

Status Check with Spivey
Spivey Consulting Group
Hosted by Mike Spivey, founder and CEO of the Spivey Consulting Group, and Anna Hicks-Jaco, President of Spivey Consulting's law school admissions division. Status Check covers life and well-being plus all things law school and admissions. Our admissions advice comes from our Spivey Consulting team—who collectively have over 250 years of experience working in law school admissions offices, including at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, and Penn—and covers how to get into the best possible law school you can, plus news and predictions about the current state of law school admissions.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 19, 2021 • 11min
Why haven't I gotten a decision yet? Is January too late to apply? + the worst PS we've ever seen
In this podcast, Mike answers a few questions from Reddit.
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/vdKBIT3QNX4 or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223

Jan 16, 2021 • 1h 14min
Interviews with Law School Applicants About the Admissions Process
In this podcast, Mike Spivey interviews groups of current law school applicants about their experiences with the admissions process — what has surprised them, how they've handled the stress, what they expect for the future, and what advice they would give to someone at the beginning of the process. The participants are all volunteers from r/LawSchoolAdmissions, and only one happened to be a client of Spivey Consulting.
Here's a link to the blog post Mike mentioned in the podcast, The Malevolent Puppeteer: https://www.spiveyblog.com/posts/puppeteer
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/svwMnYVaw58 or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223

Jan 5, 2021 • 14min
Commonly Misunderstood—But Important—Parts of the Law School Application Process
In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses some of the most commonly held misconceptions about the law school admissions process, and how understanding them can help you get admitted.
- 0:30 – admissions is inherently comparative
- 4:21 – admissions officers want to get to know you
- 7:12 – how do law schools make money?
- 11:03 – being a savvy applicant (regarding advice from law school admissions offices)
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/HQxl4ZxQCzY or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223

Dec 29, 2020 • 5min
Winter Break Podcast: A Favorite Personal Statement
In this podcast, Spivey Consulting's Anna Hicks reads one of her favorite personal statements of all time. Please note that this essay includes mention of illicit drugs, abuse, and violence.
The full text of the personal statement is included in the description of the video on YouTube https://youtu.be/-IRdTexQHR8 — please note that all names have been changed for anonymity, and this essay is shared with permission from the applicant.
Thanks for listening, and happy holidays.

Dec 22, 2020 • 29min
Holiday Law School Admissions AMA with Mike Spivey
In this podcast, Mike Spivey takes questions from Reddit!
You can listen to this podcast here, or on YouTube https://youtu.be/jmCCcK8AVTM or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223

Dec 15, 2020 • 12min
Law School "Yield Protection" — What It Is & Steps to Take to Prevent It
In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses the phenomenon in law school admissions known as "yield protection," and explains steps you can take to prevent being waitlisted as a result of it.
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/Qkdm-3eF7tg or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223
As promised in the podcast, here are some resources for how to choose which law school to attend:
- My Rank by Spivey (personalized law school rankings based on the metrics you prioritize most) https://myrankbyspivey.com
- How to Choose Which Law School to Attend (blog post) https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/how-to-choose-which-law-school-to-attend/
- How to Use the U.S. News Rankings to Choose a Law School (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pkSzwWExzQ

Dec 8, 2020 • 15min
Staying Calm in the Law School Admissions Process
In this newest episode of our weekly Tuesday law school admissions podcasts, Mike Spivey talks about how to stay calm in the law school admissions process.
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/V4SpDNg3BvI or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223
0:24 — outline
1:42 — good news for this cycle
4:43 — biological reasons for stress and how to manage it
11:07 — long-term optimism

Nov 23, 2020 • 16min
Introduction to Law School Admissions for Under-Represented Minority (URM) Applicants
Today's podcast is from our consultant Sir Williams, former Director of Admissions at the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he led the successful implementation of UW’s first pre-law diversity pipeline summer program. In this podcast, Sir gives a broad introduction to law school admissions for under-represented minority (URM) applicants — what "counts" as URM for admissions, why it matters, and some special considerations URM applicants might want to flag.
A few links mentioned in the podcast:
MyRank, where you can create your own personalized rankings based on the metrics you prioritize https://myrankbyspivey.com/
LSAC Table on Diversity in the US & Legal Pipeline https://report.lsac.org/View.aspx?Report=DiversityPopulationandPipeline
Paul Caron's TaxProf Blog post on diversity and the LSAT https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2019/08/more-on-a-deans-perspective-on-diversity-socioeconomics-the-lsat-and-the-us-news-law-school-rankings.html
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/L8Lj1izhQvY or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223, or read a transcript on our blog https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/intro-to-urm-admissions-podcast

Nov 20, 2020 • 9min
How the LSAT-Flex Has Changed the Admissions Cycle
In this podcast, Mike Spivey talks about the LSAT-Flex, particularly is it relates to timelines and the pace of admissions this cycle. It is important to note that LSAT scores are higher at the top bandwidths right now than one would expect in any cycle. There are several hypotheses out there for why that is.
LSAC maintains that they will organically come down to natural levels. Spivey Consulting (and others we should note) believes that we won't maintain this pace of increase, just like every cycle, but that we are already past the point where they could come down to "natural" levels barring some extremely inorganic occurrence, and that until now law schools have been trying to figure this equation out. To LSAC's credit, they have provided law schools with data that we think should now speed up the pace of admitting for the cycle — although exactly when and at what pace that happens is still impossible to predict.
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/ELZ4Fww7q-o or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223 or read the transcript on our blog https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/how-the-lsat-flex-has-changed-the-admissions-cycle

Nov 13, 2020 • 1h 9min
Law School Admissions/LSAT Q&A with Mike Spivey and PowerScore’s Dave Killoran
In this podcast, Mike Spivey and PowerScore founder Dave Killoran ask each other questions about law school admissions (Mike's wheelhouse) and the LSAT (Dave's specialty).
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/UgkmlM-Xc74 or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223
Check out PowerScore's options for LSAT prep here https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/
Please note that our waitlist for this cycle (2020-2021) https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/upcoming-availability-to-work-with-us/ and reservation list for next cycle (2021-2022) https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/21-22-reservation-list/ are now open.


