Podcast: Mid-Cycle Pep Talk & 2024-2025 Update from Mike Spivey

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike gives a brief update and pep talk for current law school applicants during the 2024-2025 admissions cycle.

Mike mentions our podcast with world-renowned psychologist Dr. Guy Winch in this episode—you can listen to the full interview here: Dr. Guy Winch on Handling Rejection (& Waiting) in the Admissions and Job Search Process

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. A full transcript of this episode is below.

Welcome to Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, law school admissions, and a little bit of everything. I want to talk about the remaining portion of this 2024-2025 cycle from a practical and strategic—but also almost a psychological—standpoint.

So, first, it's going to be tough. We'll likely end up a little bit below 20%, but there is going to be a substantial increase. I thought early on it would be around 12%. It'll be higher than that. It'll be 15 to 19 percent up. The grade point inflation is real, of course, and the LSAT inflation, for whatever reason, is real. There's a bigger increase at 165 and above, percentage-wise, than any other bandwidth.

So, you applied in a tough cycle. What does that mean? To begin with, it means nothing about you—of course. You're still the same person you were before the cycle, nor could you have predicted—nor did experts predict this would be as tough a cycle as it is. Certainly, we and others predicted this would be a tough cycle, but we didn't realize it would be right now up at 23.9%. No one thought it would have spiked as high as a 35% increase in applications.

Here's what it also doesn't mean. It also doesn't mean waves aren't coming. There are many, many, many admits that have to be made, because you only are seeing things from your perspective. You've never been a dean of admission. They have stresses, too. They have to fill classes. They've been admitting at a slow pace, too. So they have to make admits, and for a number of people listening, that means you're going to get admitted to a number of schools. For some people listening, that means you're going to get admitted to your dream school—maybe not on your timeline, maybe off the waitlist, maybe tomorrow.

And then for some people listening, this is my suggestion. It is not too late to apply to a few more schools. I want to give you all a compliment. Over the years, and particularly this year, I've noticed, and other people have noticed, that people are less rankings-focused. Someone corrected me the other day, I think rightfully so, on Reddit, and I, for the sake of ease, mentioned something about T14, and they were like, "That's outdated nomenclature." I would agree. I would say any ordinal number—"I got into the seventh-ranked school, and that's two better than the ninth-ranked school"—is ridiculously ill-worded nomenclature, because 7 to you may be 50 to me. So I would encourage you—it's free. I don't make any money off this; it's free—to go to our myrankbyspivey.com and maybe broaden your list of schools and apply to a few more.

It is not too late. Schools will still be doing a lot of admitting. And just so you know the timelines of these things, schools are going to be admitting people until literally August and the beginning of September.

I had a client of mine years ago, dream school was Stanford. They had matriculated to Michigan. Got the phone call from Stanford that they were admitted. They were in orientation at Michigan. And I said, you know, "What do you want? What do you want with your life and career?" and they said, "I want to see myself practicing in California, in this area," and I was like, "Then get in the car and drive. You will never remember those two days of driving. You will always remember your ultimate career goal."

So don't be afraid of late admits, because they're coming. Don't be afraid of having to make a couple of difficult decisions late. You get into two schools late, and you have to make a difficult decision. That's just going to be a tiny speck in your sort of lifelong story.

But I also want to end on this note. Don't be afraid of being wrong. And what I mean by that is, being wrong about a school. I applied to Princeton coming out of high school and didn't get in. I ended up going to Vanderbilt. I could never see myself having gone anywhere but Vanderbilt. People in my life who I love off the planet—I'm in Nashville right now. People who I love off the planet, some of my closest friends in the world, I never would have met had I gotten into my dream school. I never would have had the job I have and the career I have had I gotten into my dream school. I was a horrible Vanderbilt student. Maybe not so much my later years, but the first couple of years I cared about sports and friends and my girlfriend. So my grades suffered. I did not get into my top choice business school or my second choice business school. I got into my last choice business school.

If you want a better story, listen to Dr. Guy Winch. We'll link it. He's given three TED Talks with over 30 million views. He didn't get into a single PhD program in psychology when he applied. Not one. He applied to a safety school he had never heard of and didn't get in. So he went back and applied the next cycle and got in and proved to the world.

If you're going to bet on anyone, don't bet on a school that you don't know. Don't bet on someone saying, "Oh, you need to go to this school because it's ranked 13, and we think that means it's better than 15." Bet on your instincts, and bet on yourself. If you're listening to this, the odds are incredibly high you will get admitted to a school, or schools, or many schools. It might not be what you think is #1, but you're going to have admissions. You're probably going to have some denials, too. Don't use the word rejection. You're not being rejected. They don't know you. And this is my point: you know you.

