Learn why being too nice can hurt your scholarship process and how to avoid this common mistake.
On insecurity in admissions.
There is nothing more difficult in the admissions process than being wait-listed. For 175+ years as a company we have seen students in law school admissions who have been admitted, wait-listed and denied, and they nearly universally express that the denial was easier than languishing on a wait-list for a drawn-out period. The irony is that just about every
Here you have it – two pieces of advice that are not only going to contradict a great deal of what you read online, but which also seem to contradict each other: 1. If you retake the LSAT your score is not likely to go up substantially or beyond the measurement of error for the first test. 2. You should likely retake the LSAT. In
I have been following law school discussion forums for a long time. Much has changed over the years, but the next three mistakes have stayed pretty much constant. For #6, we will focus on undergraduate grade point average (uGPA). Invariably, at some point in the admissions cycle, a phenomenon along the lines of the following happens in numerous panicky threads online (a
Three common mistakes that admissions officers have noticed with increasing frequency.
Vapid, dull, emotionless...
What I am referring to here is a reliance on historical data – particularly data from last year. In the top 10 rankings of applicants mistakes for the class of 2016, this is the only one where there is a great deal of overlap for law schools. In other words, law schools make this mistake just as much as (or more than) law students. It is harming both students and schools alike. But, I
An upcoming series.
In this podcast, Spivey Consulting Group founder Mike Spivey discusses one of the most common mistakes in law school admissions that we see from applicants who have underperformed their numbers — overdoing it in the admissions process — then details the most common types of applicants this happens to: the "over-explainer," the "over-spammer," the "over-[publicly] talker," the "permutator," and the "boundary pusher."
You can find the blog post Mike mentions in the podcast, "Spooky Halloween Blog: Real Stories of Things That Creep Out Admissions Offices" (examples of the most extreme "boundary pushers"), here.
You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
And for our free tool for comparing law schools/medians/data, check out My Rank.
Mike Spivey served as a law school dean of career services during the Great Recession, and in this podcast he shares actionable advice for legal networking that you won't hear from your CSO.
Listen below via YouTube, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
Mike was asked by a rivals.com affiliate to speak about higher education as it relates to the upcoming fall athletic season. Listen to the interview below:
Spivey Consulting Group · VandySports Podcast Academics, athletics and COVID-19
Chances are, if you're applying to a healthy range of target, safety, and reach schools, you're likely to get a waitlist or two (at least!). Especially if it happens relatively early in the cycle, or if it's your first decision, a waitlist can be difficult to interpret and hard to know how to respond. In this podcast, Mike Spivey talks about what to do when you get your first waitlist.
Our podcast is embedded below, but here are also links to podcasts/videos mentioned in this podcast:
And a bonus link: Blog — Every piece of Spivey Consulting Law School Waitlist Advice
You can listen to this podcast below, or via SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
Please note that our reservation list for next cycle (2021-2022) is now open.
In this podcast, Mike Spivey predicts what to expect as far as the timing of admissions decisions this year, then discusses the preliminary LSAC data that has applicants wondering whether this will be a far more competitive cycle than normal.
You can also listen to this podcast on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts, or read the transcript below.
A 3-minute motivational podcast inspired by the William Feather quote, "Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go."
I think there is something extra and meaningful we can take from Feather's words, particularly as it relates to law school applicants. Because even in the holding on, in the inevitable ups and downs of the law school admissions cycle, job search, career challenges in a world that can seem unforgiving and cruel at times, there is always growth and very often triumph at the end of any long and worthy cause.