Please note, these are the dates that the applications become available on LSAC for applicants to peruse and begin to prepare school-specific essays, not when they can be submitted (though for many schools this is the same date). Organized by School: * Yale: September 1 * Stanford: September 15 * Harvard: September 15 * University of Chicago: September 1 * Columbia: September 1 * NYU: September 1 * UPenn: September 1 * UVA: September 1 * UC Berkeley: September 1 * U Michigan: August 1
So you’ve worked hard to prepare your materials, and it's time to submit! What's next?
This will be a short but I hope important blog to consider. It's been a notoriously slow admission cycle, and it possibly would have stayed at an equally slow pace until COVID-19 changed things in many dramatic ways.
When are law school applications opening this fall?
An explanation of "rolling admissions" and a look at application timing data.
Registration for the June 2019 LSAT closed yesterday.
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
An update from approximately 50% of the way through the cycle.
The short answer is... it doesn't matter that much.
In this podcast, Spivey Consulting COO Anna Hicks asks Mike some admissions questions from Reddit, covering large-scale changes to law school admissions due to the pandemic, reapplication strategies, how law schools look at "KJDs," whether or not you should explain why you want to go to law school in your personal statement, how to write Why X statements when you can't visit a law school and don't know anyone who attended, and more.
You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
We mentioned a number of other blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos in this podcast — they are linked below:
In this podcast, Spivey Consulting COO Anna Hicks goes over the basics of law school admissions for those who are at the beginning of their application process and don't know much about how it works yet.
You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
This episode is meant to provide context and a basis on which you can expand your research — here are some further resources you may want to check out next, many of which were mentioned in the podcast!
Basic Law School Information & Rankings
Personal Statements
Diversity Statements
Other Application Components
After You Submit Your Applications
Other Concepts Discussed in this Podcast
In this podcast, Mike interviews Clint Schumacher — author, podcaster, and former biglaw hiring partner — on resilience in the legal profession, imposter syndrome in law school, what hiring partners look for in applicants, and more.
Clint spent the first part of his legal career at Locke Lord, where he went on to be a hiring partner, then transitioned to Dawson & Sodd, a boutique firm with a focus on eminent domain. In addition to his legal practice, Clint hosts a podcast, The Eminent Domain Podcast, and recently published a book about resilience and overcoming adversity, Second Wind.
You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this podcast, Mike provides a brief recap of the historic last cycle (2020–2021) as well as the short version of our best predictions for what's to come this cycle (2021–2022). If you'd like a longer and more in-depth discussion of these topics, please listen to our full podcast on these topics, "Recapping the 2020-2021 Law School Admissions Cycle & Predicting the Upcoming Cycle" (featuring Spivey Consulting's data wonk Justin Kane and PowerScore CEO Dave Killoran).
You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this podcast episode, Mike interviews the long-time Associate Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid at University of Chicago Law School, Ann Perry. Mike and Ann discuss admissions across multiple dimensions, including how admissions has changed over the past 20 years, typos in applications, when you should submit your applications (and what counts as "late"), how admissions offices set target medians, character and fitness, admissions pet peeves, and more.
You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, Mike has a conversation with Dean Sarah Zearfoss (also known as "Dean Z") about a number of admissions topics, including the prevalence of bad admissions advice and how to identify and avoid it.
You can find Dean Z and much more admissions advice on her podcast, A2Z.
You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.