If you feel like, at the end of the cycle, you have a couple of options, and you feel good about going to law school, I wouldn't play the game of waiting another cycle. I would go. And if you don't like the school you go to and you perform well, you can always transfer. Odds are, you won't even end up wanting to. I mean, I had so many students when I was at Vanderbilt and WashU who came in thinking they were going to "transfer up," who absolutely fell in love with the school they were at,—again, not their initial dream school.

So in a tough cycle, many waves of admits are coming. You'll miss some of those waves, highly likely; you'll be in some of those waves, highly likely, although maybe not when you want to. But you're also going to have a choice, and your choices are going to be more than you realize. "Do I pick a school from these schools? Do I think about applying next cycle? Do I think about going to a school and killing it there and betting on myself and transferring up?" So many schools have actually really good job prospects, more than I think you realize, if you start drilling into the job side data. "Or do I go to a school and kill it for three years, and bet on myself in the market? Someone who's going to polish my skills at law school, network and impress interviewers, and have a stellar career." That was me. I went to a middling business school I never thought I would go to, but I always knew I would have a business career.

And I think if you're listening to this—doing research, listening to podcasts, proactively seeking out expert advice—deep down, you probably know, despite what a school says to you in a tough cycle, odds are you're going to have a killer legal career, or you're going to do something with your law degree that's going to position you to be successful in your life. And let me end with saying: I do not define success as how much do you make or what firm do you work for. I define success as, how passionate are you about something? There's no competitive cycle that can make you less passionate about being a lawyer, an advocate for other people, a litigator, someone who kills it in business law and mergers and acquisitions. Nothing about this cycle can change that.

You will get an admit. Admits are coming. If you covered all your bases and made, or continue to make, smart school lists with a healthy range of options, you're going to get an admit. You will get options. We've gone over the options. At the end of the day, the word that matters in this whole thing is nothing other than you.

Marcus Aurelius said, one of the human superpowers is—you're allowed to not have opinions about things. So I would invite you to not have an opinion about the competitiveness of the cycle. It is competitive, but I would have an opinion that, no matter how competitive, your long-term outlook is what you make it.

I hope this was helpful. This was Mike Spivey at the Spivey Consulting Group.

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August 12, 2025

UVA Law Admissions Dean Natalie Blazer on the 2025-26 Cycle, Rising LSATs/GPAs, the "Why UVA" & More

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco interviews Natalie Blazer, Assistant Dean for Admissions and Chief Admissions Officer at the University of Virginia School of Law, on the upcoming 2025-2026 admissions cycle, how applicants should be thinking about and taking into account relevant current events, and advice for prospective law students preparing to submit their applications. They discuss predictions for the 2025-26 cycle (1:56), rising LSAT and GPA medians (20:22, 27:45), changes they've made to their application this year (12:30), the new student loan cap (30:26), how admissions offices are considering applicants writing about politics and protest in the current political climate (4:18), how they evaluate applicants who have been unable to get a job after graduating from college (7:36), whether writing about AI is overdone (36:34), advice for the "Why UVA" essay (13:05), and much more. As a brief disclaimer, Dean Blazer speaks for herself and often for UVA Law in this episode; her opinions do not reflect those of all admissions officers.

In addition to her work at UVA Law, Natalie has served as Director of J.D. Admissions at Georgetown University Law Center and was Associate Director of Admissions at Columbia Law School. She hosts the UVA Law podcast Admissible, which "offers insights into the world of law school admissions and a behind-the-scenes look at life as a law student through interviews with students, faculty, alumni and staff."

We've interviewed Natalie twice for Status Check before, and though we weren't able to get to all of the questions that Redditors requested we ask, we answered many of them in these past episodes:

Please note: At the time that we recorded this episode, we noted that August 2025 LSAT registrants were up 27% relative to August 2024 registrants but that that number would come down over the days of the test administration. Ultimately, August LSAT registrants landed at a 23.7% increase vs. last year.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

August 4, 2025

Bill Treanor on 30+ Years as a Law School Dean & Standing Up to Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews William ("Bill") Treanor on his long and recently-concluded tenure as Dean of Georgetown University Law Center as well as his experiences and perspectives from a 40-year career. Bill talks about the the biggest changes he's seen during his time in legal education (16:06), the coming changes he foresees in the short-term future both good (19:22) and bad (20:56), his proudest accomplishments as a law school dean (41:57), the biggest challenges law students face today (24:27), and how he reacted and famously responded to the letter from Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin threatening not to hire Georgetown Law graduates if the school was found to be teaching a curriculum involving diversity, equity, and inclusion (1:33).

