Scholarships

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Blog Posts

September 22, 2025
Basics of Law School Financial Aid

Financial aid is a necessary aspect of law school enrollment and one that benefits you most if you consider it early on in the process—not just at the end.

January 10, 2022
When Is It Appropriate to Start Scholarship Negotiations?

Since you are all going to be lawyers soon, let me start by saying something you’ll be saying for the rest of your lives: it depends. But, that isn’t very helpful...

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?

March 8, 2019
Database of Outside Law School Scholarships

We have compiled a list of outside scholarships available for current and entering law school students. Please feel free to make a copy of the spreadsheet if you would like to sort or edit it. You can find the spreadsheet here. [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ikR3S3UqDeo4Af6MJE7lh6hySJ4E4UkviiE52Wgj34A/edit?usp=sharing]

April 11, 2017
The Multiple Deposit Dance

Over the past few years more and more schools have tried a variety of methods to control the arms-race of scholarship negotiation; one way is asking for people to withdraw from all schools to which they have been admitted and to verify that they have done so when depositing. Below is a link to the LSAC Statement of Good Admissions Practices – a good reference this time of year. Note the section on Commitments: http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source/publications-%28lsac-resources%29/ statemen

March 21, 2017
5 Scholarship Negotiation Necessities

As deposit deadlines are nearing, scholarship negotiation season is in full swing.

November 16, 2016
Spivey Consulting To Co-Sponsor Scholarship Program Through Writing Competition

We'll be providing free legal employment consulting and job search services to the selected law student.

February 26, 2016
Basics of Law School Scholarship Reconsideration

Requesting a scholarship increase can be a tricky process.

Podcasts

November 10, 2022
What It's Like Applying to Law School, Part 2 (Interviews)

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Spivey Consulting COO Anna Hicks-Jaco checks in with "Lucy," u/Accomplished-Body785 on Reddit, an applicant currently in the middle of her law school application process. We are interviewing Lucy at several points throughout her cycle to check in about how things have been going, what she's been up to in terms of her application process, and how she's feeling about it all. You can find Part 1 here.

This episode is primarily focused on interviews! Lucy has had a number of law school admissions interviews at this point, including one group interview and a Kira interview, and she shares how those interviews went, what sorts of questions they asked, and how she prepared. She also shares some of her first decisions.

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

October 12, 2022
Catastrophizing in Admissions (& Why It's Going to Be Okay)

In this short episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike talks about applicants' (deeply understandable) tendency to catastrophize in law school admissions.

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

November 30, 2022
Law Schools Leaving the U.S. News Rankings—Implications for This Year & The Future

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike has a conversation with Justin Kane, Spivey Consulting's Director of Business Intelligence and resident rankings expert, about recent developments in the U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings.

If you haven't already heard, a number of law schools have recently announced that they will no longer be participating in the rankings. But what does that actually mean? Why are they doing it, and why now? What impacts might it have on applicants, law students, and legal education as a whole—both this current cycle and down the line?

You can find an up-to-date list of law schools that have announced they will no longer be participating in the rankings here.

Important Disclaimer: At this point, all of our forward-looking thoughts are purely speculation. We can't emphasize enough that we don't know yet what U.S. News is going to do—no one does, not even U.S. News itself. This is an actively-evolving situation in the short term, and the longer-term effects are even more difficult to predict. This episode is meant to provide an insider look into what law school administrations and other major legal education stakeholders are thinking about right now, but we can't predict the future.

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

January 13, 2023
Reducing Stress & Increasing Happiness as a Student & Applicant

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Jordana Confino, Assistant Dean of Professionalism at Fordham Law School, about ways that law school applicants and students (and in fact, any applicant or student) can healthily cope with and reduce stress and increase overall happiness and well-being. Jordana is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, and in her current role at Fordham, she develops and delivers programs designed to promote student wellness, mentorship, and professional identity formation. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Fordham, teaching courses on “Positive Lawyering” and “Peer Mentoring & Leadership.” She was voted Fordham Law Adjunct Professor of the Year in 2021.

In this interview, Jordana discusses her academic and professional history, how law school and legal practice impacted her well-being, and specific tactics applicants and students can employ to improve their own mental and emotional wellness in stressful, high-pressure environments.

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

Mike and Jordana discuss a number of psychology researchers and experts throughout their conversation, including the groundbreaking work of Dr. Kristin Neff in the field of self-compassion—you can listen to our interview with Dr. Neff here. Mike also mentions a graph near the end of the episode that we have included for your reference below:

December 23, 2022
Happy Holidays—Plenty of Admits Are Coming in 2023

In this short episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike offers some optimistic news for law school applicants who may not have yet received any admits.

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

January 3, 2023
Will Medians Stay As High This Law School Admissions Cycle?

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:

  • We have just begun accepting early reservations for admissions consulting for next cycle, 2023-2024! Email info@spiveyconsulting.com to get on the list and schedule a free initial consultation with one of our expert admissions consultants.
  • We are also currently taking transfer clients. If you are a 1L considering transferring to another law school and would like assistance with your application strategy, reach out today!
  • Interested? Get started.

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.