In this podcast, Mike provide is a brief recap of the historic last cycle (2020–2021) as well as the short version of our best predictions for what's to come this cycle (2021–2022). If you'd like a longer and more in-depth discussion of these topics, please listen to our full podcast on these topics, "Recapping the 2020-2021 Law School Admissions Cycle & Predicting the Upcoming Cycle" (featuring Spivey Consulting's data wonk Justin Kane and PowerScore CEO Dave Killoran).

You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

For a full transcript of this episode, please see our blog post.

In this episode of the Status Check with Spivey, Mike has the opportunity to have a conversation with Lauryn Williams, four-time Olympic athlete and financial advisor with a specialty in student loans. In addition to discussing Lauryn's life and experiences as an Olympian, they also talk about the differences between taking out student loans for undergrad vs. for law school, income-driven repayment plans, public service loan forgiveness (PSLF), how to save for retirement while paying off your student loans (and the perhaps surprising tax benefits of doing so), and more.

As an Olympic sprinter and later bobsledder, Lauryn earned the accolade of being the only American woman to have won medals in both the summer and the winter Olympics. Today, she is a financial advisor, student loan expert, author, and podcaster specializing in improving financial literacy in young people and athletes. Lauryn's book, The Oval Office, is out now, and also be sure to check out the Student Loan Planner podcast and the podcast Lauryn hosts, Worth Listening.

You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

Note: Mike references the legal field's bimodal starting salary distribution in this podcast. You can see the chart he's referencing in our blog post for this episode.

In this podcast, Spivey Consulting COO Anna Hicks goes over the basics of law school admissions for those who are at the beginning of their application process and don't know much about how it works yet.

This episode is meant to provide context and a basis on which you can expand your research — here are some further resources you may want to check out next, many of which were mentioned in the podcast! For the full list of links for this episode, please visit our blog.

Basic Law School Information & Rankings

Personal Statements

Diversity Statements

Other Application Components

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts — just search for "Status Check with Spivey."

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this podcast, Spivey Consulting COO Anna Hicks asks Mike some admissions questions from Reddit, covering large-scale changes to law school admissions due to the pandemic, reapplication strategies, how law schools look at "KJDs," whether or not you should explain why you want to go to law school in your personal statement, how to write Why X statements when you can't visit a law school and don't know anyone who attended, and more.

You can listen and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.

We mentioned a number of other blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos in this podcast — they are linked below:

In this podcast, Mike Spivey is joined by PowerScore founder and CEO Dave Killoran and Spivey Consulting Business Intelligence Director Justin Kane — a wonky law school admissions/LSAT crew if there has ever been one! — to discuss takeaways from this previous 2020-2021 admissions cycle and to make predictions for the upcoming 2021-2022 cycle.

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts — just search for "Status Check with Spivey."

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this podcast, Mike and Spivey Consulting COO Anna Hicks have a discussion with a current law student, Amanda Bello, who ended her 1L year at Cornell Law in the top 10% of her class, transferred to Harvard Law, earned exceptionally strong grades at Harvard, and is now going into her second summer with the big law firm Gibson Dunn (check out our interview with Gibson Dunn partner Jeff Chapman here https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/interview-with-jeff-chapman/).

Also referenced in this podcast are three interviews we have done with renowned psychologists and wellness advocates:

- Dr. Guy Winch (on handling rejection and waiting) https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/podcast-with-dr-guy-winch/

- Dr. Gabor Maté (on self-esteem, doubt, anxiety and addiction) https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/podcast-interview-with-dr-gabor-mate-author-of-in-the-realm-of-hungry-ghosts/

- Dr. Kristin Neff (on self-compassion and self-esteem and motivation for test-taking) https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/podcast-interview-with-dr-kristin-neff/

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts — just search for "Status Check with Spivey."

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this podcast, Mike Spivey has the opportunity to interview Dr. Kristin Neff, a leading researcher and advocate in the field of self-compassion, creator of the self-compassion scales, and author of two books, "Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself," and her upcoming book, "Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive," which will be released on June 15, 2021.

Mike and Dr. Neff discuss the power of self-compassion for motivation and achievement, and the research showing that, in a testing scenario, a boost to self-compassion proves a stronger motivator than a boost to self-esteem (and a far stronger motivator than self-criticism).

"There's so much pressure to achieve, to prove yourself," Dr. Neff says. "And I think people fall into the illusion of thinking, 'I need to be hard on myself, I need to drive myself so that I can get ahead in life,' where in fact, what the research shows is you're more likely to get ahead if you support yourself."

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts — just search for "Status Check with Spivey."

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

A very brief update on law schools that are over-committed on their seat deposits, and Mike's thoughts on how waitlist movement might go this summer as a result.

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts — just search for "Status Check with Spivey."

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this podcast, Mike Spivey speaks with Dr. Gabor Maté, one of the world’s leading experts on physical and mental health and author of four best-selling books including "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" and "When the Body Says No." Dr. Maté shares his thoughts and advice on self-doubt, stress, anxiety, and addiction, and offers the following insight for prospective law students (among others):

"You're going to look at all your confident classmates, and you're going to go in there with all manner of self-doubt. You're making the big mistake of comparing their outside with your inside. You have no idea what their inside is like. And believe me, you're not the only one."

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts — just search for "Status Check with Spivey."

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com

In this episode of the Status Check podcast, Mike interviews Reddit user lightningmcboops (who for the purposes of this podcast we're calling "Megan") from the law school admissions subreddit. Megan applied with a 3.9x GPA and a 172 LSAT and received zero rejections despite applying in the most difficult law school admissions cycle we've ever seen, including straight admits from the majority of the T14, including Stanford. Mike and Megan walk through her application process and each of her application components, then discuss some takeaways and advice for future applicants.

You can listen and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, Google Podcasts, and RadioPublic — just search for "Status Check with Spivey." 

spiveyconsulting.com | spiveyblog.com | myrankbyspivey.com