Grace Applefeld Cleveland

Grace serves as an Admissions Consultant and Vice President of University and Law School Consulting for Spivey Consulting Group. She advises the people who lead higher education institutions as well as the people who want to learn there. In all her work—whether with law school applicants or law school and university faculty and administrators—Grace takes a client-centered approach. She is known to center her clients’ individual strengths and needs as they work together to define, shape, and achieve the clients’ goals.

Experience

A graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Grace brings a wealth of expertise to bear when working with clients. Her professional experience includes:

• Chief of Staff to the Dean at Virginia Law for seven years, serving as a strategic thought partner, speechwriter, and advisor to two successive deans, as well as a member of the law school’s crisis communications team and its protest and disruption working group, with ongoing visibility into critical law school operations such as admissions, career development, and financial aid;
• Director of Admissions at Virginia Law for five years, making admission and scholarship recommendations for thousands of candidates, analyzing data on more than 5,000 applicants annually, and partnering with colleagues on recruitment and retention strategies;
• Law clerk to two federal trial judges; and
• Associate copyright and trademark attorney at Arent Fox in Washington, D.C. 

More about Grace

Before law school, Grace spent four years working for performing arts organizations in Chicago and a community grant-making foundation in Baltimore.  She lives with her family in Central Virginia, where she spends her free time hiking, baking, and volunteering with community organizations that support kids and their families.