

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

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.

Nov 12, 2020 • 16min
Self-Care, the Fallacy of Reductionism, and Something to Be Said for an N of 1
In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses one of the fundamental difficulties of applying to law school—and how to cope with it. Mike mentions two blog posts in this podcast: the first, about all the different variables that go into law school admissions, can be found here: https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/all-things-considered/ and the second, about load management days, can be found here: https://www.spiveyblog.com/posts/load-management-day-sxh78
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/HbMmvzHbmR8 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/self-care-the-fallacy-of-reductionism-and-the-n-of-1.
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.

Oct 29, 2020 • 4min
The Overlooked Upsides to an 'Up' Cycle
In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses the upsides to a law school admissions cycle when applicant numbers are significantly up from the prior year.
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/04PWb7_9IGs or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223
Choosing which law schools to apply to or attend? Check out My Rank, where you can make personalized rankings based on the metrics you care about most: https://myrankbyspivey.com/

Oct 12, 2020 • 9min
The Three Elements of Admissions and Why the Most Important is Also the Least Understood
In this podcast, Mike Spivey discusses the three elements of admissions, particularly focusing on the one that is both the most important and the least understood.
You can read a transcript of this podcast on our blog https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/the-three-elements-of-admissions/
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/A8b5O4yYfoY or Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spivey-consulting-law-school-admissions-podcast/id1477090223

Oct 9, 2020 • 6min
Overview of LLM Admissions
This podcast is hosted by Dr. Peter Cramer, our LLM & International Admissions Consultant. Dr. Cramer has been working in legal education for over 25 years. He started his law school career at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and later went to Georgetown University Law Center where he served as the Associate Director of the Center for Global Legal English. For nine years prior to joining Spivey Consulting Group, Dr. Cramer worked as the Assistant Dean for Graduate and International Students at Washington University School of Law, where he focused primarily on admissions, course counseling, and instruction.
In this podcast, Dr. Cramer gives an overview of the elements of a successful LLM application, as well as common pitfalls to avoid. You can listen via the YouTube video below, or on SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
You can also listen to this podcast on YouTube https://youtu.be/dg4PmgojzAY 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/podcast-overview-of-llm-admissions