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.
Please note: we will stop accepting submissions for this program on Thursday, June 20, 2024, at 11:59 PM EST.
Here are three examples of law school letters of recommendation, two academic and one professional, two for regular 1L JD admissions and one for transfer admission.
For several years now, the focus of law school admissions offices has been trending more and more toward employability. What does this mean for law school admissions strategy?
If you've been following our content this cycle, you know that we are predicting that this will be the slowest law school admissions cycle we've ever seen. How does that decelerated pace affect what counts as "late" to apply?
Here's a glossary of some of the most common law school admissions-related acronyms, abbreviations, and terminology.
If you're planning to apply to law school, you may be wondering, which law schools employ interviews as a part of their admissions process? Info here.
We have seen more law schools making changes to their application components and instructions this cycle than in any other we can recall. For your reference, we will be compiling these changes below, adding new schools as their applications and instructions are posted.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco interviews Sam Parker, Spivey’s newest admissions consultant, on her top 25 (or so) strategic law school admissions insights from her years as Associate Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School. They discuss advice for prospective law students getting ready to apply for the 2025-2026 cycle (8:25), advice for recent college graduates (44:55), and advice for current undergraduate students planning to apply to law school in the future (1:04:54). They cover topics including application timing (10:59), over-sharing in essays (19:00), when and how applicants’ online activity can be a red flag in admissions (33:30), faculty admissions committees (16:40), the importance of work experience (8:24 & 44:15), and much more. You can read Sam’s full bio here!
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode below.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, we have our third and final interview with "John" (not his real name; u/Muvanji on Reddit), who we've followed throughout his law school admissions cycle for 2024-2025. John discusses his final decision on where to attend, his process of requesting scholarship reconsideration, his decision not to pursue waitlists, admitted students days, what he's looking forward to in law school, and his thoughts and reflections on the law school admissions process now that it's over.
Prior episodes with John:
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode below.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike Spivey and Anna Hicks-Jaco have a conversation with Sarah Zearfoss (also known as "Dean Z"), who has long led the admissions office at the University of Michigan Law School as Senior Assistant Dean and who hosts the admissions podcast A2Z with Dean Z.
The group discusses using generative AI to write your essays vs. to research admissions advice (including asking ChatGPT a few admissions questions and critiquing its answers), the prospect of law schools using AI to evaluate applications, grade inflation (and how admissions officers saw it before open access to generative AI vs. now), application timing (and how early applications correlate to stronger admit rates without necessarily causing them), and more. Plus, Dean Z introduces a new question being added to Michigan Law's application this upcoming 2025-2026 cycle.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode below.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses the various factors that are at play for this cycle's waitlist season, his predictions for how it will go, and his advice for waitlisted applicants. For more on waitlist strategy, check out our Waitlist Deep Dive podcast episode!
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode below.