Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law - Beus Center for Law and Society Snell & Wilmer Plaza

JD Transfer Applicant FAQs

Frequently asked questions

ASU Law allows Fall and, in special circumstances, Spring semester starts for transfer students. Summer starts are not offered at this time.

Transfer students have essentially the same curricular opportunities and the same access to the myriad services we provide as students who began their JD program at ASU Law.

Our academic law journals may have supplemental acceptance processes available to incoming Fall transfer students, depending on journal membership needs. ASU Law has five academic journals - the Arizona State Law Journal, the Corporate and Business Law Journal, Jurimetrics, Sports and Entertainment Law Journal, and the Law Journal for Social Justice. The Arizona State Law Journal is our most competitive journal, and may accept 1-2 transfer students during the Fall acceptance process. Fall transfer admits interested in our academic law journals may utilize a special petition process that is available from May 1 to July 15. Regardless of admission date, ASU Law transfer students are encouraged to contact our law journals, to determine if there are spots and application processes available for membership consideration. 

There are no supplemental processes for Spring transfer admits.

All transfer students will have the ability to take part in the normal journal write-on competition following Spring finals in their 2L year.

You can send them in with your application via LSAC or you can send the Letters of Recommendation (LORs) to supplement your application after it has been submitted. LORs can be sent directly to the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law admissions office by your recommenders via mail or email. An easy way would be to email your recommender and ask him/her to send her recommendation letter directly to the following email address: lawtransfer@asu.edu. Signed, PDF versions of the LORs are preferred. In the email, your recommender should identify that the email is in recommendation of you as an applicant for your program in the subject line. Alternatively, the letters can be signed and sealed by each recommender and submitted via US Mail. The sealed letters can be sent to the following address:

Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law
Beus Center for Law and Society
MC 9520
Arizona State University
Attn: Admissions & Financial Aid (Fourth Floor)
111 E. Taylor St.
Phoenix, AZ 85004-4467

We cannot advise on which credits will or won’t be transferrable. Transfer credits will be evaluated by our law school registrar upon admission, and not prior. Transfer credits will not be granted for courses with less than a "C" grade for work completed at an accredited law school. ASU Law may also deny or reduce credits for particular courses. The Admissions Committee will not conduct pre-admissions evaluations on transfer credits. That being said, our Academic Affairs team is well-versed in reviewing other school’s courses, to determine how to allocate credits that may be eligible for transfer. Generally speaking, credits earned through regular law school classroom coursework are eligible for transfer consideration. The eligible transfer credits usually correspond with the 1L curriculum offered at ASU Law.

Eventually, transfer students must provide the most up-to-date official transcripts, with proof of any applicable rank and good academic standing from the prior institution. If you are planning to apply, you can submit your official transcripts reflecting all completed 1L grades and showing any coursework in which you are currently enrolled. Your current transcript will allow our Admissions Committee to begin reviewing your application. Depending on your application status, the Admissions Committee will want to see updated transcripts to evaluate whether your academic performance has improved, regressed, or remained consistent over the course of the current semester.

ASU Law recommends that applicants submit an unofficial transcript, illustrating the grades that have been accumulated up to the point of the transfer application, while the Admissions Committee waits for the official transcript to be submitted, following the applicant's most recent semester. One way students can do this is to generate an unofficial transcript in PDF, and forward that document to lawtransfer@asu.edu. That unofficial transcript will be added to the applicant’s file, and the Committee can proceed with the review process. That way, the turnaround time on a decision (generally 2-4 weeks) will be greatly reduced after the Committee receives an official transcript.

In circumstances where an applicant is in the midst of completing their first year, the Admissions Committee can opt to deny, waitlist, or offer a conditional admission to the applicant. A conditional admission is generally accompanied by a cumulative GPA condition that the applicant must meet at the completion of their first year, in order for the offer of transfer admission to become final.

We also recommend that applicants supplement their applications with new unofficial transcripts, reflecting any new grades that come in at the end of the semester. That way, applicants will not be on hold for a decision from the Admissions Committee, while waiting for their official transcript to be complete. After all current semester grades have been received, applicants can supplement their applications with the final law school information form and official transcripts.

Once admitted, it is fairly simple for our financial aid department to convert your aid and apply it to your new institution. The admission letter provides details for applying any awarded financial aid to ASU Law.

The application pool for the JD Transfer program is competitive. Unfortunately, the Admissions Committee cannot offer a seat to every applicant. However, any previous applications will not affect your current one.

There is not a minimum GPA requirement in place for the transfer program. Our Admissions Committee reviews each applicant’s file based upon the entirety of their application in order to best predict that each of our accepted students will be successful while in our program and after graduation. That being said, your law school GPA is one of the most objective indicators of continued and future success in any JD program, including ours.

While transfer students are rank-ineligible, they are eligible to earn academic honors (cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude) based on their final cumulative grade point average at ASU Law. Additionally, transfer students can use their GPA at graduation to project where they would have been ranked if they had been eligible to be ranked after transfer.