Does first year count in LLB?

Thanks Shady and Lewis.

The BCL is only the top in the world for one reason, prestige. I would bet that the people (students and teachers) in London are just as good as Oxford personnel.

Reply 82

Fidelis Oditah QC SAN

Thanks Shady and Lewis.

The BCL is only the top in the world for one reason, prestige. I would bet that the people (students and teachers) in London are just as good as Oxford personnel.

Also, don't forget that both the London LLM and the LSE LLM include a dissertation, while the BCL does not.

Reply 83

It goes back to my point about looking at each candidate individually, rather than having an arbitrary cut-off. Postgraduate courses get significantly fewer applications than undergraduate, and it is reasonable to expect that given people are much more selective and deliberate in choosing PG courses, that the admissions tutors put the same effort back into selecting a class.

That having been said, I don't study law (although I did consider it), but I am a postgraduate student. There is no link in my experience between the undergraduate institution people have come from and their current performance. JG thinks that some departments "prepare" students better for the BCL than others. But it's still down to individual ability, which I think MUST be considered more highly than university of origin, ceteris paribus (academic achievement).

Based on the experiences of Laura and Julia, the BCL seems like it's hard for the sake of being hard, and that it only takes 1st class graduates in order to maintain/justify its prestige. I have a degree in IR and I'm an adherent to constructivist theory--behavior is shaped by how one constructs their own identity. The Oxford BCL has constructed itself as "the greatest postgraduate law degree in the world" or whatever, and it must maintain this identity--otherwise people wouldn't slog through hell for a year and sacrifice their health just to get the degree. They'd go to London, or hell, Harvard, and still get a fantastic education, without the expectation that you can't have any holiday time or whatever nonsense I've seen about the course.

Reply 84

Why do people harp on about Harvard? I'm not saying you do shady, it just seems that people have more respect for Harvard. All the US law students I've met say Yale is by far and away the best in the USA for law...

At the end of the day, the course has become popular. As something becomes popular, it becomes harder to get in. The fact that the BCL wants people with straight firsts from day dot does not necessarily mean that their candidates or, indeed, graduates are any better than those who go to do an LLM at a uni which does not require such a stalwart performance. It has become very much a prestige thing to be able to put the letters 'BCL (Oxon.)' after your name in academic circles, that's all.

Reply 85

shady lane

It goes back to my point about looking at each candidate individually, rather than having an arbitrary cut-off. Postgraduate courses get significantly fewer applications than undergraduate, and it is reasonable to expect that given people are much more selective and deliberate in choosing PG courses, that the admissions tutors put the same effort back into selecting a class.

That having been said, I don't study law (although I did consider it), but I am a postgraduate student. There is no link in my experience between the undergraduate institution people have come from and their current performance. JG thinks that some departments "prepare" students better for the BCL than others. But it's still down to individual ability, which I think MUST be considered more highly than university of origin, ceteris paribus (academic achievement).

Based on the experiences of Laura and Julia, the BCL seems like it's hard for the sake of being hard, and that it only takes 1st class graduates in order to maintain/justify its prestige. I have a degree in IR and I'm an adherent to constructivist theory--behavior is shaped by how one constructs their own identity. The Oxford BCL has constructed itself as "the greatest postgraduate law degree in the world" or whatever, and it must maintain this identity--otherwise people wouldn't slog through hell for a year and sacrifice their health just to get the degree. They'd go to London, or hell, Harvard, and still get a fantastic education, without the expectation that you can't have any holiday time or whatever nonsense I've seen about the course.

Agreed.

I still don't understand why Oxford don't interview for the BCL.

Reply 86

Lewisy-boy

Why do people harp on about Harvard? I'm not saying you do shady, it just seems that people have more respect for Harvard. All the US law students I've met say Yale is by far and away the best in the USA for law...

It's the people there and the people who visit i.e. professors.

The discrepancy between Yale and Harvard will be negligible, irrespective of what some US students say.

Reply 87

shady lane

It goes back to my point about looking at each candidate individually, rather than having an arbitrary cut-off.

