Admissions

25 Jul 2019

Top 50 Law School Application Opening Dates for the 2019-2020 Cycle

*Please note, schools can change these dates, and it is possible that when we called to ask them that they gave us the dates applications become available to fill out on the LSAC website rather than when applications are accepted (although we were very careful to clearly articulate what we were asking about) — but this should be highly accurate to the extent we can control it. Also please note that several schools told us that they had not yet decided on an exact date that they will be acceptin

Read full post
16 Jul 2019

Ten Things to do After the July LSAT

It's done! Congratulations, you completed the July LSAT — a historic test, the first widespread administration of the new digital format. But what now?

Read full post
01 Jul 2019

Application Timing

Many law school websites have somewhat unclear language about how early you should send in an application, and applicants hear conflicting information from friends, colleagues, and pre-law advisers.

Read full post
26 Jun 2019

How to set your letter of recommendation writer up for success

The best recommendations come from people who know you well and can write about your abilities from personal observation.

Read full post
07 Jun 2019

Law School Application Fee Waivers: Part 1 (Unsolicited Fee Waivers)

This is a three-part series on fee waivers from Joe Pollak, Spivey Consulting Group admissions consultant and former admissions officer at the University of Michigan Law School. Part 1 discusses how to get unsolicited merit-based fee waivers for your law school applications. Part 2 will cover requesting merit-based fee waivers, and Part 3 will cover need-based fee waivers (both from LSAC and directly from schools) First, let’s be clear about which fees we are talking about here: we mean the app

Read full post
04 Jun 2019

What makes for successful law school admission?

Spivey Consulting Partner Mike Spivey [https://www.spiveyconsulting.com/about/] talks about the two primary things at the highest order that make applications stand out and elevate in the admissions process.

Read full post
20 May 2019

2018-2019 Waitlist Movement and Advice, Mid-May Update

It's that time of year: waitlist movement time. Many first and second deposit deadlines have passed, and schools are starting the process of finalizing their entering 2019 classes. That's good news for thousands of nervous applicants who are sitting on waitlists anxiously hoping for news. Those of you who were around in the 2017-2018 cycle remember it as a summer of disappointment. The dramatic 7.9% increase in LSAT applicants in that cycle overwhelmed many schools unprepared for such drastic

Read full post
16 May 2019

Predicting the 2019/2020 Law School Admissions Cycle

It's that time of year: but before our predictions, our exciting annual disclaimer. I feel like this is more important than ever, so please read, even if after jumping down below. Disclaimer: the future is hard to see. When we do this annual blog, we talk to many experts—CEOs of LSAT prep companies, deans of law schools, deans of admissions, and so forth. The first thing almost everyone says is, "Well who knows what next cycle will be like?" then the second thing is often "Wait, aren't you the p

Read full post
08 May 2019

Law Schools in Order of Selectivity

Data is based on acceptance rates for the incoming class of 2018. Source: ABA-required disclosures. 1 Yale University 6.85% 2 Stanford University 8.72% 3 Harvard University 12.86% 4 University of Pennsylvania 14.58% 5 University of Virginia 15.33% 6 Columbia University 16.79% 7 University of Chicago 17.48% 8 University of Southern California 19.24% 9 Northwestern University 19.33% 10 University of Michigan 19.60% 11 University of California—Berkeley 19.69% 12 Duke University 20.15%

Read full post
25 Apr 2019

The June LSAT and Waitlists

Registration for the June 2019 LSAT closed yesterday. Most people who are signed up for that LSAT administration are going to be using it to apply in the 2019-2020 cycle. But as law school applicants become increasingly savvy to the importance of LSAT scores in admissions, many applicants are re-taking the test in June to improve their chances of getting off a waitlist. Last year alone an additional 7% of June LSAT takers were retaking the test over historical averages—many presumably in hopes o

Read full post