Hello everyone,
I´m new here, I´ve been checking the posts and people usually don´t give a lot of information about themselves and what they did in order to be accepted in a LLM program.
I am a law undergraduate student in Brazil, still have 3 years before I graduate, and I would really like to use these 3 years to prepare myself to go straight to a LLM in the US (Chicago is my n.1 goal ) with a scholarship.
What are the "basic requirements"? Things everyone that has a scholarship have in common. Outstading grades, but how outstading do they have to be? I know English is something essential to foreigners, but does a good TOEFL grade trump legal practice? Is it possible that someone goes straight from undergraduate to LLM only with internship experiences (and no actual legal practice as a lawyer)?
Summing up, what do you recommend me to do in the 3 years I have??

well I don't think you can prepare in 3 years to a goal like the admission to LLM. Just be good in your studies, take some legal english classes and start your application preparation about a year prior to the deadline (means in your case in two years). YOu have nothing to worry about! As far as your english is concerned I think that you have a very good knowledge of it. You won't have a problem scoring a good number on the TOEFL test, as far as I can tell. And the rest is pretty much up to you. Get good grades, get involved in extr.curr. activites at your University and also some community service in your town. If it is possible in Brazil for students to publish articles in law reviews you might wanna do this as well, if you are interested in schools like HLS, CLS, YLS ... Try to do some internships or find work in a law firm as a part time job. Anything that seperates you from others is an asset...expecially when a lot of people from your country apply (due to the diversity statistics some schools set a high value on)...and apperantly a lot of people from Brazil/South America apply to LLMs.

But I did not get accepted yet so I am just suggesting those things

Thanks a million, just what I was looking for.
I´m not intended to start preparing right now, like writing the papers and stuff, but I´m searching for a good path to walk through from now on, and your advices were great.
Anyone else with other recommendations?
What about scholarships specifically? Are they really really hard to get?

Well there are two possibilities to get scholarships...

one way is through foundations in your country (fulbright...etc.) I cannot tell you more cause I am not from Brazil ;)

the other is to get a tuition waiver from the University you will apply to. There it is very different...and depends on the school: what criteria they have, and what you need to fill out. Mostly they grant those scholarships to people show that they are in need of one. That you have to fill out a financial aid request form, and you are good to go. You will have to look into this when you will apply as, like mentioned above, every school is different and has different criteria. Some don't even give scholarships at all (f.e. Duke).

best ragards and good luck!