Visiting Campus

When I was recently in Dallas at the Dallas Forum, a number of applicants asked me when the best time to come visit the law school is. I must admit, I'm tempted to say come right now – the weather is beautiful, classes have just started, and everybody's enthusiasm is running high. But there are a number of reasons to consider putting your campus visits off until the spring. For one thing, the 1L students haven't had enough time at the school to really be able to tell you much, and the 2L students are pretty busy with callbacks at law firms. More importantly, if you haven't finished your applications yet, your time is much better spent getting them done than visiting schools. Finally, you don't know yet which schools you have gotten into – why spend your time and money looking at schools that may not even be options for you? We do run programs for prospective students in the fall – our prospective student open houses this year will be on October 16, November 6 and November 20 – and I would say that these open houses are a wise investment of your time if you don't know which schools you want to apply to yet. But if you know that you want to apply to the University of Chicago Law School, then you may want to consider putting your time into making your application as good as it can be, and plan to visit in the spring, once you've been accepted. Our Admitted Student Weekend in the spring is a fantastic event – last year we had roughly 170 admitted students attend. Our current students run the weekend – they match the admitted students up with student hosts, so that you have a real opportunity to gain insight into what U of C is all about. Of course, if you live in Chicago and getting to Hyde Park on a weekday is no problem, feel free to visit as often as you like. But if you are juggling classes or a job with getting your applications done and are worried about having time to visit schools, relax. You will have plenty of time in the spring to visit the schools that you are really interested in. And at that point you will also know which schools are interested in you.