Status Check with Spivey

In this episode, Mike and one of our Spivey consultants Karen Buttenbaum (former Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School) catch up with u/lightningmcboops (who we call "Megan"), one of r/lawschoolsadmissions' regular posters from last cycle, who went through the most difficult cycle we have ever seen without receiving a single rejection. After ultimately choosing Stanford Law over Harvard, Megan matriculated to law school in fall 2021 and just completed her first semester. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this episode, we continue our interview series with "Barb," a current applicant. Barb is a splitter with a 176 LSAT and a 3.1 GPA, and she's also a non-traditional applicant with 10+ years of full-time work experience after college. In this interview, she and Mike discuss the many emotions and anxieties that come up after you hit that "submit" button, what to expect as far as a timeline for hearing back from schools, and the potential implications of the Omicron variant for admitted students' days. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this episode, Mike has a conversation with Spivey Consulting's Business Intelligence Director Justin Kane (current 2L and data genius) about where this current admissions cycle (2021-2022) stands so far in terms of applicant volume, what that means, what we predict for the rest of the cycle, and some actionable admissions advice based on what we know so far. They also touch on why our numbers are slightly different from LSAC's (and why we believe ours capture a more accurate picture for current applicants), as well as how to interpret differences between applicant numbers and application numbers, plus a few other wonky topics throughout. We hope it's helpful! You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post for this episode. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this episode, Mike and our consultant Danielle Early (former Associate Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School) talk about safety schools and back-up plans. How do you choose the right range of schools where your worst-case scenario is an outcome you can live with? For some that might be a law school where they're well above both medians; for others that might be taking a year off to continue their job or gain new work experience. If you take a year off, how will you strengthen your application? Should you plan to matriculate to a safety school but then transfer out? When is too late in the cycle to add a safety school to your list? Mike and Danielle discuss these possibilities and the factors to consider when you make your backup plan — which everyone applying to law school should consider, especially in a competitive cycle. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this episode, Mike has a conversation with our consultant Karen Buttenbaum (former Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School) about how to prepare for law school admissions interviews, best practices, common pitfalls, and other advice for the interviewing process. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

In this episode, Mike predicts whether law schools will be able to maintain their high medians from last year, and how we expect that to play out across the course of the cycle. He also discusses how this will impact splitters and reverse splitters. You can find the spreadsheet Mike mentions in this podcast with schools' medians from the 2020-2021 cycle here. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

In this episode, Mike interviews a current applicant (who we'll call "Barb") about her application process so far. Barb is a splitter with a 176 LSAT and a 3.1 GPA, and she's also a non-traditional applicant with 10+ years of full-time work experience after college. In this interview, we talk through her motivations for going to law school, her school list, the three different personal statement topics she's debating between, and more. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

Dr. Anna Lembke is a Stanford University psychiatrist, author of the New York Times best-seller Dopamine Nation, and a featured expert on the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. In this episode, Dr. Lembke discusses the effects of dopamine on our motivation and overall happiness, talks about the degree to which society today sets us up for depression and anxiety and lack of motivation, and offers a concrete (though difficult) remedy. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In 2001, Justin Ishbia was the last person Vanderbilt Law admitted off of their waitlist. He had been practice testing in the 170s and aiming for a top three law school, but when he ended up with a mid-150s LSAT score instead, he had to adjust his expectations. After visiting, Vanderbilt became his top choice, and he ended up being admitted off the waitlist in August (with his furniture already on a truck on the way to the law school he'd been planning to attend!). He worked extremely hard in law school, graduated near the top of his class, and went on to a hugely successful career in law and investing. Twenty years later, Justin Isbhia just gifted $10 million to the law school that took a chance on him. In this episode, we break down how Justin earned himself that last-minute waitlist admit, how he excelled in law school, why a disappointing LSAT score doesn't mean you have to give up your dreams, and much more. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.  You can read a full transcript of this episode on our blog post for this episode.

In this episode, Mike has a conversation with our consultant Derek Meeker (former Dean of Admissions at Penn Law) and Sydney Montgomery (founder of S. Montgomery Admissions Consulting) about the role of diversity and adversity in law school admissions. Derek's YouTube video on how to choose a personal statement topic was mentioned in this podcast; you can watch that video here. You can listen to Sydney's podcast, "Break Into Law School," here. You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts. For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post for this episode. spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com