The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has extended the deadline for candidates offered admission from 2021 to date to accept or reject such offers to Sept. 30.

This was contained in a statement issued on Saturday in Abuja by JAMB’s public communication adviser, Fabian Benjamin.

The board had earlier fixed August 31 as the deadline for candidates with outstanding admission offers to indicate whether they wished to accept or reject them.

Mr Benjamin said the extension was a final opportunity for all affected candidates, including those with regular or Centralised Universities International Admissions (CUIIA) offers, to take the necessary action before the expiration of the new deadline.

He urged candidates with pending admission offers to accept or reject them before Sept. 30, warning that failure to do so would have consequences for the status of such admissions.

“Candidates should not wait until the deadline, as failure to take action within the stipulated period will have consequences for the status of such admissions,” he said.

According to him, candidates who accept their admission offers will be able to print and obtain their admission letters.

He said those who reject their offers would have their dashboards reverted to “Not Admitted”, allowing the board to update its records and ensure that its admission data accurately reflect their current status.

Mr Benjamin said candidates who were no longer in the institutions where their previous admissions were offered could accept the outstanding admission and subsequently apply for the appropriate correction or deletion of the admission.

He said the same applied to those who were currently in different programmes, adding that the process would enable the board to appropriately update the candidates’ admission status and records.

The JAMB spokesperson also advised candidates currently pursuing a second degree but with an unaccepted previous admission offer to reject the outstanding offer and continue with their current programmes.

He further assured candidates who had been offered admission in the 2026 admission exercise but still had previous admission offers pending that rejecting the earlier offers would not affect their 2026 admissions.

“The board wishes to make it clear that candidates who have been offered admission in the 2026 admission exercise but still have a previous admission offer pending should not be apprehensive.

“Such candidates may reject the previous admission offer, and doing so will have no adverse effect whatsoever on their 2026 admission,” he said.

Mr Benjamin said the extension of the deadline was intended to give affected candidates one final opportunity to clearly indicate whether they wished to accept or reject their outstanding offers.

He said it would also enable the board to maintain accurate, current and reliable national admission records.

“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.

“They will remain so on the board’s records,” he said.

Mr Benjamin urged all affected candidates to act immediately rather than wait until the deadline.

He said failure to accept an admission offer within the stipulated period would render the offer invalid.