*Note: We have limited availability for Single Application Reviews for the 2025-26 cycle—sign up here.
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Admissions officers are settling into a winter of reading, and the file review process is really just beginning to get into full swing for most of them. So when will decisions be coming out?
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.
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.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco has a conversation with two Spivey consultants, Peter Cramer and Tom Robinson (you can read their bios here), on differences in the admissions process for international applicants, how law school admissions has changed for international students over time, and our best advice for strategically navigating the current realities of the application process.
Two of our blog posts are referenced in this episode—our sample personal statements (the essay Tom references is #5!) and a few sample letters of recommendation.
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, five Spivey consultants discuss their experiences as first-generation college students, law students, and lawyers, with a particular focus on passing along advice and knowledge that they wish they had known.
The episode includes Sir Williams, Derek Meeker, Sam Kwak, Peter Cramer, and Rob Cacace, who, among their numerous other accomplishments, have served as law school admissions officers at Stanford, UChicago, Penn, Northwestern, Georgetown, WashU, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin. They have also clerked for federal judges, worked for biglaw firms, led law school career services offices, created pipeline programs, taught law school classes, and published legal writing textbooks. You can read their bios here.
You can listen to the transfer applicant podcast Derek mentioned in this episode here. You can listen to the rankings podcast from Mike Spivey that Rob mentions here.
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, Mike discusses some of the psychological and societal reasons that rankings seem to matter so much to people—then explains the reasons that they shouldn't matter as much as they do.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
