Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law

Required, and the instruction packs two separate demands into one line: 'Prepare a personal statement detailing your interest in ONU Law and select a prompt of your choice as directed on the application. Upload directly to ONU Law's online application.' A REQUIRED WHY-ONU ELEMENT IS FOLDED IN -- 'detailing your interest in ONU Law' -- so a general personal statement does not answer what is asked. No separate why_x_essay is recorded, because ONU asks for no separate essay. THE ACTUAL PROMPTS ARE INSIDE THE APPLICATION AND ARE NOT PUBLISHED. 'Select a prompt of your choice as directed on the application' means the school offers a menu an applicant cannot see until they open the form; the apply page, the admissions page and the summer-starter page were all fetched and none reproduces it. That is a genuine gap rather than an omission in this file's research, and it means the length, format and subject matter of the statement are all unknown in advance. NO PAGE OR WORD LIMIT is published anywhere. No perspective statement or optional essay is published either, so those types are omitted rather than recorded as absent -- though the unpublished prompt menu may well contain something of that shape.

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ONU lists a character-and-fitness addendum as its own numbered step in the application sequence, conditional on the answers given: 'Include the required character and fitness addendum (if applicable).' Recorded here because the taxonomy in docs/DATA.md has no character-and-fitness type. That single clause is the entire published account -- ONU does not reproduce its question set in advance, does not state a disclosure standard, does not say what an affirmative answer must contain, and does not set a length. Nor does it print the bar-admission warning that nearly every other school in this dataset carries. NO GENERAL ADDENDUM SLOT is offered for score, grade or gap explanations, which sits oddly beside the Summer Starter Program -- a school built around applicants 'who excelled as undergraduates but received a lower LSAT score' publishes no place to explain such a score in an ordinary application. Required is false because the obligation is conditional; note the school's own wording calls it 'required... (if applicable)', which is the same thing said twice.

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Required, with content guidance and no limit: 'Polish your résumé and make sure all activities, work experience and leadership roles are up to date. Upload directly to ONU Law's online application.' Three areas are named -- activities, work experience and leadership roles -- and leadership is the one worth noticing, since ONU's letter-of-recommendation instruction also asks recommenders to speak to 'overall readiness for law school' rather than to grades alone. No page limit or format is published. Like the personal statement, the résumé is uploaded to the school's own application rather than routed through CAS.

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EITHER TEST, WITH NO ONE-WAY RULE PUBLISHED: 'Register with LSAC and take the LSAT', and 'For Fall and Summer applicants, submit your GRE scores to Educational Testing Service (ETS). If applying with the GRE exam, rather than the LSAT use school code 0929.' Note the scope -- the GRE sentence is addressed to Fall and Summer applicants, and ONU's third intake is the online part-time programme, so it is not clear from these pages whether an online applicant may use the GRE. Worth an email. ONU does not say that an LSAT score displaces a GRE score, which is the trap Charleston, Elon and High Point publish. THE FILING SHOWS THE GRE ROUTE WAS NOT USED AT ALL in the year reported: all 129 first-years are certified as LSAT admissions enrollees, with no GRE row and no JD-Next row. Under docs/CURATION.md that is not evidence the policy is nominal, but it does mean there is no published GRE benchmark here. NO VALIDITY WINDOW, NO MINIMUM SCORE AND NO POLICY ON MULTIPLE SCORES is published -- real gaps. THE SUMMER STARTER PROGRAM IS A PUBLISHED ROUTE IN FOR APPLICANTS WHOSE SCORE UNDERSELLS THEM, and it is the most distinctive thing ONU offers an applicant reading this file: 'What if your LSAT score fails to reflect your academic potential? Our Summer Starter Program is the answer. This innovative program is designed for students who excelled as undergraduates but received a lower LSAT score. The 8-week program consists of two first-year classes (8 credit hours) and provides one-on-one attention to ensure your success in law school. After completion, you're automatically enrolled into the fall entering class.' Read the terms carefully: it is eight weeks of real first-year credit before the class starts, and enrollment afterwards is described as automatic. The school claims the cohort does well -- 'Our summer starter students often become some of our highest achievers, ranking in the top 10 in their class' -- but publishes no admission criteria, no cost and no figure for how many enter this way. ONU PUBLISHES LSAC'S PRICES, which few schools do: 'Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) $222; Credential Assembly Service (CAS) subscription $200.'

