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I've been asked too many times to count to comment on the U.S. News 2025 law school rankings release a few days ago.
We now have sufficient data to predict the 2025-2026 U.S. News law school rankings with a high degree of accuracy. Here's the full list, this year in groups.
Here are our modeled Top 11 (due to a four-way tie at 8) 2025 U.S. News Rankings. Please note a few things.
We’ve received from multiple universities the new 2024 U.S. News Best College Rankings and have decided to share the top 25.
With the embargo lifted at 12:01 ET today, here are the full U.S. News law school rankings.
Here are the new 2024-2025 U.S. News top 25 law schools.
With today’s release of the new ABA-required 509 disclosures, we now have all law schools’ fall 2023 medians and class sizes, plus we have the ability to more accurately predict next year’s upcoming U.S. News law school rankings.
The U.S. News & World Report law school rankings methodology may appear simple at first glance, but it is also widely (and deeply) misunderstood. Here, we analyze the methodology + this year's changes.
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.
In this episode, Mike gives his thoughts on whether law schools will be able to maintain their historically high LSAT/GPA medians after the 2022-2023 admissions cycle.
Spivey Consulting Availability Notes:
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
Note: You may notice that the numbers we cite sometimes vary slightly from the volume data that LSAC publishes. This is because LSAC reports only an applicant's ultimate high LSAT score, even if they didn't achieve that score until months or even years after the date in question. For example, if someone applied in 2021-2022 with a 160, then retook the LSAT the following fall and scored a 170 to reapply for 2022-2023, LSAC's data would include them as an applicant with a 170 even in the 2021-2022 data. To avoid this effect, we record applicant volume daily in real-time so that we can later compare to the data as it actually was on that date, rather than factoring in any new LSAT scores that were achieved after that date.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike gives an update on 2022-2023 cycle data and discusses admissions strategies for the second half of the application cycle: waitlists and letters of continued interest, tips for asking for scholarship reconsideration, and handling the waiting/anxiety. (It may surprise you how impactful that last item can be to your outcomes!)
Mike recorded this episode before final January 2023 LSAT data was out—you can find the latest update on our Twitter, here. A few other Status Check episodes are mentioned in this podcast as well:
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike talks about the different factors that precipitate waves of law school admissions decisions being released, especially late in the cycle/during waitlist season.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this short episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike talks about the widespread notion that, even beyond whatever specific and concrete challenges we each may be facing, there is an added factor of "everything" (in today's society, in life) that can sometimes feel crushing. Then he gives some advice.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
In this short episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike discusses a question that tends to come up frequently this time of year—“Should I contact x law school's admissions office to ask for an update since I haven't heard back yet?”—then talks generally about when it can be advantageous to reach out to admissions, why, and how you should do it.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike talks about how online law school admissions discussion can affect (or not affect) your outcomes. Are adcoms on Reddit? Will they Google you? What sorts of online conduct can turn an admit into a waitlist or deny? Mike gives his thoughts on these questions and more from 15+ years following law school message boards.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
