Location to study law?

Hiya guys apart from the welcome note this is my first ever post so..........here goes!

I'm currently in year 12 where im about to sit my AS summer exams, but at the moment the idea of university is starting to be rammed home by people in my school. I came to the comculsion a few months back that I wished to study law as a degree, and me being as ambitious as I am I have firmly set my sights on a law degree from one of the following uni's. For each of these uni's I have now got prospectus's, and last week I went to an oxbridge seminar for extra info; could you guys please give your opinions of each uni (if you know much about them), and advise on good colleges to study law within oxford and cambridge

Universities which I am considering:

Cambridge/Oxford
Durham
UCL
Kings
LSE
Nottingham
Warwick?

Many thanks in advance

Lewis

Reply 1

Mark_KK

A 2:1 from any of those and you will be fine. No need to go into detail.

Reply 2

Hughski

Cambridge/Oxford

LSE
UCL
Kings

Durham
Nottingham
Warwick

I would place them into those three groupings but the last three are pretty much up there with the others... It also depends on what kind of work you want to go into afterwards: at the bar; become a solicitor; academic work; or other employment.

They all have their advantages but I would say Cam/Ox are best academically. LSE/UCL/Kings all have great reputations (London law has a good reputation in the city). The other three are also all very good. I especially like Warwick and would probably put it up there in the first grouping but I'm a little ambivalent...

Anyhow, with the London ones you get the city life, which some people really love. With Ox/Cam you'll experience something completely different, and obviously the workload is large, (although it'll be big at all the others anyway). Warwick has a really nice campus. The collegiate system at Durham is nice... I kind of like Nottingham but gun crime is meant to be high there; it is good though.

If I was going to apply I would go for:

Ox/Cam
LSE
UCL
Kings
Warwick
Nottingham

Durham is a great uni but personally I preferred Nottingham when I went to see them. Look at the prospectuses and get a better idea for yourself though.

I'm studying at LSE and really enjoy it. I can't really say too much about the others. Kings has a good record for getting people to the Bar but, to be fair, you can get a top job from any of those universities. It's mainly down to personal preference.

Reply 3

ForeverDecember

There's plenty of threads around here to help people decide where to apply and giving advice on applications, take a look around.

What AS Levels are you doing?

Oh, and its never too early to start preparing for your application, if you're going to apply to Oxbridge I'd start thinking about things you can put in your personal statement...

PS Go to Durham

Reply 4

tiantang

Hughski

Pretty much spot on; i also highly recommend the london benifits. I wouldn't rate warwick as high simply because its reputation is newer than the likes of kings however as allready stated by hughski, personal preferance (e.g.'really nice campus'), etc are far more important.

Also recommend checking the sticky, by lawz.

Reply 5

lovemachine

im not from the UK. but from what i've heard durham is Really good at law. the Times ranked it 3rd after oxbridge. although a rank isnt the best thing to go by...after checking the durham thread reading around..etc...ive come to be really interested in it , and the college town enviroment etc...bottom line: check it out! gluck man.

Reply 6

muncrun

Look at this:

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/t108968.html

All the information you need is there.

Reply 7

Munners

Cheers for the info guys

In answer to forever decemeber......im at this moment taking maths, further maths, physics, and chemistry. This is due to the fact that when it came to choosing the subjects to study I didnt have a firm idea of what I wanted to study at uni, and so I felt that taking these academic subjects would keep my options open to a point; however since then law has certainly come to the forefront of my thinking!

At one of the oxbridge seminars that I went to, the idea of academia being the sole way of determining which students to admit was quoted. To me this seemed to contradict everything else which I had heard about oxbridge to date - i.e. extracirricular activities important etc etc??

Reply 8

emily87

Munners

I'm not sure ECs are that important beyond showing 1. you can balance getting good grades and doing other stuff, 2. you will be a generally interesting person to supervise. IMO academic potential has to be the most important thing by a long way though.

couple of opinions from Downing JCR website that i found useful :

Equally important however are your "other interests." There are VERY few lawyers at Downing who don't have some other interests that they really love. From snowboarding to pro-bono, from theatre to debating, everyone has something outside the academic and thats what really makes you stand out.

Get involved with stuff like THAT - to make you an "intersting and fun student to supervise" and you'll stand a much better chance at interview.

There are all sorts of people from all walks of life among the Lawyers at Downing so it's impossible to give you a stereotype of the "ideal candidate". I have personally noticed however, that every one of us excelled (by that, I mean, played an active part in college or university life) in something other than our academic work, be it music, sport, drama, debating etc. So could say they're looking for all-rounders who, as Nick above said, are "interesting and fun to supervise".