You’ve submitted your application…. What’s next?
Review Process
Once a file is complete, it is evaluated by a professional Admissions Office staff member. The Admissions Office, guided by faculty policy, admits a certain number of applicants determined each year. An initial reader makes a recommendation, and that recommendation is forwarded to the Dean of Admissions for a secondary review. Some applications will be reviewed by members of the faculty. The applicant status online (ASO) tool does not always accurately reflect where a candidate is in our internal review process.
As a result of the Admission Office’s consideration, some applicants are admitted, some are placed on a waiting list, and the remaining applicants are denied. If the number of admitted students who accept an offer of admission falls below the number necessary to fill the class, then the wait list is used to fill the remaining places.
Our goal every year is to have all decisions transmitted to applicants by April 1. Waitlist admissions can take place as late as August 15.
Click here for FAQs about the review process.
Check Your Application Status
You may check the status of your Berkeley Law School application using the Online Application Status Checker. This feature allows you to monitor the status of your file at your convenience. Your status will be updated as soon as changes are made to your application.
For those applications that are not yet complete, it may take a few weeks from the date we receive your application to the date your application is processed. LSAC will notify you when your report is sent to us. The Office of J.D. Admissions will notify candidates via email if additional information is required in order to complete your file. Once your status changes to in review, you will also receive an email notification.
Your username and password will be sent to the email address provided in your application. If you experience problems, please contact the Office of J.D. Admissions at admissions@law.berkeley.edu.
Decision Notification
Decision notifications are sent to applicants as decisions are made. For the majority of applicants this is usually by mid-March. An admitted applicant has several weeks to respond to the offer, but in no case is an applicant required to respond before April 1. Note that the early decision process operates on a different timeline.
Acceptance/Seat Deposit
Berkeley Law does not require an acceptance deposit. Instead, the school relies on the integrity of those admitted to provide candid responses about accepting the offer of admission.
Appeals
Once an applicant has been denied admission, the file is not reconsidered during that admission cycle. Files are carefully reviewed on a comparative basis. Reconsideration after the conclusion of the process might create an unfair situation more favorable to the individual applicant, since reconsideration would lack the perspective provided by comparison with other files. Exceptions are made only in unusual cases in which an error, for which the applicant was not responsible and which the applicant promptly brought to the law school’s attention, may have affected the decision.