What You Need to Know About Law School Application Deadlines
Having trouble decoding a law school’s different deadlines? Our newest partner, premiere admissions counseling firm Stratus Admissions Counseling, wants to help make this confusing process crystal clear for you. To that end, they’ve outlined some crucial information about application deadlines.
Because law schools use a rolling admissions cycle, it is often daunting to figure out each law school application deadlines, if they have one at all, and what one should do if the stated deadline has passed. The information that follows is intended to provide general guidance on deadlines and how to interpret them. As with many aspects of the law school admissions process, the treatment of law school application deadlines varies greatly from school to school, so always check with the schools themselves if you have any questions about their deadlines.
“Hard” vs. “Soft” Deadlines
Because of the rolling nature of the law school admissions cycle, candidates submit applications over many months, and law schools will accept applications on a space-available basis late into the application cycle. This pushes most schools to employ what we call “soft” deadlines as opposed to “hard” deadlines. A “hard” deadline is one after which a school will not accept or read an application. A “soft” deadline, on the other hand, does not prohibit the submission of applications after that deadline.
Don’t treat “soft” law school application deadlines as invitations to apply after the deadline, though! You should always make every effort to submit applications by the stated deadline, whether it’s “hard” or “soft”.
Early Decision vs. Regular Decision
A preliminary deadline-oriented decision is whether to apply early decision. There are strategic advantages and disadvantages to applying early decision, but one clear factor is the deadline. Early decision deadlines tend to fall some time in November, usually at least three months before the regular decision deadline. Early decision deadlines also tend to be “hard” deadlines, while regular decision deadlines tend to be “soft” deadlines.
When is it too late to submit applications?
Some law schools, like UC Berkeley, Yale and Boston College, have hard deadlines. The vast majority of schools, though, will accept applications after their stated deadlines. Note that many of the top schools will only guarantee full consideration of applications that are submitted by their stated deadline.
To complicate matters further, many schools have “priority” deadlines, which generally means that they will guarantee a decision by a certain date for applicants submit before that deadline.
Many schools will accept applications into the summer, and will accept candidates who submit applications as late as June or July. For most schools, the only way to know for sure that it’s too late to submit an application is to call the admissions office and ask…you might be surprised by their answer!
In a Nutshell…
- Law schools begin to accept applications between September 1 and October 1.
- Early decision deadlines are between November 1 and December 1.
- Regular decision deadlines are generally between February 1 and April 1, but most schools will accept applications after their stated deadlines.
- Check with each school individually if you have any questions about their application deadline policies.
If you have any questions about what was covered in the post, the law school application process in general, or how we at Stratus Admissions Counseling can help you craft the strongest possible application, reach out to us at consult@stratusprep.com to talk to one of our candidate strategists. We look forward to hearing from you! ?
Stratus Admissions Counseling is a premier admissions counseling firm that can help you achieve your dream of attending law school. Stratus’ unique approach has helped students gain admission into all of the top schools worldwide for undergraduate and graduate work, including Harvard University, Yale University, The University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Columbia University, NYU, UCLA, MIT, and dozens of others. Stratus authors regular columns for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes. To learn more about Stratus and schedule your free consultation, follow this link.