admits this cycle, and we will provide an update in a later episode when he does!
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, Mike gives an update on the data for the 2021-2022 cycle as of early February. He discusses what to expect for median increases/decreases after this cycle, what's going to happen this waitlist season, what to expect for transfer admissions this year, and some early preliminary predictions for next cycle.
Note: You may notice that the data Mike references in this episode is slightly different from the numbers that LSAC publishes. This is because LSAC reports only an applicant's ultimate high score, even if they didn't achieve that score until months or even years after the date in question. As a result, LSAC data overstates prior cycle high scores, whereas we keep track of the volume data as it was on the actual corresponding date last cycle.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
One additional note on our availability for admissions consulting this year. If you are still planning to apply for the current 2021-2022 admissions cycle, and you are looking for full application services, we will only be taking package clients for one more week, ending February 16 (just reach out to us at info@spiveyconsulting.com to learn more). However, we also want to note that we very well may not recommend that you use our consulting services this year. This applies at any stage of the cycle, but especially now—we never want to take a cent of anyone's money if we don't think we can genuinely add value.
In this episode, we speak with Dr. Judson Brewer about proven, concrete strategies to manage anxiety, including how to apply them for LSAT-related test anxiety and the stress of waiting for admissions results. Dr. Jud Brewer is a New York Times best-selling author, neuroscientist, addiction psychiatrist, and thought leader in the field of habit change. He is the director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he also serves as an associate professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences in the School of Public Health. He is the executive medical director of behavioral health at Sharecare and a research affiliate at MIT. Dr. Jud has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including treatments for smoking, emotional eating, and anxiety. He is the author of “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind” and “The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love, Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits”.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
Links to resources from Dr. Jud Brewer:
