RG uni for alternative course ?

I got offered law at Kent but hoped to get into Uon but they offered me finance, accounting and management instead. Firstly, I do not mind that alternative subject as I used to want to do it and Uon is an RG university but I do not know if I should deal with going to Kent which is not a bad Uni but I find boring in terms of the nightlife but do I stick with my originally applied course?.

Or do I consider another course to ask Nottingham for (not criminology as i am not interested in criminal law only corporate law).

Hi, I am a second-year law student at UoN. If you are interested in Corporate law take the finance and accounting course over the Kent law program. This is for a few reasons:

(a)UoN has excellent city links, just recently we had a series of current law students that secured vac schemes and TCs at places like CC to come in and talk + we have a dinner with city firms every year think S&M etc
(b)I wish I had taken finance over law for a few reasons but mainly Law at UoN is tough and the teaching quality is a mixed bag ( to illustrate my point 3.8% of law graduates on the 3-year course get a 1st and this goes up to around 9% if you include the 4-year courses which when compared to similarly prestigious university e.g. Bristol is a lot lot lot lower). The Finance course allows you to keep more career options open as it's a degree that's highly valued by IB, big 4 etc + we are a semi-target for IB so you could if you knuckle down you could land an internship there. Also if you did take law ( I'm not sure if it would be the same at Kent) you would be unlikely to above a73% ( never heard anyone score above that) and one bad grade will more or less rule out the 1.1 for the year but if you did finance and accounting, due to it having quant modules means you can get 80%+ to make up for a bad grade somewhere else

I had heard that Nottingham had been actively looking to implement changes to make a first slightly easier to obtain. Things like open book exams etc? So you’re experience hasn’t shown that? I’ve heard Notts has a notoriously difficult law course but wonder if some of this is down to so much is final exam whereas some other unis are adopting a mixed approach to assessment, mix of coursework etc.

Interesting. It seems wrong that marking of work isn’t the same across universities.

I mean I remember it saying in an examiner's report somewhere that they do get external markers to quality-check the marking. But it seems to me that the marking is likely harshed as the grades to get in is AAA and most people I know had lnats of 23+ ( when UoN did the LNAT of course) which when compared to Swansea where people get in with AAB-ABC(In clearing) if I remember correctly but the 1.1 rate is a lot higher there. It is unlikely in the space of 3 years that the "brighter" students are overtaken. One of my lectures said in a tutorial about when he lectured at Trent that they specifically removed certain parts of a topic as they deemed it beyond the students "level" ( in this instance he was talking about the case of Majewski and how Richardson and Irwin was like the "gloss" on top of Majewski). So the low 1.1 and 2.1 rates here at UON can likely be attributed to (a)Poor teaching in some modules, (b) harsh marking (c) we are required to know a little bit more to get to that 2.1 or 1.1 grade when compared to other unis ( of course this is not including the likes of the Unis in the golden triangle, Bristol , Durham , Edinburgh etc)

Then surely that is why Nottingham & some of the other unis you mention are held in high esteem by employers above say Swansea (just using your example). I’m not saying you’re wrong and I’ve heard it myself*, but I’d imagine recruiters in the profession will know this as I’ve heard & seen it mentioned various places. *My grandparent was talking to an old, v experienced lawyer who said Nottingham has always been known for a rigorous course which is why it’s held in high esteem. I’m paraphrasing a little but that’s essentially what he said.

Where this becomes more of an issue is where blind sifting comes in because of course then you are sorted alongside other students blindly. As this is becoming more of the norm, will it be an issue for students who go to a university known for harsher grading in future?

Yeah it is held in high esteem but times are changing, top law firms are looking beyond the top RG's. This is someway a good thing as there is of course talented and bright people for whatever reason did not achieve the grades they wanted to get into a "better" uni. However, like you said this comes with its own issues; people from better universities are going to struggle to get into top firms. The solution of course would be to have either the better unis lax their marking to be aligned with places like Swansea so as not to discriminate their students ( some unis like Birmingham have from what I've heard done this) or the Unis which don't have that historic "prestige" up their standards which will allow for a more level playing field.

I got offered law at Kent but hoped to get into Uon but they offered me finance, accounting and management instead. Firstly, I do not mind that alternative subject as I used to want to do it and Uon is an RG university but I do not know if I should deal with going to Kent which is not a bad Uni but I find boring in terms of the nightlife but do I stick with my originally applied course?.

Or do I consider another course to ask Nottingham for (not criminology as i am not interested in criminal law only corporate law).