Dean Treanor's response to then-Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is below. You can also read it in full here.

Header: Georgetown Law, William M. Treanor, Dean and Executive Vice President, Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair, March 6, 2025, Addressed to: Edward R. Martin, Jr., Interim United States Attorney, District of Columbia Judiciary Center, 555 4th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001. Contents of Letter: Dear Interim United States Attorney Martin: I write in response to your letter dated February 17, 2025, which you sent to me via email on March 3, 2025. As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Georgetown University was founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding. For us at Georgetown, this principle is a moral and educational imperative. It is a principle that defines our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit institution. Georgetown University also prohibits discrimination and harassment in its programs and activities and takes seriously its obligations to comply with all federal and local laws. Your letter challenges Georgetown’s ability to define our mission as an educational institution. It inquires about Georgetown Law’s curriculum and classroom teaching, asks whether diversity, equity, and inclusion is part of the curriculum, and asserts that your office will not hire individuals from schools where you find the curriculum “unacceptable.” The First Amendment, however, guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it. The Supreme Court has continually affirmed that among the freedoms central to a university’s First Amendment rights are its abilities to determine, on academic grounds, who may teach, what to teach, and how to teach it. Georgetown University Law Center 600 New Jersey Avenue, NW | Washington, DC 20001-2075 This is a bedrock principle of constitutional law – recognized not only by the courts, but by the administration in which you serve. The Department of Education confirmed last week that it cannot restrict First Amendment rights and that it is statutorily prohibited from “exercising control over the content of school curricula.” Your letter informs me that your office will deny our students and graduates government employment opportunities until you, as Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, approve of our curriculum. Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution. Georgetown Law has one of the preeminent faculties in the country, fostering groundbreaking scholarship, educating students in a wide variety of perspectives, and thriving on the robust exchange of ideas. Georgetown Law faculty have educated world leaders, members of Congress, and Justice Department officials, from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We pride ourselves on providing an excellent graduate and professional education, built upon the Catholic and Jesuit tradition. Georgetown-educated attorneys have, for decades, served this country capably and selflessly in offices such as yours, and we have confidence that tradition will continue. We look forward to your confirming that any Georgetown-affiliated candidates for employment with your office will receive full and fair consideration. Sincerely, [Signature] William M. Treanor Dean and Executive Vice President Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair 2

Other topics they discuss include the value (and lack of value) of the Socratic method (16:30), experiential learning in law school (16:06) and the potential effects of a current proposal before the ABA (20:56), the growing field of law and technology (19:22), the prospect of government taking accrediting authority from independent organizations (21:57), the current and coming impacts of AI on legal education and practice (23:43, 46:58), how law firms have learned from past recessions and overreactions (29:33), Bill's take on the current surge in law school applicants (30:36), his advice for prospective law students today (33:48), and his thoughts on the law school rankings (35:18).

Bill Treanor served as Dean of Georgetown University Law Center for 15 years, prior to which he served as Dean of Fordham University School of Law for almost 20 years. His accomplishments at Georgetown were innumerable—you can read more about him and his impressive career here.

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Podcast: Military Applicants—Law School Admissions Strategy & More with Harvard Law Grad Brian Henson

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Spivey J.D. admissions consultants Danielle Early (former Associate Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School and military/veteran admissions specialist) and Mike Burns (former Director of Admissions & Financial Aid at Northwestern Law and Navy veteran) interview Brian Henson, a former consulting client of Danielle's, Navy Intelligence Officer, ⁠Service to School⁠ mentor, Harvard Law Armed Forces Association president, and recent HLS graduate. They discuss Brian's story of applying to law school from the middle of the ocean on an aircraft carrier and his experiences as a veteran at HLS, plus insights into admissions and legal education specifically targeted at military veterans and those on active duty.

What considerations should military applicants keep in mind that differ from non-military applicants? What is the adjustment like moving from the military to law school? What sorts of admissions resources are available for military members and veterans? What are common pieces of misinformation that military applicants may encounter, and what's the true story? They cover these topics and more, including admissions for enlisted soldiers vs. officers (29:36), getting letters of recommendation from supervisors/commanders (36:44), application timing (5:28 and 21:51), resumes (43:36), personal statements (46:08), determining your chances and making a school list (31:51), job search advice (1:03:42), and more.

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Podcast: Mid-Cycle Pep Talk & 2024-2025 Update from Mike Spivey

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Podcast: Mid-Cycle Pep Talk & 2024-2025 Update from Mike Spivey

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