By Stephen Simon
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has extended the deadline for candidates offered admission between 2021 and 2026 to formally accept or reject their pending admission offers.
The board shifted the deadline—previously set for Monday, August 31, 2026—to Wednesday, September 30, 2026. In a statement issued by the Acting Director of Public Affairs and Protocol, Fabian Benjamin, JAMB described the move as a “final opportunity” to resolve outstanding admission statuses and warned that no further extensions will be granted.
The directive applies to both regular admissions and those under the Central University and Inter-University Admission (CUIIA) categories, covering Direct Entry, part-time, sandwich, and distance learning programs.
“Candidates with pending admission offers who have not yet accepted or rejected such offers are strongly advised to do so before 30 September 2026,” Benjamin stated. “At the expiration of the deadline, all outstanding admission offers from 2021 to date that have neither been accepted nor rejected will automatically be reverted to ‘Not Admitted’ status on the Board’s records”.
According to the examination body, candidates who accept their offers will be able to proceed to print their official admission letters. Conversely, those who reject them will have their Central Admissions Processing System (CAPS) dashboards reset to “Not Admitted,” allowing the board to clean up its national database.
Addressing common scenarios among candidates, JAMB provided specific directives:
Changed Programmes or Institutions: Candidates who are no longer enrolled at the institution that offered the original admission, or who switched programmes, should accept the outstanding offer first and subsequently apply for data correction or deletion to align their records.
Second-Degree Students: Candidates currently pursuing a second degree who have older, unaccepted offers should reject the previous offers to maintain accurate profiles.
2026 Fresh Adointees: Candidates who secured fresh admission for the 2026 academic session but still carry unresolved offers from previous years can safely reject the old offers. JAMB reassured affected candidates that rejecting past offers will have no adverse effect on their 2026 admission status.
Urging candidates to log into their profile portals immediately rather than waiting until the final hours, JAMB stressed that failure to take action before the September 30 deadline will render the unacted admission offers permanently invalid.
