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Oxford Law Students and Applicants

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Bear in mind how competative law is- you could be highly intelligent, and good enough for oxford, but be squeezed out of a place because of the competition for places.
Farhan.Hanif93
95% A*?!?! That has got to be in the minority of the applicants buddy. This is by no means a necessity and people with 100% A*s at GCSE have been rejected so please don't believe that GCSEs will get you an offer because they most definitely won't. Although I agree that you should do as well as you can, make sure you still have time to enjoy yourself and gain some insight into law through W/E and reading as once you get to A Level and beyond, you run out of time for fun. A Levels are MUCH more important than GCSEs so you don't need more than what your predicted. Work hard to achieve those predictions and assess your chances when you get to AS Level.


thats what i am saying!!!!!many people who ask these Q's have done there GCSE but in this case he has not even done his GCSE so he should try and get the best possible results and on the website of many colleges it says the poor GCSE results and one other thing can effect your chances for being invited to the interview so yes GCSE are important and did i even say that good GCSE will get you an offer!!!dont make things up!!!
Mann18
A Levels are more important, but AS levels aren't. It seems for unis that good GCSEs plus good Alevel predictions are better than Average GSCEs and Good AS levels. I'd try and get perfect GCSEs, then do AS levels and some outside research on Law whilst doing so, maybe join the debate team or something. Law at A-level isn't a terrible choice, I believe "becbec" took Law at A-level and has an offer from Cambridge.

Well considering that they are the highest level of study that you have reached before your application, they hold more weight than GCSEs. They are also a better indicator of performance in A2 exams than GCSEs and predictions should be based on AS's so on that basis GCSEs < AS's in terms of prominence. It would be illogical to be otherwise as good AS generally results in good A2 prediction, which are clearly more important that GCSEs. I'm not saying that GCSEs are not important but rather that they are no substitute for good AS results.
Reply 83
Mann18
Maths is very well recieved. Shows good logic skills, one of the better A-levels to have.


Oh come on, yes Maths traditional, logical subject yahtta yahtta yahtta but loads of people applied in my year for Law at Oxbridge (not loads for this about 5),Warwick, LSE, Manchester etc and the majority of them didn't even have Maths, the one that got into Oxford had English Lit, Religious Studies, History & French and got an offer.

Each to their own really. :yep:
goodboy4444
thats what i am saying!!!!!many people who ask these Q's have done there GCSE but in this case he has not even done his GCSE so he should try and get the best possible results and on the website of many colleges it says the poor GCSE results and one other thing can effect your chances for being invited to the interview so yes GCSE are important and did i even say that good GCSE will get you an offer!!!dont make things up!!!

So you're saying that poor GCSEs are <95% A*'s? Only the 1st sentence of my post was relevant to you, the rest was to the OP and I was making it clear to him that GCSEs are not the deciding factor and 95% A*'s is definitely well above the acceptable amount for oxford so please do not take offence that wasn't directed at you. GCSEs lose value as soon as you get 6-7A*s and people with far less than those have been interviewed before so it's really you who shouldn't be making things up about not being able to get an interview!!
Reply 85
LMPorto
...


Your chances of getting a place will depend primarily on the following things:
GCSE grades
AS grades
A2 predictions
LNAT multiple choice score
LNAT essay
whether you are any good in a tutorial-like environment (your interviews)
your passion for law
UCAS personal statement

To maximise your chances try to be exceptional in all of these areas.

I didn't really start thinking about what course I wanted to study at uni until I started sixth form. Don't be afraid to change your mind later on if you find that law doesn't interest you in 3 years time.
Reply 86
Nayberay
Oh come on, yes Maths traditional, logical subject yahtta yahtta yahtta but loads of people applied in my year for Law at Oxbridge (not loads for this about 5),Warwick, LSE, Manchester etc and the majority of them didn't even have Maths, the one that got into Oxford had English Lit, Religious Studies, History & French and got an offer.

Each to their own really. :yep:


This isn't good advice. Oxford, and most other universities, state that maths/science based subjects provide you with equal preparation for a law course as 'essay based' subjects. 3 people applied for law at Oxford in my year. 3 got offers. We are all doing A level Maths; I am doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Computing and General Studies. Another offer-holder is also doing A level Physics.
Reply 87
doivid
This isn't good advice. Oxford, and most other universities, state that maths/science based subjects provide you with equal preparation for a law course as 'essay based' subjects. 3 people applied for law at Oxford in my year. 3 got offers. We are all doing A level Maths; I am doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Computing and General Studies. Another offer-holder is also doing A level Physics.


Lol I aint giving advice, I'm making a point that your not going to be at a disadvantage if you don't have A Level Maths.

At the end of the day, the OP and many future Law applicants will pick whatever they feel will advantage them to apply for Law at a top uni such as Oxbridge, Warwick and so on but my final point is that not doing A Level Maths is not going to disadvantage you.

