Table of Contents
Background
The Ontario Law School Application Service (OLSAS) is a not-for-profit, centralized application service for applicants to the 8 Ontario law schools.
Admission personnel at the law schools developed OLSAS. The Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) operates OLSAS to facilitate the application process for Ontario law schools and to reduce duplication in application processing. Each law school is completely autonomous in reaching its own admission decisions, with OLSAS providing only the application processing service.
Applicants can apply for admission to all 8 of the universities on 1 common application using 1 set of academic documents. OLSAS transfers the data entered in the application to the universities that the applicant selects. Each of the law schools has its own admission requirements and reserves the right to determine if degrees granted by postsecondary institutions are suitable for admission.
Applicants should be aware of the variations in the admission requirements and ensure that they qualify for consideration before indicating they wish for OLSAS to forward their application to a particular university. OLSAS processes and forwards applications to all requested law schools regardless of the applicant’s qualifications or the completeness of their application. There are no refunds.
Governance
OLSAS Working Group Terms of Reference
Preamble
Ontario law schools centralized their admission application processing services at the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre (OUAC) for the 1997 admission cycle. Beginning in 1996, an OLSAS implementation team composed of representatives from all Ontario law schools met to plan and coordinate the centralized application process. Since that time, the group meets twice annually to assess progress, review the application processes and services of the OUAC, and plan for the ongoing development of the service.
Title of the Committee
The committee is known as “The Ontario Law School Application Service Working Group”.
Purpose of the Committee
- To advise the OUAC on the operation and development of the Ontario Law School Application Service;
- to coordinate activities that facilitate and improve the admissions and application processes, and related information services of Ontario’s law schools;
- to share ideas on desirable application practices or procedures for the mutual benefit of all institutional members;
- to make recommendations on application processes and policies for referral to other committees as deemed appropriate by the committee;
- to explore and investigate law school application processes and issues in other jurisdictions to inform and improve the Ontario process;
- to advise the OUAC on application fee levels; and
- to review and approve the annual updates and revisions to all OUAC application materials.
Composition of the Committee
The OLSAS Working Group is composed of the senior administrative admission official of each Ontario university law school or faculty. The senior academic admission official (i.e., Chair of the Admission Committee) is also welcome at each meeting.
Voting
It is expected that the Working Group functions by consensus rather than by a majority rule or voting process. This is particularly the case when all institutions are not represented at a Working Group meeting.
In instances where the Committee decides that a more formal vote process is desirable, each institution has 1 vote in the consideration of any motions raised by the Working Group.
Chairship
The Chair of the Working Group is selected by the institutional representatives from among themselves. The Chair normally serves a term of 2 years but may be re-elected, provided that no person serves as Chair for more than 2 consecutive terms.
Secretary
The Secretary of the Working Group is a representative from the OUAC. Minutes are distributed within 1 month of the meeting.
Resource Persons
Resource persons who attend meetings may include:
- The OUAC Executive Director
- The OUAC Director, Business Services
- The OUAC Manager, Graduate and Professional Programs
- The OUAC Assistant Manager, Graduate and Professional Programs
- The OUAC senior systems and programming officials responsible for OLSAS processing programs
- The OLSAS Processing Administrator
- Other resource persons, as invited by the Working Group
Procedural Matters
The OLSAS Working Group meets for regular meetings twice annually, once in the fall and once in the spring. Other meetings are called by the Chair, as required. A quorum consists of 4 institutional members having voting authority.
Processing Services Provided by OLSAS
- Calculating undergraduate grade point averages
- Collecting LSAT data and PDF scores from the Law School Admission Council
- Corresponding with applicants for clarification of the general application data
- Developing systems
- Following up on all rejected fees
- Forwarding the personal or autobiographical submissions in electronic format to the universities
- Maintaining a Frequently Asked Questions list for applicants
- Maintaining department listserv
- Maintaining electronic transcript request services for Ontario transcripts
- Managing telephone, email and live chat inquiries
- Performing annual statistical reporting
- Performing daily distribution of data to universities
- Performing internal and external system tests
- Preparing the OLSAS application and Application Guide
- Processing fee waivers, as required
- Processing fees for electronic transcript requests
- Processing fees, including university fees
- Programming systems for department processes
- Providing a manual decision tool for universities to key applicant offers without having to send a decision file
- Providing access to a portal where universities can run various reports containing application details
- Providing applicant online inquiry (document tracking) for receipt of transcripts, references and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores
- Providing an email verification process for all new accounts to ensure that applicants enter valid email addresses
- Providing for electronic transcripts
- Providing tools for universities to process their own late exceptions
- Providing upload functionality via Secure Applicant Messaging
- Providing vouchers for university purchase that applicants can apply toward the cost of an OUAC application
- Receiving all applications and monitoring deadlines
- Receiving all postsecondary transcripts and monitoring them for authenticity
- Receiving letters of reference in support of the application – an online service is provided
- Receiving school-specific, personal or autobiographical submissions to support applications
- Receiving World Education Services evaluations, where required
- Recording and controlling responses to offers of admission for Ontario universities
- Sending applicant data to universities via data sheet PDFs
- Sending third-party PDFs (transcripts, references, miscellaneous) to universities
Fees
The OLSAS processing fee is $200 plus a university fee for each law school selection. All fees and payments are non-refundable. The amount submitted must correctly reflect the number of university selections made.
The university fees, collected by OLSAS but remitted directly to the universities, assist the universities in covering a portion of the costs associated with the admission assessment. Fees are determined by the number of universities, not by the number of programs selected at each law school.
The OUAC periodically reviews the OLSAS processing fee. The university fees are set by the universities.
University Fees (in Canadian Funds)
- Lakehead: $115
- Ottawa: $115
- Queen’s: $150
- Toronto: $115
- TMU: $115
- Western: $150
- Windsor: $115
- York: $115
Transcript request fees vary by university.
OLSAS will not forward applications to the universities until the OUAC receives full payment.
Payment is part of the final Submit process. The OUAC uses Flywire for Canadian and international payments. Applicants can use Flywire to pay Canadian dollar fees in their local currency from anywhere in the world, at anytime.
OLSAS must receive payments for applications by the stated deadlines.
Fee Transfer
The OUAC’s Finance Department prepares 2 fee levies each year, 1 in February and 1 after the cycle closes in September. There is a 2.2% credit card recovery charged against the levy transfer.