Law Entrance Exam Calendar: When Each Major Exam Happens

Law aspirants preparing for multiple entrance exams often struggle to plan around overlapping timelines. Here’s how the major Indian law entrance exams are typically sequenced across the year (verify exact dates each year against official notifications, since these shift annually).

Undergraduate entrances

CLAT UG is typically held in early December, with applications usually opening mid-year and closing around October-November. AILET (for NLU Delhi specifically) is usually held shortly after CLAT, in December. Various private and state university law entrances (LSAT India, SET, state CETs) run on their own separate timelines, often spread across the preceding months.

Postgraduate entrances

CLAT PG runs alongside CLAT UG on the same exam day. CUET PG Law typically falls in a different window (often around May), on a schedule set by the National Testing Agency separate from the CLAT Consortium.

Why tracking this matters for planning

If you’re applying to multiple exams (CLAT plus a state CET, or CLAT plus specific private university entrances), application deadlines for different exams don’t align, so missing one because you were focused on another is a common, avoidable mistake. Build a personal calendar as soon as each year’s notifications are out, rather than relying on memory of previous years’ timing, since dates do shift.

Where to verify current dates

Always confirm exact dates directly from each exam’s official notification (the Consortium of NLUs website for CLAT, NLU Delhi’s site for AILET, the NTA for CUET) close to application time, since this guide’s description of typical sequencing can shift from year to year.

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