Data

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Blog Posts

April 14, 2020
Mean Salaries Of First Year Law School Graduates

For the first time ever, the Department of Education has released these figures.

April 1, 2020
LSAT score restoration (“zombie scores”) numbers

This is a first ever, and we are grateful to LSAC for sharing this data with us.

March 1, 2020
Cycle Data as of March 1st

Hi everyone, we're back with another data update. February is over, and it's been an interesting month for applicant and application volume. At this point last cycle, we had about 75% of our final applicant volume.

January 30, 2020
Cycle Data as of January 29th

Going forward we'll resume posting these after the 1st of each new month, but we'll be a bit too busy watching the Super Bowl to write this up on Sunday, so you get it now!

January 10, 2020
Brief LSAT Volume Update

LSAC has published the final counts for the November 2019 LSAT.

January 2, 2020
2019-2020 Cycle Volume as of January 1st

Happy New Year everyone! This marks the start of the "2020" part in the "2019-2020" application cycle.

December 28, 2019
Analyzing and Understanding Conditional Scholarships

One of the most important factors when deciding where to attend law school is your scholarship. What does it mean if that scholarship is conditional?

December 19, 2019
Mid-December Data Update

November 2019 LSAT scores are being released today. Congratulations to all those who took that test!

December 13, 2019
An in-depth analysis of the 2019 law school admissions & entering class data

The ABA has released the 2019 509 reports, so it's time for us to dive in and see what kind of information and trends can be gleaned from the data.

Podcasts

November 2, 2021
Diary of a Law School Applicant's Cycle: Episode 1 (Pre-Submission)

In this episode, Mike interviews a current applicant (who we'll call "Barb") about her application process so far. 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, we talk through her motivations for going to law school, her school list, the three different personal statement topics she's debating between, and more.

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

November 20, 2020
How the LSAT-Flex Has Changed the Admissions Cycle

In this podcast, Mike Spivey talks about the LSAT-Flex, particularly is it relates to timelines and the pace of admissions this cycle. It is important to note that LSAT scores are higher at the top bandwidths right now than one would expect in any cycle. There are several hypotheses out there for why that is.

LSAC maintains that they will organically come down to natural levels. Spivey Consulting (and others we should note) believes that we won't maintain this pace of increase, just like every cycle, but that we are already past the point where they could come down to "natural" levels barring some extremely inorganic occurrence, and that until now law schools have been trying to figure this equation out. To LSAC's credit, they have provided law schools with data that we think should now speed up the pace of admitting for the cycle — although exactly when and at what pace that happens is still impossible to predict.

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.

August 1, 2020
Admissions Q&A with Mike Spivey

In this video, Spivey Consulting Group founder Mike Spivey answers questions from r/lawschooladmissions on strategies for splitters, international students, non-traditional applicants, reapplicants, and more.

You can also listen to the interview as a podcast on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.

June 27, 2020
University, College, and Law School COVID-19 Update & An Alternative Model

COVID-19 isn't going anywhere in the near future, yet only 3 law schools and only 8% of universities and colleges have announced they will be entirely remote for fall 2020.

What is the most recent update, and is there a middle ground that can be reached to decrease on-campus density so that the likelihood of cluster outbreaks is significantly reduced?

Watch below, or listen on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.

June 4, 2019
What makes for successful law school admission?

Spivey Consulting Partner Mike Spivey talks about the two primary things at the highest order that make applications stand out and elevate in the admissions process.

September 8, 2016
“When is it early/When is it late?” in the admissions cycle

Danielle Early and Mike Spivey speak for 30 minutes on application submission timing. And a bit more below from Michigan Law Dean of Admissions Sarah Zearfoss.

Here is Dean Z.:

"Totally agree that before Thanksgiving is “early” in any school’s universe. All law school admissions officers are hitting the bricks from mid-September to mid-November; some offices are structured in a way that allows them to make some decisions despite the travel schedule, but the number of offers are a mere pittance compared to the overall number that will be made. People who don’t have their applications in when they start hearing about early September acceptances might feel dismayed, and worry that by the time they apply, nothing will be left—but that’s not even close to true. In general, I would advise people to try to get their applications in before the 1st of the year, simply because most people apply after that, creating a bottleneck. That means your outcome might be slowed down, which will be anxiety producing, but it doesn’t mean you’ll not get admitted because your application is somehow fatally “late.”

Remember, too, that some schools take a lot of care with their applications. If you want to be judged on factors apart from/in addition to your LSAT and UGPA, then try to have some patience with the fact that those holistic processes are necessarily time intensive.

It’s all good practice for being a lawyer. Judges take a lot of time about issuing their opinions, and seem not to take into account that the lawyer submitted a kick-ass brief and did a stellar oral argument."

And the podcast: