The 2024 (published 2023) U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Rankings were released today—here are the top 50 national universities with plus/minuses.
Apparently U.S. News has decided to pretend that its botched rankings rollout never happened. That transparency is overrated, or at least, that it only applies to law schools, not to U.S. News. And that law schools are to blame for the rankings fiasco this year. Let's recap. On April 11th U.S. News posted a "preview" of the new law school rankings, including a list of the top 14 schools; it said the full list would be available April 18. This was likely an attempt to (1) preempt possible leaks,
After a long, winding, grueling path to get here, we finally have the 2023-2024 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. Here are the new rankings with +/-.
U.S. News' CEO Eric Gertler was part of a panel at Lafayette College on May 2nd. This blog focuses on what Mr. Gertler said about the U.S. News rankings—specifically, their relationship to the First Amendment and freedom of speech.
Just as the most tumultuous rankings season we have ever seen seemed to be settling, and U.S. News had both publicly released their top 14 law schools and the full embargoed rankings to all law schools, the following email was sent to deans.
A few months ago, many law schools announced they would boycott sending U.S. News direct (and non-third party audited) data, essentially forcing U.S. News to change their methodology. The rates of the admissions metrics were significantly reduced. What does this mean?
U.S. News has yet to publicly release the full 2023-2024 law school rankings, but today they released the Top 14 with their new methodology.
A recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out that U.S. News runs different permutations of the rankings before committing to one methodology. So we thought it might be interesting to explore what different results would look like from various methodologies in the upcoming edition, to be released in a few weeks. Because of the boycott U.S. News has announced that it plans to use publicly available data, e.g. information available through the American Bar Association. They will still use the
U.S. News & World Report is not sitting idle while its rankings come under fire. The CEO published an article in the Wall Street Journal offering his views on the rankings boycott. We have some thoughts.
In this podcast, Spivey Consulting Group founder Mike Spivey discusses Harvard Law School's recent announcement that all classes will be held fully remotely for Fall 2020 — what does it mean for other law schools, for international students, the ABA, and current applicants? Will this cause more waitlist movement? What about deferrals? Plus, a bit of a look into what the 2020-2021 cycle might bring.
Listen below, or via SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
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.
