Application Status

Staff members of the Moritz College of Law Office of Admissions and Financial Aid are available to answer questions relating to the application process and admission standards. Due to the high volume of requests, applicants are strongly encouraged to check the status online.

**To check the status of your application, please click here.**

Moritz College of Law Admissions Committee typically renders admissions decisions within 6-8 weeks after the application file is received and is complete (with supporting documents, such as the LSDAS report) in the Admissions Office.

Contact with Moritz College of Law Office of Admissions may be made by phone at (614) 292-8810 or e-mail lawadmit@osu.edu. The Office of Admissions is staffed Monday-Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET.

Deferral Status

Each year the Moritz College of Law receives many applications from qualified and unique students who have the potential to become excellent members of the legal profession. Some are admitted, some are denied and others are deferred. The third category is the one that produces the most questions.

If a student is deferred, the committee would like to have more time to review your file before a final decision is reached. You may submit additional information regarding grades, work experience, life experience, letters of recommendation, an addendum to explain a low LSAT or GPA, another more detailed personal statement, and/or anything else that you feel will improve your chances of acceptance. You do not have to provide any additional information if you feel your file is complete as is and there is no additional information to be added.

These are just some of the reasons a file may be deferred but by no means is an exhausted list. Once the Admissions Committee has an opportunity to review your file a second time, then you will receive notification of a decision. We fully understand that each student that is deferred needs to know, as soon as possible, whether they will receive an offer of admission. We make all possible efforts to notify a student of a decision as soon as one is made.

Wait List

Each year the Moritz College of Law receives applications from qualified students in numbers far exceeding the number of available seats. Although the number of students in the applicant pool continues to climb, we are not increasing the size of our entering class, nor the number of students to whom we extend an offer of admission.

In a typical year, approximately 750-950 students are extended offers of admission. Approximately 33% of those students pay the required seat deposit. For the past few years, this pool of deposit paid students has yielded an entering class ranging from approximately 200 students. Once a determination is made that sufficient offers of admission have been extended to yield our target class size, the Moritz College of Law Admissions Committee will make recommendations as to those students who should be placed on the wait list.

Once you have been placed on the wait list, you truly have to wait and see. The Admissions Committee has already reviewed and voted upon your file. Although additional information may be submitted (i.e. an updated transcript), it will not be reviewed unless, and until, a decision is made to extend offers of admission to students on the wait list. A decision to extend an offer of admission to a student on the wait list will not take place as long as the number of deposit paid students exceeds the number of available seats.

It is important to realize that the Admissions Office makes a great deal of effort to determine those students who really are planning to enroll so that we can determine, as soon as practicable, whether we will extend offers to wait-listed students. The number of students pulled from the wait list varies greatly each year.

Although we fully understand that each student on the wait list needs to know, as soon as possible, whether they will have an opportunity to attend Ohio State in the fall, we cannot extend offers from the wait list based upon individual student deadlines. If we are able to determine in late June that the likelihood of an individual student being pulled from the wait list is very small, we will notify that student in order to assist them in finalizing other options.

If a decision is made to go to the wait list, the Admissions Office will review the files and select a group of students for further consideration. Factors taken into account may include, but are not limited to, the recommendations of the Admissions Committee, comparability of quantifiable credentials to that of the seated class, compatibility with Moritz College of Law programming, and contribution to the range of diversity within the class (educational/experiential background, residency/non-residency, ethnic/cultural, area of substantive interest, etc.).

If there is any change on your wait list status, we will contact you as soon as possible. To this end, we would appreciate it if you would keep us informed of changes in your contact information via email at lawadmit@osu.edu.