ROUND 3 ADMISSION DECISIONS ON MONDAY MARCH 11, 2024

We recognize how tough waiting can be, and once more, thank you for your patience during the admission cycle.

On March 11th, we’ll email nearly all of the final Round of admission decisions. 

• 99% of the remaining admission decisions will be emailed by the end of day, on March 11th.
   
• Files that were complete prior to, and on, March 11th, were considered and reviewed.
  .
• The last 1% will comprise of the applicants for whom WES evaluations are in-progress, and those for whom we have permitted a late arrival of data from OLSAS. After their files are complete we will review as soon as we can for an admission decision.

PLEASE WAIT FOR OUR NOTIFICATION EMAIL

By 9:30 pm (Toronto time) on March 11th, we are aiming to email 99% of the remaining decisions. If you phone or email to inquire before you receive an email, your results may not yet be ready, and it does not expedite the process.

Therefore please await your email notification. The email address listed in your OLSAS account at the start of notifications will be used.

After Tuesday March 19th, if your file is COMPLETE at OLSAS and you are not seeing the decision email, then by all means contact us.

Keep an eye on your spam/junk folder especially if you did not add admissions.law@utoronto.ca to your email address book/contact list, or as a trusted sender.
 

THE FOUR POSSIBLE DECISIONS

Based on the current status of the application file, the decision will be one of four outcomes:

1. Offered admission (admit)
2. Placed on a Wait List
3. Not competitive for admission (file closed)
4. Incomplete (no decision, will be closed after an appreciable time)

Please refer to the email notification for details on your application decision. In the interim, please note the following:
 

1. Offered Admission

Congratulations to the newest admitted candidates! Your notification email will direct you to your next steps including how and when to respond to the offer. In addition, an official offer of admission package will be mailed as soon as possible.

2. Placed on a Wait List

Your application is competitive, and if we had the space we would have offered it to you, gladly. You are deserving, and need to await a possible space becoming available.

Wait List promotion cannot be predicted by anyone
In order to determine if a space will become available to promote from the wait list, we first need to obtain the responses to offers from those who have accepted their admission offers. 

Since promotion can only occur after an admit who accepted informs us that they can no longer attend, no one, including the law school, can predict if or when a space may become available. Since promotion only occurs from the action of individual admits in the current cycle, the wait list behaviour from a prior admission cycle provides no predictive information.

Therefore, while on the wait list, it is prudent to consider responding to any offers that you have received from other law schools.

• With a PROVISIONAL acceptance at another Ontario law school via OLSAS, you can choose to keep the consideration at UofT alive, and will not affect the chances of promotion from our wait list. 
   
• A firm acceptance at another Ontario law school via OLSAS ends further consideration at UofT, and closes your UofT file.
   
• An acceptance of any kind of any law school outside of Ontario, has zero impact on the chances for promotion from our wait list. 

Waitlisted? Be Courteous
At any point in time, if you do not wish to be on the wait list then as a courtesy to the rest of the list please inform us immediately. Otherwise you will prevent someone being promoted from the wait list. Email us immediately at admissions.law@utoronto.ca.

The earliest deadline for our Round 1, 2 and 3 admitted students to provide their responses is April 1st. Again, there is no guarantee that any spaces will be available immediately thereafter since that is determined by the admitted students’ responses received, and not by the law school.

If a space becomes available, we will contact the entire wait list to fill the spot. Wait list positions are not ranked or disclosed, so please save yourself the effort in asking us where you are on the list or in expressing your interest in obtaining a spot. If you did not email us to remove you from the wait list, or did not give a firm accept to another Ontario law school, then we will assume that you are still interested. Naturally, we assume the best - not the worst - of your intentions, without your need to express them.

3. Not competitive for admission

There are far more applicants than there are spaces, and after careful review, and despite the strength of the applications, we simply cannot admit or wait list every candidate. As a result, the application is declined this time around and the file will be closed.

