If you’re thinking of applying to law school, you may be wondering, how and when do I begin? Our upcoming podcast, Planning Your Law School Application Timeline: What To Do and When To Do It, is devoted to that topic and our guests break down all the elements of your application to start you off on the right foot.
It all begins with this: law school applications should be turned in no later than Thanksgiving the year before you plan to go to law school, with some experts saying Halloween is the best target date.
With that in mind, jdMission’s Sunitha Ramaiah says you should work backwards from that target submission date to start your timeline. She says this allows applicants to take advantage of the rolling admissions process:
We at jdMission are strong advocates of taking advantage of the rolling admission process that’s used by most schools, Yale Law being an exception out of the top 15. The period from September to November is your greatest window of opportunity to secure a seat at the law school of your choice. Many law schools start accepting applications from September 1st. We believe that ideally you should submit your completed applications by mid October or earlier of course and encourage you to do so. It’s really important to apply as early in the application season as possible, because early on, the admissions committee has more time to read your files and a candidate looks a lot less special after reading thousands of applications. Also, you’re showing the admissions committee that you’re on the ball and that you’re really interested in their school. And also, if financial aid is of importance to you, financial aid is on a first come first serve basis, so rolling admissions is really important.
To be on top of things and meet this deadline, you need to plan when to register and take the LSAT, how and when to ask for recommendation letters, when to register for the LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service (CAS), when to schedule school visits, when to begin your personal statement, and when to focus on financing. In this segment, we look at these elements of your application and we also hear from the following other guests:
- Hilary Mantis, Prelaw Advisor & Career Consultant, Fordham University
- Rebecca Gill, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Prelaw Advisor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas
- Aminta Kilawan, 2L, Fordham University School of Law.
We’ll help you build a timeline that starts 18 months prior to when you want to enroll in law school. It’s all covered in our upcoming podcast, so stay tuned….