Admissions

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Blog Posts

December 18, 2024
New Law School Admissions Data from the 2024 ABA-Required 509 Disclosures: Thoughts & Analysis

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.

November 13, 2024
What happens to your application once it is submitted to law schools?

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.

November 1, 2024
Accurate Names & Abbreviations for Law Schools

A list of how the top 50-ish schools refer to themselves in their marketing materials.

August 15, 2024
PSA on Misinformation in the Law School Admissions Consulting Industry

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.

August 1, 2024
Law School Application Opening Dates 2024

When will law school applications open for the 2024-2025 admissions cycle? Here's the full list.

July 29, 2024
How to Create Your Law School 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.

July 16, 2024
All Things [Admissions] Considered

There are thousands of ways to differentiate yourself in law school admissions—here's a list of some of those ways.

June 13, 2024
New Law School Diversity Statements (“Life Experience/Perspective Essays”): FAQ

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.

June 3, 2024
Generative AI and the Law School Personal Statement

Here are some thoughts and guidelines on how to navigate the use of generative AI tools in your law school application process.

Podcasts

August 29, 2023
What to Expect in the 2023-24 Law School Admissions Cycle (+ Q&A) with Mike Spivey & Anna Hicks-Jaco

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike has a conversation with Spivey Consulting's COO Anna Hicks-Jaco about what to expect during the upcoming cycle, her perspective as both a recent Dean of Admissions and relatively recent applicant, and advice for applicants getting ready to apply.

Mike and Anna mention several resources and past podcasts in this episode:

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

October 11, 2023
What's Wrong with the LSAT? + What is JD-Next? with Craig Boise & Dan Rodriguez

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, two experienced and respected law school Deans—Craig Boise, Dean of Syracuse University College of Law, and Daniel Rodriguez, former Dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law—discuss the history, the present, and the future of law school admissions and legal education. Their conversation covers a range of topics, including problems with the LSAT, the recent test-optional proposal to the ABA, the impacts that the U.S. News law school rankings have had on legal education (and their thoughts on the new methodology changes), and a new pathway to law school admissions, JD-Next.

You can find basic information on JD-Next, as well as a list of schools that have been granted variances to accept JD-Next in lieu of another admissions test (LSAT or GRE), here.

Craig Boise is the Dean of Syracuse University College of Law, where he is currently completing his final year in that role, after which he will be working with colleges, universities, and law schools as a part of Spivey Consulting Group. He is a Member of the Council of the ABA Section on Legal Education, previously served on the ABA’s Standards Review Committee and the Steering Committee of the AALS’s Deans’ Forum, and served as Dean of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He holds a JD from the University of Chicago Law School and an LLM in Tax from NYU School of Law.

Daniel Rodriguez is a current professor and former Dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He served as President of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in 2014 and served as Dean of the University of San Diego School of Law from 1998 to 2005. He holds a JD from Harvard Law School.

September 11, 2023
How Important is Work Experience in Law School Admissions?

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses a question we receive often (especially lately, in light of the most recent U.S. News law school ranking methodology changes that significantly emphasized job outcomes over admissions metrics)—just how important is work experience in the law school application process?

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

October 17, 2023
Mike Spivey's Top 5 All-Time Admissions Advice

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike gives his top 5 pieces of advice from his 20+ years working in law school admissions.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠Stitcher⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Google Podcasts⁠⁠.

December 6, 2023
Handling Expectations & the LSAT with ‘Loophole’ Author Ellen Cassidy

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Ellen Cassidy, author of the acclaimed Loophole in LSAT Logical Reasoning and founder of Elemental Prep, on LSAT strategies, handling expectations (both from others and self-imposed), trends in law school applicants/LSAT-takers over time, and more. Ellen, as an LSAT expert and former applicant who was admitted to Harvard Law but turned them down thrice, has a great many nuggets of wisdom to share about confidence, bad advice, mentorship, destiny, and imaginary ceilings. Listen below.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠Stitcher⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Google Podcasts⁠⁠.

November 11, 2023
The Slowest Cycle Ever

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses the reasons that this law school admissions cycle will be the slowest one ever (or at least within our admissions careers)—and, perhaps more importantly, what you should do about it if you're a current applicant.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠Stitcher⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Google Podcasts⁠⁠.