Dean Z on Underrated/Overrated Law School Admissions Advice + Answering Reddit Questions (Part 1)

Status Check with Spivey

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike has a conversation with Dean Sarah Zearfoss (also known as "Dean Z"), who, in her role as Senior Assistant Dean at the University of Michigan Law School, has overseen the admissions office for the past 23 years. Dean Z also hosts the popular law school admissions podcast A2Z with Dean Z.

In the interview, Mike and Dean Z discuss whether popular law school admissions advice is "overrated or underrated," including applying early, retaking the LSAT, making choices based on the new rankings, visiting law schools, and typos in applications (they agree about most, but engage in some debate about others). Then they answer some questions from Reddit about "Why X" essays, addressing "why law" in your application, applying as an international student, LSAT scores from 5+ years ago, second bachelor's degrees, and leaving application questions bank.

Mike and Dean Z mention My Rank in this episode, a free tool for applicants to make their own customized law school rankings—you can use My Rank here.

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

We also wanted to briefly elaborate on one topic—in this episode, Mike and Dean Z discuss whether and how to incorporate "why law" into one's application. Most applicants probably shouldn't write their personal statement with the intention of trying to answer "why law," since most often this results in explaining a series of different experiences they've had and classes they've taken to explain their reasons for wanting to attend law school, which typically ends up relatively generic/non-differentiating. However, that is not to say that it's not prudent to have clarity about why you want to go to law school—at bare minimum for yourself, but also, from an admissions strategy standpoint, so that you can answer that very common interview question. You may also incorporate part(s) of your "why law" in your personal statement or elsewhere in your application, but we don't encourage most applicants to write their personal statement as an answer to the prompt, "Why do you want to go to law school?"