Advice

06 Apr 2019

The Top 15 Characteristics of Applicants Who Have Admissions Success Beyond Their Numbers

1. They stay positive and engaged for the entire admissions cycle. 2. They pay attention to every little detail of their application. 3. They are genuine and write from the heart. 4. They are self-aware. 5. They are actively involved with things that are important to them outside of the application process. 6. They have a very clear reason why they are applying to law school and they can articulate verbally and in writing. 7. They are adaptable. 8. They utilize every op

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29 Mar 2019

How to choose between a higher ranked school at sticker price and a lower ranked school with a scholarship

Introduction We were asked to write about choosing between a T14 school at sticker (full tuition) versus a T20 to T30 school with merit aid. The below constitutes our best stab at that, but please keep in mind that, as always, these are arbitrary cutoff points based on one flawed rankings system and not designed for you as an individual. Point being that a school ranked 18 may be much more valuable to you for any number of reasons that a school ranked 13, etc. If you want to read or watch more

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15 Mar 2019

When a school drops in rank significantly, does that affect how "desperate" schools get?

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

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21 Feb 2019

Every piece of Spivey Consulting Law School Waitlist Advice

It's that time of year again — law schools are beginning to place applicants on the dreaded waitlist. Luckily, we have two helpful resources if you've been waitlisted this cycle.

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18 Feb 2019

How to Choose Which Law School to Attend

We’ve been asked to write a bit on how to choose between similarly regarded and ranked law schools — and there’s good news from the start – namely that while a decent number of applicants are not yet in this situation this time of the cycle, the vast majority of applicants will eventually find themselves with choices on where to attend. In other words, unless you only swung for reach schools, you should have a matriculation decision to make this fall between competing schools, and the balance of

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04 Dec 2018

Why Law Schools Defer Early Decision Applicants to the Regular Decision Pool (and why it isn’t all bad)

First, a quick disclaimer (get used to writing these, future lawyers): when we say “law schools” we do not mean to speak for every single law school. There likely are a few outliers. But at the macro-level, here is what is going on. Most law school Early Decision (ED) programs don’t provide the substantial boost that applicants believe. An analogy I often use is that a Las Vegas casino wouldn’t have a blackjack table that loses money. In blackjack, if a player follows perfect betting strategy,

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01 Dec 2018

New Law School Admissions Advice YouTube Channel!

Big news — we just launched our new Spivey Consulting Group YouTube Channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA_Rbmm6gSV09dUwrnlBjyQ]. On the channel, we'll be posting videos with all sorts of law school admissions advice on topics like how to choose a personal statement topic, getting off of waitlists, basics of scholarship negotiation, whether you should write a diversity statement, how to ace a law school admissions interview, and more. These videos will come from many of our consultants, fo

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23 Nov 2018

Should you submit your application after you take the LSAT(or GRE) or once you get your score?

The short answer is "it doesn't matter that much." As we have blogged about here [https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/how-long-does-it-take-for-law-school-applications-to-be-read/] , applications aren't read in date stamped sequential order, but rather by strength. They do, of course, have to be complete, and not having a test score will render them incomplete. Still, the lack of a score (or another attempt at a higher score) does not mean that you can't  actually submit an application. Should you

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12 Nov 2018

Live Admissions Q&A Nov. 19, and RSVPs for This Cycle and Next

Join us on Monday, November 19, 2018 from 8:00 – 9:30 PM EST for a Live Law School Admissions/LSAT Q&A with Mike Spivey, Karen Buttenbaum, and Derek Meeker of Spivey Consulting, and Dave Killoran and Jon Denning of PowerScore. We will be answering your questions about admissions, strategy, and the application cycle so far! Register at powerscore.com/freeseminars [http://www.powerscore.com/freeseminars/]. Also please note: if you would like to work with us for this cycle or next, RSVP now to our

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12 Nov 2018

A Dog's Lesson

My dog BearBear passed away this week, much too young at 6 years and 4 months. But in those 6 years she hiked and ran in the mountains almost every day, traveled with me on many work trips, and was surrounded by, and gave in return, much joy. She also taught me a lesson I want to share. BearBear was a Chow Chow, and Chow Chow’s make great office work companions (I got BearBear soon after I founded this firm). They generally stick to themselves and BearBear was almost always found on the porch g

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