Important Dates
March 1—Candidates who wish to begin the JSD Program in September may begin to submit their applications on this date. They should not submit their applications before this date. Candidates may only start the Program in September; there is no mid-year admission.
April 1—Priority application submission deadline. On or before this date candidates who have attended Chicago should have submitted to jswinsick@uchicago.edu the following items: resume/CV, dissertation proposal, and personal statement.
On or before this date candidates who have not attended Chicago should have submitted the following items: Application for Admission, copy of current transcript from the U.S. law school attended, resume/CV, dissertation proposal, and personal statement. This is not a completion deadline - see April 15 below. Candidates may apply after April 1. They do not need to ask permission to do this. Candidates who do apply after April 1 should include with their personal statements an explanation about why they did not apply before the deadline.
April 15—Priority application completion deadline. All recommendation letters for candidates who did not attend Chicago should be received by this date. Applications completed after April 15 will be fully reviewed once they are complete, but those candidates should understand that, as a practical matter, the later we review a completed application the less likely we will be able to offer admission. This timing varies from year to year, and it is impossible to predict ahead of time when we will have to stop offering admission to candidates.
April 20—The Graduate Studies Committee begins reviewing completed applications.
May 15—The Graduate Studies Committee begins sending application decisions. The Graduate Studies Committee may defer a decision on the application for current LLM students until the grades for the full LLM year become available.