Admissions

It's a tough cycle. Here's what you can do about it.

1. Do not obsesses over any one school. This cycle, probably more than any other, I have heard "I want X Law School by far — there isn't really any other school that's close." Often when I follow-up with a simple "why is that?" there isn't really a concrete answer. "For whatever reason when I think about UVa I just can't get it out of my mind," or something along those lines. We (Spivey Consulting) have already seen applicants denied by T14's and yet admitted by T3's. Point being, there are so

The Spivey Consulting Group AMA Admissions Challenge

A parable on being both an Admissions Dean and Pre-Law Advisor

By Nikki Laubenstein, Senior Consultant at The Spivey Consulting Group When my daughter was little and she asked what I did for my job, I told her that I let students into law school. To which she responded, “Oh, so you open the door for them?” I of course thought about it and said that was exactly what I did! As an assistant dean of admissions, I enjoyed that my job involved opening doors to student’s law school dreams and helping them to discover their passion for studying law. This work, how

Brief cycle update as of 1/15

This was from today's one-hour Spivey Consulting internal conference call where most of our admissions team shared observations from speaking with hundreds of applicants on a daily basis and admissions deans each week. Thought I'd share a bit of it and hope it helps! * Top schools are maybe seeing even bigger increases in apps, from what we're hearing * As a result, decisions are coming out much more slowly compared to past years, particularly at the top 7 or so schools * E.g. right no

An Actual Law School Application

Below is what a completely filled out law school applications looks like. And it is a great one — this person received multiple scholarship offers from elite schools and attended law school on a full ride. Please note that anything identifiable has obviously been changed and also note that it would be a very bad idea to copy any part of these essays and use for your own :) That said, I believe this is the first time anything like this has been posted online and we hope it can be both helpful an

Just What Can We Learn From LawSchoolNumbers.com?

This is a great guest blog post from Warren Buff, who took it upon himself to crunch the numbers and look at the data behind Law School Numbers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like many law school applicants, one of the first resources I found when I began my quest for admission was Law School Numbers [www.lawschoolnumbers.com] ("LSN"). I pored over their scatter charts trying to discern which schools would be open to me and what kind of LSAT

Law School Admissions Advice: "Is it too late?"

The easiest answer to this question is "almost never" — but obviously there are some qualifications. So let me start with a real life story and then the qualifications. A few cycle ago I got a call from someone who had taken the June LSAT and just received his score, in the upper 170s. He also had a strong LSAC computed GPA and was asking me if I thought he could get into Harvard next cycle (keeping in mind it was like roughly July 1 and Harvard clearly said on their website the application dea

How Competitive?

In case you haven't seen it yet, the first volume report [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/december-2017-data/] for this (2017/2018) admissions cycle is out, and the numbers are almost categorically up. The fact that applications are up doesn't come as much as a surprise. We've had hard data on test-takers and forum attendance for a while now, and as far back as June we started having an inkling [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/predicting-to-2017-2018-law-school-cyce/] that apps and apps at th

Looking Back: Admissions Lessons Learned from Current Law Students

We asked a large group of law students at a diverse array of schools what one piece of advice they would give current applicants. This is what they said: "I worked hard on my Personal Statement, like 20 drafts and 2 full rewrites hard, and I tried very hard to write something that would stand out against a backdrop of "Why Law" BS. I also put genuine effort into my "Why UT?" essay, and by genuine effort I mean I got into contact with people that went to UT and talked to them about their experie

Do I need an admissions consultant?

At its best, working with an admissions consultant is a rewarding and enjoyable experience where both parties learn from one another, and where the consultancy can add a tremendous degree of value to the admissions process. The veritable admissions "bump" can occur exactly because of this teamwork and effort -- we have seen it happen hundreds of times and there is no greater professional feeling to get the phone call from an applicant who just was admitted to their dream school. Words we use in