Unless there is an actual, clearly egregious and significant ERROR in - rather than unfortunate circumstances affecting - the academic record or the LSAT report submitted for your file, please refrain from sending unrequested additional documents or information in the hope that it will result in a change of the decision.

Once again, please await our email notification regarding your admission decision, and check your spam/junk folder.

4. Incomplete 

A decision is made on completed files only.  

Applicants are responsible for ensuring that their files are complete at OLSAS. As a courtesy, earlier in March, we notified some applicants that their files were incomplete in the hopes that they will act promptly to submit their remaining permissible items to OLSAS, such as in-progress WES evaluations. We are still aiming for completed files to be assessed by the end of March, or shortly thereafter based on when files become complete. After an appreciable time, an incomplete file will be closed.

In the interim, it is prudent to proceed with responding to any offers that you have received from other law schools.

• With a PROVISIONAL acceptance at another Ontario law school via OLSAS you can choose to keep the consideration at UofT alive, and in so doing, not affect the UofT admission decision.
   
• A FIRM acceptance at another Ontario law school via OLSAS ends further consideration at UofT, and closes your UofT file.
     
• An acceptance of any kind of any law school outside of Ontario, has zero impact on any aspect of the UofT application and UofT admission decision.
   

Best Regards,
JD Admissions Office
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

ROUND 2 NOTIFICATIONS COMPLETED

By the end of today, February 13th, the complete set of notifications for Round 2 offers for admission to the 2024 first year JD will be sent. Congrats to our newest admitted applicants!

With Round 2 now complete, we will be moving on to the third and final round of decisions, with notifications expected to be sent in mid to late March (likely during March 18-28).
 

I did not receive notification of any decision

Only those admitted were notified. Everyone admitted will receive an email notice by 5:30 pm (Toronto time) on February 13th.

Everyone with a file that is complete by March 1 (i.e. all required application components received at OLSAS) will be considered automatically for Round 3 later in March. The responsibility is yours to check your OLSAS account for the receipt of application components required by UofT.

Onward to the final Round 3

As stated in our earlier blogs, no refusals are made in Rounds 1 and 2.
In Round 3, the final admission decisions will be one of:

1. Offered admission
2. Not offered admission
3. Placed on a wait list

• There is no benefit from contacting us to indicate your desire to be admitted, since we assume everyone who applied would like to be admitted.
   
• In accordance with the OLSAS application instructions, and in fairness to all applicants, updates to autobiographical sketches (e.g. achievements, employment and activities), personal statements and optional essays already submitted will not be permitted, and will be ignored. Do not send any updates.
   
• If you obtained grades for courses completed in the fall 2023 semester, then you are required to submit them directly to OLSAS, as per the OLSAS instructions. This includes undergraduate courses, graduate courses or exchange courses. If you missed the Feb 1st deadline, then still arrange for their submission to OLSAS without delay.  Please refer to our Jan 4th blog for details on what to provide for us.
  
  
• The acceptable LSAT scores for entry into Year 1 in 2024 are those from tests taken from June 2019 to January 2024 inclusively, as we’ve stated all along in the application instructions at our website and at OLSAS.  
  
  > If you will not have an acceptable LSAT score for your file then we will mark your file as incomplete and close it.
  
  > If you have an acceptable LSAT score, then, regardless of its value, it will be used for file review.  
  
  > We can only use scores that were attained from acceptable tests and not speculative scores that may/could have been obtained were it not for some mishap/circumstance.
   
• Always check first at OLSAS that your file is complete, since all application documents are to be sent to OLSAS directly. DO NOT send us documents directly.
   
• If it’s not at OLSAS, we will never receive it. Documents received at OLSAS are not distributed to us immediately. It can take a few business days for us to receive it. What is important is that it is received at OLSAS.
   
• Ensure that your email address at OLSAS is correct since we will send final notifications by email.
   
• If you don’t recall receiving an email from the UofT JD Admissions Office acknowledging that you applied via OLSAS, then first check your spam/junk folder for that acknowledgment email. If you do not locate it then please check with us immediately to ensure that your emailer can receive our emails properly.