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A degree in hand or in progress: 'Complete or be currently working to finish your bachelor's degree.' CAS IS REQUIRED AND CARRIES THE LETTERS TOO: 'Register with the Credential Assembly Services (CAS). They will compile all LSAT scores, transcripts and letters of recommendation and send to ONU Law.' Note the division of labour at this school -- transcripts, scores and letters go through CAS, while the personal statement and résumé are uploaded directly to ONU's own application. A CAS FEE WAIVER IS ADVERTISED WITH A PUBLISHED THRESHOLD, which is rare and is worth acting on: 'You may be eligible for a CAS fee waiver if you are making less than 250% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Please contact ONU Law Admissions at 419-772-2211 for more information.' Most schools point at LSAC's waiver process without naming a test; ONU names one and offers to help. INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS FACE A LONGER LIST: an 'Official TOEFL or IELTS score report'; transcripts from each undergraduate institution showing at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent, with grades 'analyzed and the grades converted to a standard 4.0 grading scale' by World Education Services where CAS cannot be used; a copy of a passport; and proof of funding, because 'International students are not eligible to participate in the United States Government student loan programs but may qualify for the award of an institutional scholarship. Consequently, international students must submit documentation of their ability to fund their legal education.' No minimum TOEFL or IELTS score is published. TRANSFER APPLICANTS need a CAS report, a dean's letter of good standing, an official law transcript and their class rank; 'ONU Law will transfer credits earned in any course taken at another accredited law school in which a student earned a grade of 'C' or better. However, credit will not be granted for work undertaken at an unaccredited law school and accepted students from unaccredited law schools will be classified as entering first year students.'

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THE REQUIRED COUNT DEPENDS ON WHICH PROGRAMME YOU APPLY TO, which is unusual and easy to miss because both numbers sit in a footnote to the same step: 'Request letters of recommendation (up to 3) from professors, employers or mentors who can speak to your academic achievements and overall readiness for law school. Note: One letter of recommendation is required for Fall and Summer applicants. Two letters of recommendation are required for Online applicants.' Recorded as count_required 1 with count_accepted 3, because one is the floor for the residential programme this file's admissions figures describe -- an applicant to the online part-time programme needs two, and should read that out of this note. The cap of three is shared. WHO MAY WRITE IS BROAD AND EXPLICITLY INCLUDES MENTORS: 'professors, employers or mentors'. The instruction to recommenders names two subjects, and the second is the wider one: 'your academic achievements and overall readiness for law school'. Delivery is through CAS, which 'will compile all LSAT scores, transcripts and letters of recommendation and send to ONU Law'.

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NO APPLICATION FEE, stated twice as part of the instruction itself -- 'Complete and submit ONU Law's free online application' appears as the final step for first-year applicants and as the first step for transfers. The 2025 509 certifies the fee as 'waived', filed as a word rather than a figure. THE APPLICATION DOES NOT GO THROUGH LSAC, which is the more interesting fact and is unusual for an ABA school: the personal statement and résumé are 'uploaded directly to ONU Law's online application', while CAS carries only the scores, transcripts and letters. WHAT APPLYING ACTUALLY COSTS IS LSAC'S, AND ONU PRINTS THE FIGURES: 'Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) $222; Credential Assembly Service (CAS) subscription $200.' It also names a waiver route with a published threshold -- 'You may be eligible for a CAS fee waiver if you are making less than 250% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines' -- and invites applicants to call the admissions office about it, which is more than most schools do for a fee they do not charge.

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