Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has extended the deadline for candidates offered admission between 2021 and 2026 to either accept or reject their admission offers, giving affected candidates until Wednesday, September 30, 2026, to complete the process.
The Board had earlier fixed Monday, August 31, 2026, as the deadline for candidates to indicate whether they wished to accept or decline admission offers made within the period. The latest extension, however, provides what JAMB described as a final opportunity for all affected candidates to regularise their admission status.
In a statement issued at the weekend by JAMB’s Public Communication Adviser, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, the Board urged candidates with pending admission offers, including those under the regular admission process and the CUIIA category, to take immediate action before the new deadline.
According to the statement, candidates who fail to either accept or reject their admission offers before September 30 risk losing the offers, as they will no longer be recognised in the Board’s records.
Candidates who accept their admission offers will be eligible to print and obtain their official admission letters, while those who reject the offers will have their JAMB dashboards updated to reflect a “Not Admitted” status. JAMB said this would enable it to maintain accurate and up-to-date national admission records.
The Board also clarified that candidates who are no longer studying in the institutions where the admissions were initially offered, or who have changed to different programmes, should first accept the outstanding admission before applying for the necessary correction or deletion, depending on their circumstances.
JAMB further advised candidates currently pursuing a second degree but still having an earlier admission offer pending on their profiles to reject the previous offer and continue with their current academic programme.
The Board reassured candidates who have already secured admission during the 2026 admission exercise but still have an earlier unaccepted admission offer that rejecting the previous offer “will have no adverse effect whatsoever on their 2026 admission.”
Explaining the reason for the extension, the Board said the additional time was intended to give all affected candidates one final opportunity to clearly indicate whether they wished to accept or reject their outstanding admission offers while ensuring that its admission database remains accurate, current and reliable.
JAMB stressed that there would be no further extension after the September 30 deadline.
According to the Board, all admission offers made from 2021 to date that remain neither accepted nor rejected after the deadline will automatically revert to “Not Admitted” status and remain so in its records.
The Board therefore urged all affected candidates to complete the process without delay, warning that failure to accept an admission offer within the stipulated period would render the offer invalid.