Source: People at my school.

Thats all.
Reply 88
Nayberay
Lol I aint giving advice, I'm making a point that your not going to be at a disadvantage if you don't have A Level Maths.

At the end of the day, the OP and many future Law applicants will pick whatever they feel will advantage them to apply for Law at a top uni such as Oxbridge, Warwick and so on but my final point is that not doing A Level Maths is not going to disadvantage you.

Source: People at my school.

Thats all.


fair enough :top:
Farhan.Hanif93
So you're saying that poor GCSEs are <95% A*'s? Only the 1st sentence of my post was relevant to you, the rest was to the OP and I was making it clear to him that GCSEs are not the deciding factor and 95% A*'s is definitely well above the acceptable amount for oxford so please do not take offence that wasn't directed at you. GCSEs lose value as soon as you get 6-7A*s and people with far less than those have been interviewed before so it's really you who shouldn't be making things up about not being able to get an interview!!


how dose GCSE lose value!!!if someone gets 10 A* and other person gets 6 its not the same thing.the only thing which i am saying is everything should be perfect and in place if you really want to go to a uni like oxford.i have seen people with 1 A* getting in and people with 10A* being rejected but they are in minority and people dont get interviews if they dont have good GCSE results.OTHER PERSON HAS VERY VERY GOOD GCSE results(predicted) and he has every chance of getting an interview with good AS levels and a dicent P.S. so plz think and speak farhan.
goodboy4444
how dose GCSE lose value!!!if someone gets 10 A* and other person gets 6 its not the same thing.the only thing which i am saying is everything should be perfect and in place if you really want to go to a uni like oxford.i have seen people with 1 A* getting in and people with 10A* being rejected but they are in minority and people dont get interviews if they dont have good GCSE results.OTHER PERSON HAS VERY VERY GOOD GCSE results(predicted) and he has every chance of getting an interview with good AS levels and a dicent P.S. so plz think and speak farhan.

Ok this argument is fairly petty but you said clearly that 95% A* should be their aim. I guess all I'm saying is AS's outweigh GCSEs and A*s at GCSE are not the main thing that get you to interview, it's your AS results mainly. I.e. if someone fails to get all A's at AS but got 10A*s at GCSE and someone else gets all A's at AS but 6A*s at GCSE then the person with the lower GCSEs is more likely to be interviewed. Do you agree with that? So in actual fact the OP should be encouraged to get good GCSEs i.e. 6A*s or as many as they can get without losing their social life but perfect AS results (like all As) to consolidate good predictions. Just the point still stands that 95% A*s at GCSE is very unnecessary and although it isn't useless it's certainly not that much more useful than 6/7A*s.
Reply 91
Farhan.Hanif93
Well considering that they are the highest level of study that you have reached before your application, they hold more weight than GCSEs. They are also a better indicator of performance in A2 exams than GCSEs and predictions should be based on AS's so on that basis GCSEs < AS's in terms of prominence. It would be illogical to be otherwise as good AS generally results in good A2 prediction, which are clearly more important that GCSEs. I'm not saying that GCSEs are not important but rather that they are no substitute for good AS results.


Funny that, as my form teacher told me that GCSE results are able to hide poor AS results if you have good predictions. I didn't believe her, but she showed me a table of prior acceptances into Warwick (for Law), and no-one who had less than a 7.0 (i.e. At least all As) GCSE point score was accepted there, regardless of AS result. I saw one person from like 2008 I think who had ABBC at AS level, 7.3 GSCE get in, whilst someone with AAAB at AS and 6.5 at GCSE not get in (they both took all traditional subjects.)

It's illogical, but predictions (which I admit, are based on AS results) perhaps count for more than actual AS results.
Reply 92
Nayberay
Oh come on, yes Maths traditional, logical subject yahtta yahtta yahtta but loads of people applied in my year for Law at Oxbridge (not loads for this about 5),Warwick, LSE, Manchester etc and the majority of them didn't even have Maths, the one that got into Oxford had English Lit, Religious Studies, History & French and got an offer.

Each to their own really. :yep:


This year only one person from my college got into Oxford (no-one got into Cambridge) and they took A-level maths a year early. In previous years, many people who got into Oxbridge had maths, my head of sixth told me that I really should have taken maths if I wanted a really good chance at Oxbridge too.

But, as long as your application as a whole is good, I agree, it won't matter too much.
Reply 93
There is a good reason for there being a search function on this site.
Mann18
Funny that, as my form teacher told me that GCSE results are able to hide poor AS results if you have good predictions. I didn't believe her, but she showed me a table of prior acceptances into Warwick (for Law), and no-one who had less than a 7.0 (i.e. At least all As) GCSE point score was accepted there, regardless of AS result. I saw one person from like 2008 I think who had ABBC at AS level, 7.3 GSCE get in, whilst someone with AAAB at AS and 6.5 at GCSE not get in (they both took all traditional subjects.)

