Timing

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November 22, 2018
Should you submit your application after you take the LSAT(or GRE) or once you get your score?

The short answer is "it doesn't matter that much." As we have blogged about here [https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/how-long-does-it-take-for-law-school-applications-to-be-read/] , applications aren't read in date stamped sequential order, but rather by strength. They do, of course, have to be complete, and not having a test score will render them incomplete. Still, the lack of a score (or another attempt at a higher score) does not mean that you can't actually submit an application. Should you

January 28, 2019
2018/2019 Midpoint Cycle Update

We are about 50% through the cycle, and I wanted to share some observations, data, and then remaining predictions with everyone. Much of the data can be found here [https://www.lsac.org/data-research/data/current-volume-summaries-region-raceethnicity-sex-lsat-score] , and, for the first time ever, is publicly available and updated daily by LSAC. A deep-dive analysis is also done weekly by our intern on his blog weekly blog here [https://docs.google.com/document/d/14qVpQWwtDdplBXBitItcHOP5I2xWHX

December 8, 2018
How many times can you take the LSAT in a 3 year period?

To be brief, the answer is "unlimited" or technically "limited only by how many tests there will administered in a three year period" and has been since September of 2017. Before then there was a limiting number, and there is still a good deal of bad information out there about that old policy, hence this incredibly brief blog. Again, there is no longer a policy limiting takes, and you can take it and keep taking it. Whether you should is a bit more nuanced [https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com

March 15, 2019
When a school drops in rank significantly, does that affect how "desperate" schools get?

This is an applicant question, and a timely one due to the recent USNWR rankings release and upcoming seat deposit deadlines. The applicant asking the question, I believe, uses “desperate” to mean, will a school that just dropped in the rankings suffer applicant pool consequences and thus need to go deeper into their own pool to admit? I will get to that a bit later in this post (and there is available data that anyone could look up by looking at schools that have dropped in the rankings in past

April 25, 2019
The June LSAT and Waitlists

Registration for the June 2019 LSAT closed yesterday. Most people who are signed up for that LSAT administration are going to be using it to apply in the 2019-2020 cycle. But as law school applicants become increasingly savvy to the importance of LSAT scores in admissions, many applicants are re-taking the test in June to improve their chances of getting off a waitlist. Last year alone an additional 7% of June LSAT takers were retaking the test over historical averages—many presumably in hopes o

June 30, 2019
Application Timing

Many law school websites have somewhat unclear language about how early you should send in an application, and applicants hear conflicting information from friends, colleagues, and pre-law advisers.

July 25, 2019
Top 50 Law School Application Opening Dates for the 2019-2020 Cycle

*Please note, schools can change these dates, and it is possible that when we called to ask them that they gave us the dates applications become available to fill out on the LSAC website rather than when applications are accepted (although we were very careful to clearly articulate what we were asking about) — but this should be highly accurate to the extent we can control it. Also please note that several schools told us that they had not yet decided on an exact date that they will be acceptin

March 28, 2020
When will larger numbers of law school admissions decisions come?

This will be a short but I hope important blog to consider. It's been a notoriously slow admission cycle, and it possibly would have stayed at an equally slow pace until COVID-19 changed things in many dramatic ways.

August 4, 2020
Guide to Completing LSAC Applications

So you’ve worked hard to prepare your materials, and it's time to submit! What's next?