Admissions

23 Mar 2013

Mistake #8: Kristen Stewart Goes to Law School

See previous – Mistake #9: "The History of the World, Part I" [http://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/mistake-9-the-history-of-the-world-part-i/] You know that vapid, dull, emotionless look Kristen Stewart always seems to land some huge acting role with? Law school admissions officers, it turns out, hate it. In particular, they hate it when they ask, “Why do you want to go to law school?” and that is the response they get. Let me quote a law admissions colleague circa 4 days ago: “I am continually ap

Read full post
22 Mar 2013

Mistake #9: "The History of the World, Part I"

See previous – Mistake #10: "The Dyson Effect" [https://spiveyconsulting.ghost.io/mistake-10-the-dyson-effect/] What I am referring to here is a reliance on historical data – particularly data from last year. In the top 10 rankings of applicants mistakes for the class of 2016, this is the only one where there is a great deal of overlap for law schools. In other words, law schools make this mistake just as much as (or more than) law students. It is harming both students and schools alike. But, I

Read full post
21 Mar 2013

Mistake #10: "The Dyson Effect"

No, this does not mean anyone or everyone is not up to par this year (although this was my favorite guess at what the Dyson Effect is… thinking through what a Dyson does…). The Dyson Effect simply means that many applicants see themselves in a vacuum. To be fair, this happens every year. In other words I get a good deal of the following. “Dear Spivey, I am a law school applicant from Western State with a LSAC computed uGPA of 3.5 and a 167 LSAT. Can you tell me if I will get into Eastern State

Read full post
21 Mar 2013

Most Common Law School Admissions Mistakes

I correspond with applicants numerous times every day—with clients, friends of friends, via email, in private messages on top-law-schools.com, Twitter, one even sent me a postcard from China. Over time, I have noticed some trends: namely that these people are really savvy about the state of the legal employment market, technologically much more sophisticated than I am, pretty realistic that their legal career begins now (and not upon entry to or graduation from law school—this is a big decision!

Read full post