It's illogical, but predictions (which I admit, are based on AS results) perhaps count for more than actual AS results.

Your comparing warwick to oxford and the fundamental difference is that Oxford interview whereas warwick do not. Warwick has a smaller amount of information about the applicant so GCSEs automatically become more influential in comparison to oxford where the main benefit of good GCSEs is getting to interview; and from there onwards the value of GCSEs depreciate. Also I've never heard this (rather odd sounding) statistic. If you could link me to it that would be brill :biggrin:
Reply 95
Bit early to make any judgement on your chances at this stage, with no exam results to go on. OP - just concentrate on your GCSEs, get as many good results as possible, choose some respected A level subjects and then start thinking about university.
Farhan.Hanif93
Ok this argument is fairly petty but you said clearly that 95% A* should be their aim. I guess all I'm saying is AS's outweigh GCSEs and A*s at GCSE are not the main thing that get you to interview, it's your AS results mainly. I.e. if someone fails to get all A's at AS but got 10A*s at GCSE and someone else gets all A's at AS but 6A*s at GCSE then the person with the lower GCSEs is more likely to be interviewed. Do you agree with that? So in actual fact the OP should be encouraged to get good GCSEs i.e. 6A*s or as many as they can get without losing their social life but perfect AS results (like all As) to consolidate good predictions. Just the point still stands that 95% A*s at GCSE is very unnecessary and although it isn't useless it's certainly not that much more useful than 6/7A*s.


ok....but nothing outweighs anything..everything should be balanced and considered.
Reply 97
Farhan.Hanif93
Your comparing warwick to oxford and the fundamental difference is that Oxford interview whereas warwick do not. Warwick has a smaller amount of information about the applicant so GCSEs automatically become more influential in comparison to oxford where the main benefit of good GCSEs is getting to interview; and from there onwards the value of GCSEs depreciate. Also I've never heard this (rather odd sounding) statistic. If you could link me to it that would be brill :biggrin:


The list was from my college's applicants so I don't have a link :/
You're forgetting that for Law, less than 50% of people are interviewed. That means that everything, including GCSE results are looked at, and if you don't have good AS results as well, you can expect not to reach that stage. Poor GCSEs plus stellar AS levels= no interview most likely, depending on how good your LNAT and the weighting of the LNAT. Saying that good GCSEs aren't important for Oxford is a fallacy, with so many applicants with good AS grades, GCSEs are (at least I assume used before interview, but after that, yes, it's the interview I think.)

Again, it was my form teacher who has past information on applications who said this, but loosely "Once you have your A-level results, GCSEs count for very little, but before you do, they are the only real results you have, as AS levels are really just half an A-level."
Mann18
The list was from my college's applicants so I don't have a link :/
You're forgetting that for Law, less than 50% of people are interviewed. That means that everything, including GCSE results are looked at, and if you don't have good AS results as well, you can expect not to reach that stage. Poor GCSEs plus stellar AS levels= no interview most likely, depending on how good your LNAT and the weighting of the LNAT. Saying that good GCSEs aren't important for Oxford is a fallacy, with so many applicants with good AS grades, GCSEs are (at least I assume used before interview, but after that, yes, it's the interview I think.)

Again, it was my form teacher who has past information on applications who said this, but loosely "Once you have your A-level results, GCSEs count for very little, but before you do, they are the only real results you have, as AS levels are really just half an A-level."

I agree with everything you say there but the argument I was making was that some peoples ideas of good GCSEs are way over the top. Acceptable GCSEs for Oxford law is probably around 6-8A*s, not 95% like someone on this thread has pointed out. Also note that Stellar GCSE + Poor AS's (and lets be honest poor AS's are much easier to get than poor GCSEs because poor AS's are anything less than AAAA for Oxford Law, which is a string of the highest grades at that level whereas poor GCSEs are more like less than 45-50% A*s, which is well below the highest possible grades you can get) = unlikely that you will make it to interview. This is because AS levels are what A level predictions are based on and Oxford admission tutors will have a hard time believing that a candidate that is predicted, say, 2A*s and 2As at A-Level when they achieved an A and 3B's. Although I see your point, neither of us are admission tutors so neither of us know what they are thinking when they make acceptances so this conversation is most likely pure speculation.
The general consensus is get good GCSEs (but don't let the workload effect your social life as your social skills that you pick up that age are vital for the personality of the law student) and get all A's at AS to ensure that the oxford tutor believe your predictions are valid; and finally do well on the LNAT, get decent work exp and make yourself stand out at interview. Then you're in with a chance.
goodboy4444
ok....but nothing outweighs anything..everything should be balanced and considered.

That wouldn't make sense because arguably ASs are better indicators of degree level success than GCSEs.

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