Rankings

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Blog Posts

September 9, 2019
2020 US News Undergraduate Rankings

U.S. News & World Report 2020 Undergraduate Rankings (released 2019).

September 3, 2019
Mike Spivey's My Rank Top 50 Law Schools

As many of you know, we have spent the past several months developing a tool for prospective law school applicants to create their own customized law school rankings.

August 13, 2019
About the USNWR Peer & Lawyer/Judge Scores

These scores should be thought of as not leading the rankings but being led by the rankings.

May 6, 2019
Create Your Own Law School Rankings (coming soon)

Learn how to make your own custom law school rankings.

May 6, 2019
What the U.S. News Law School Rankings Looked Like in 1987

The U.S. News & World Report law school rankings have changed quite a bit over the years. In 1987, the methodology included just one metric—the percentage of law school deans who ranked the school, in their subjective estimation, as a "top 10 law school." See below the resulting top 20. As a bonus, you can also see what tuition rates looked like in 1987—the highest figure of which is under $14,000 (Columbia), and the lowest of which is just $4,500 (UT Austin—which is out-of-state) (note that all

March 29, 2019
How to Choose Between a Higher Ranked School at Sticker Price and a Lower Ranked School with a Scholarship

Introduction We were asked to write about choosing between a T14 school at sticker (full tuition) versus a T20 to T30 school with merit aid. The below constitutes our best stab at that, but please keep in mind that, as always, these are arbitrary cutoff points based on one flawed rankings system and not designed for you as an individual. Point being that a school ranked 18 may be much more valuable to you for any number of reasons that a school ranked 13, etc. If you want to read or watch more

March 15, 2019
When a school drops in rank significantly, does that affect how “desperate” schools get?

This is an applicant question, and a timely one due to the recent USNWR rankings release and upcoming seat deposit deadlines. The applicant asking the question, I believe, uses “desperate” to mean, will a school that just dropped in the rankings suffer applicant pool consequences and thus need to go deeper into their own pool to admit? I will get to that a bit later in this post (and there is available data that anyone could look up by looking at schools that have dropped in the rankings in past

March 6, 2019
2020 USNWR Rankings (2019 Release)

Please note, at the request of USNWR we have decided to take down this year's rankings. As a firm, we will always seek to give applicants critical information to help them with important and time-sensitive decisions. Going forward, we will be even more active on this blog in giving advice and value-added information. We will continue to break various rankings, admissions cycle numbers, future admissions cycle predictions, and employment numbers via our Twitter account [https://twitter.com/Spi

February 18, 2019
Five U.S. News Rankings Failures

Five failures of the rankings, by Law School Transparency founder Kyle McEntee.

Podcasts

January 4, 2021
Commonly Misunderstood—But Important—Parts of the Law School Application Process

In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses some of the most commonly held misconceptions about the law school admissions process, and how understanding them can help you get admitted.

You can listen to this podcast below, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.

  • 0:30 – admissions is inherently comparative
  • 4:21 – admissions officers want to get to know you
  • 7:12 – how do law schools make money?
  • 11:03 – being a savvy applicant (regarding advice from law school admissions offices)
February 8, 2021
Anything is Possible

For today's podcast, a little something different — some advice on resiliency in the face of watching others succeed in the ways you'd like to be succeeding.

You can listen to this podcast below, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.

January 19, 2021
Reddit AMA: Why haven't I gotten a decision yet? Is January too late to apply? + the worst PS we've ever seen

In this podcast, Mike answers a few questions from Reddit.

You can listen to this podcast below, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.

January 16, 2021
Interviews with Law School Applicants About the Admissions Process

In this podcast, Mike Spivey interviews groups of current law school applicants about their experiences with the admissions process — what has surprised them, how they've handled the stress, what they expect for the future, and what advice they would give to someone at the beginning of the process. The participants are all volunteers from r/LawSchoolAdmissions, and only one happened to be a client of Spivey Consulting.

Here's a link to the blog post Mike mentioned in the podcast: Spivey Blog, The Malevolent Puppeteer.

You can listen to this podcast below, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts. Thank you for listening!

January 26, 2021
LOCIs & Law School Fit When You Can't Visit + International Applicant Considerations This Cycle

In this podcast, Mike Spivey answers more questions from Reddit. First up, he discusses differences international JD applicants might see in their admissions processes with the special considerations of this application cycle. Then, he talks about how to figure out whether a law school is the right fit for you when you can't visit in person — and, for those who haven't been admitted yet, how to write a strong letter of continued interest (LOCI) without visiting.

You can listen to this podcast below, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.

  • International JD admissions considerations this cycle: 0:52
  • Getting to know a school's culture when you can't visit: 4:32
  • How to write a LOCI when you can't visit: 7:32
February 4, 2021
Why Some Law School Applicants Underperform Their Numbers

In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses factors that lead to some applicants "underperforming" their numbers. You can listen to this podcast below, or on SoundCloud  or Apple Podcasts.

Introduction

  • 0:46 - Will more people underperform this cycle? (2020-2021)
  • 1:41 - Defining "Underperform"

Factors that can lead to underperforming your numbers

  • 4:44 - Character & Fitness Issues (but maybe not in the way you think)
  • 6:44 - Yield Protection
  • 8:17 - Overcommunicating
  • 10:40 - Sloppiness

Answering Questions from Reddit

  • 13:05 - "Is it the essay or lack of an added essay (DS) that throws off an entire application?"
  • 14:44 - "Is having a non legal job in Biglaw going in a boost as schools will see you connections that may help boost the schools standing?"
  • 15:26 - "How disadvantaged are KJDs in the admissions process?"
  • 16:59 - "Do GRE applicants more often underperform their numbers? With the high LSAT saturation, will this negatively affect GRE applicants?"
  • 17:54 - "Considering how some services quantify the 'URM Boost' in applications (7Sage predictor and LSData URM LSAT/GPA differential, for example), what specifically causes URMs to underperform their stats?"
  • 19:41 - "I’ve been rejected by UMich with a 3.mid and 17high, does this count as underperforming my numbers? If so, is this indicative of how the rest of my cycle with the T14 will go?"
  • 20:02 - "Any data / longitudinal studies on engineers?"
  • 20:42 - "I’m sure this will vary by schools, but in your experience as someone who made decisions on files, if a candidate is at/above both of a school’s target medians AND has demonstrated genuine interest, how much can those two factors carry them if the rest of the app is average? Will the answer to this question be different this year because of the availability of good stats?"
  • 21:28 - "Would you say if there are multiple LSAT scores without a consistent increase in score (i.e. there was a score drop before the ultimate high score) then that person is likely to underperform? Especially asking for T6/T14? Would your answer change if the final score was a 175+?"

Conclusion

  • 23:48 - Takeaways & Predictions for the Rest of the Cycle