 
I’ve been admitted to another Ontario law school

• No response to that Ontario offer at OLSAS by its response deadline keeps your UofT consideration open, and it has no effect on our decision
   
• A Provisional Acceptance of that Ontario offer at OLSAS, will ask whether to keep your UofT consideration open, and it has no effect on our decision
   
• A Firm Acceptance of that Ontario offer at OLSAS ends your UofT consideration immediately, we will close your file.
   
• Regardless, DO NOT withdraw/cancel your UofT JD application choice at OLSAS.
   

I’ve been admitted to a non-Ontario law school

• If you’ve received an offer of admission from any NON-ONTARIO law school at any time, then your response to that offer has no effect on your UofT admission consideration.
   
• Therefore DO NOT withdraw/cancel your UofT JD application choice at OLSAS.
   
• We’ve already indicated when we expect to make the final set of decisions i.e. in mid to late March. Until then, it’s entirely in your hands how to handle your response deadlines for offers from other law schools, including making any acceptance deposits.
  

I’ve been offered admission to another law school, can you expedite my file review before that school’s response deadline?

Response deadlines for accepting at other law schools will not hasten our file review, since we need the time to conduct a full and proper review of all of the remaining completed files. For some files, this necessitates awaiting WES documents, LSAT Writing, or scores from the January LSAT.

Please therefore, do not request decisions before we are ready with them. At this point in time we will not be able to provide an exact date for notifications. As per usual, we will update this blog once we have a better sense of the timing of March notifications.
 
Good luck!

As always, your patience is appreciated.

JD Admissions Office

ROUND 2 NOTIFICATIONS BEGIN FEBRUARY 12

We thank you for your patience while we read, reviewed and assessed your application materials. It takes time to complete, since selection is more comprehensive and holistic than simply calculating GPAs and checking LSAT scores. The review included January LSAT scores that were received at OLSAS by February 6th.

We expect to complete the notifications by February 14. As per custom, we will also update this blog on the day that notifications end.  

We remind you that only offers of admission are made in Rounds 1 and 2.  Refusals and wait lists are not determined until the 3rd and final round in March.

Everyone not yet offered, is re-considered automatically through all rounds.

Best Regards, 
JD Admissions Office

THE FIRST TO-DO FOR 2024:
YOUR TRANSCRIPT CHECK-UP

The start of the new year is the ideal time to perform a check on your transcript submissions to OLSAS, in advance of the final two rounds of admission decisions which are anticipated for mid February, and mid-to-late March.

In accordance with the standard OLSAS application instructions, which have been available since late August 2023, please note the following critical transcript checks for JD first year applications.

YOU HAD COURSES IN PROGRESS WHEN YOU APPLIED

• You are to arrange for an official updated transcript with completed first/fall semester grades from the source school to OLSAS. This is a standard OLSAS instruction, regardless of the Ontario law school(s) to which you applied.
  
  
• At the OLSAS transcript webpage please read the section Current Academic Transcripts for First-year Applicants��at https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/olsas-transcript 
  
  
• BEFORE ordering the transcript, ensure with the source school that the new grades will be visible on the official transcript, since the purpose is to provide those grades.
   
• Order the transcript as you would normally, based on the source of the transcript, as per the OLSAS instructions at https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/olsas-transcript 
   
• It is to be RECEIVED at OLSAS by Feb 1st, 2024. Time your submission arrangements accordingly. Do not submit to the law school, submit to OLSAS only. We will only accept official transcripts submitted directly by the source school to OLSAS.
     
• Yes, candidates offered admission in Round 1, who had undergraduate courses in progress must still provide the updated transcript to OLSAS by the deadline.
  

For UofT specifically, regarding courses in progress when you applied

• If you were enrolled in a graduate degree program (master’s or doctorate), then we do not require the updated graduate program transcript, unless it will include new grades. 
  
  
• However, if you applied to other Ontario law schools, they may still require it, please check with them directly.
   
• If a WES Canada evaluation was required, and you provided/arranged for, one to OLSAS already, then an updated WES evaluation with first/fall semester grades is not also required. Instead, arrange for an new official transcript with the new grade information to be sent from your school directly to OLSAS.
   
• If a WES Canada  evaluation was required, and the evaluation is in progress, then do not arrange for another WES evaluation with the new grade information. Please ensure that the in-progress evaluation is RECEIVED at OLSAS no later than March 1st, 2024.
  
  
• CAUTION
  We cannot review your file for admission until it is complete and we expect to make all decisions by the end of Round 3 decisions in mid to late March.
  
   

EXCHANGE/STUDY ABROAD/VISITING STUDENT TRANSCRIPTS (COMPLETED or IN PROGRESS)

• The standard OLSAS instructions state quite clearly that official transcripts from exchange/study abroad/visiting student HOST schools are to be provided to OLSAS. See the very first transcript instructions at https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/olsas-transcript
   
• How the HOME school treats the exchange/study abroad/visiting student  grades is irrelevant to your requirement to provide an official transcript from the HOST school to OLSAS directly. Since OLSAS is the initial recipient, please check with OLSAS directly regarding how the HOST school may provide the official transcript electronically to OLSAS.
    
• Again, as per the OLSAS instructions, if your HOME school, on its transcript, gave/will give CREDIT (regardless of whether grades are showing for the host courses), for the exchange/study abroad/visiting study, then the HOST school’s transcript does not need to be evaluated by WES Canada.
  
  
• Please take the time to read carefully and thoroughly the section Transcripts from International Institutions (Excluding the US) for the sub-section on Assessment of International Academic Credentials at https://www.ouac.on.ca/guide/olsas-transcript

 
CHECKING THE RECEIPT OF TRANSCRIPTS

• As per our email which acknowledged receipt of your OLSAS application, your FIRST STEP is to check for the receipt of application materials at OLSAS via your OLSAS account.
   
• Since we get the documents from OLSAS, always check OLSAS first. If they are present at OLSAS then there is no need to also check with us.
   
• Please be aware that items submitted to OLSAS are never received instantaneously by the Ontario law schools. It can take a few business days after arrival at OLSAS before being distributed to the law school(s).
  
  Therefore, once more, check OLSAS first, always, and await for the item(s) to be displayed at OLSAS. Do NOT send transcripts to us directly as a contingency, we will await the official transcripts sent from the source school directly to OLSAS. Transcripts self-uploaded by applicants at OLSAS are not official.

UPDATED GRADES & OUR ADMISSION GPA 

As you may be aware, our admission GPA is based on the best three academic years of full-time (not full-load) undergraduate study. 

We consider the academic year to comprise of both the traditional fall and winter terms. Therefore, one term only (e.g. the fall term), does not constitute an academic year, and thus a single term of grades - on its own - is insufficient for use in a year-based GPA calculation. 

This does not mean that the new first semester/fall grades have no value. They will be considered. It is not necessary to perform a calculation in order to ascertain an academic performance, since the transcript(s) will display the grades attained.

ALL of the courses in the post-secondary academic record (e.g. undergrad, graduate, summer, exchange/study abroad etc.) have value and are considered, regardless of which may be used for our GPA calculation.

Ultimately, what is pertinent is not a calculation - which is a convenient tool - but the strength of the performance on courses, whenever they were taken. 

If you have not already done so, please take the time to read the entire section on Standards for Admission at our website.

With kind regards,
JD Admissions Office

ENJOY THE HOLIDAY BREAK!

CLOSED FROM DECEMBER 18, WE REOPEN ON JANUARY 3

Starting on December 18, the JD Admissions Office will be closed for the end of term holiday break.

The staff will be happy to reconnect with you when the university reopens on January 3.

Until then, we wish that everyone will have a safe and enjoyable holiday season!