There are no cut-offs. Every application is looked at individually and in great detail. Last year I readand graded BCL application dossiers 9-7 for nearly four weeks solid. Marks are given for various aspects, including the (total) degree transcript, and an overall grade is given on the basis of the marks. Very occasionally we even let in someone with an (explained) 2.1, when it is close to the borderline and all other aspects of the application are exceptionally good. All I have ever mentioned here are factors that are relevant to a full assessment. They would only be decisive when other factors are also taken into account - never decisive in themselves.

shady lane

Postgraduate courses get significantly fewer applications than undergraduate

You mean a lower number absolutely, or a lower ratio of applicants to place? The Oxford BCL gets a lower absolute number of applicants than the Oxford BA, but the ratio of applicants per place is almost always higher on the BCL than on the BA (i.e. the BCL is more competitive)

shady lane

and it is reasonable to expect that given people are much more selective and deliberate in choosing PG courses, that the admissions tutors put the same effort back into selecting a class.

Which we do. Endless effort. One week (with double opinions) on BA admissions but 6 weeks (with triple opinions) on BCL admissions.

shady lane

That having been said, I don't study law (although I did consider it), but I am a postgraduate student. There is no link in my experience between the undergraduate institution people have come from and their current performance.

Well there is in my experience, which I suspect is a lot longer than yours, and at more institutions. Of course other factors enter into this as well, but some masters-level students have undoubtedly enjoyed better academic preparation than others, which is partly (but not wholly) owed to the previous institution attended. By the way, all serious US law schools take account of the quality of the previous institution attended when assessing graduate applications. They assess this for themselves, i.e. not using US News or similar semi-academic rankings.

shady lane

But it's still down to individual ability, which I think MUST be considered more highly than university of origin, ceteris paribus (academic achievement).

The ceteris paribus here means that there is no disagreement between us.

shady lane

Based on the experiences of Laura and Julia, the BCL seems like it's hard for the sake of being hard, and that it only takes 1st class graduates in order to maintain/justify its prestige.

The BCL is hard because there's a huge market for a law graduate degree that's as hard as the BCL. If people didn't want to be held up to high standards, with all the attendant reputational advantages, they wouldn't apply and we would have to tone it down. But why tone it down otherwise? Just to be more like everyone else?

shady lane

They'd go to London, or hell, Harvard, and still get a fantastic education, without the expectation that you can't have any holiday time or whatever nonsense I've seen about the course.

Their choice. There's a market in academic standards and Oxford sells what it sells. So far, the BCL is still a winner, attracting many of the best students from many of the best universities worldwide.

Reply 88

Fidelis Oditah QC SAN

The discrepancy between Yale and Harvard will be negligible, irrespective of what some US students say.

Their LLMs, however, are incomparably different - chalk and cheese.

Reply 89

Fidelis Oditah QC SAN

I still don't understand why Oxford don't interview for the BCL.

Well I for one think that interviews are virtually worthless as selection tools, or at least not worth the thousands of pounds that most applicants would need to spend to get to them. Why? Because even in law, the people who can talk the talk aren't reliably the ones who can walk the walk.

Reply 90

John Gardner

Well I for one think that interviews are virtually worthless as selection tools, or at least not worth the thousands of pounds that most applicants would need to spend to get to them. Why? Because even in law, the people who can talk the talk aren't reliably the ones who can walk the walk.

I assume you mean useless for international students and at graduate level?

Reply 91

Hmm I see your point. Some people just have the 'gift of the gab' and can maybe con their way through an interview. Others, however, might be incredibly book smart and just get really nervous. Interviews just aren't necessarily fair when recruitng for something as academic as the BCL. That, and you have loads of international applicants.

Of course, you need people who are willing to speak up in class and venture opinions etc, but that is totally different to whether they will perform well in interview - they have academic references to testify for their in-clas performance aftera ll.

Reply 92

Lewisy-boy

Hmm I see your point. Some people just have the 'gift of the gab' and can maybe con their way through an interview. Others, however, might be incredibly book smart and just get really nervous. Interviews just aren't necessarily fair when recruitng for something as academic as the BCL. That, and you have loads of international applicants.

Of course, you need people who are willing to speak up in class and venture opinions etc, but that is totally different to whether they will perform well in interview - they have academic references to testify for their in-clas performance aftera ll.

The same surely applies to the whole undergraduate interview process at Oxford, doesn't it?

Reply 93

Of course it does, but I suspect you can rely more on references from university professors than schools which are obsessed with bigging up students. Also, I think a person's university grades say a lot more about their academic ability than their school ones... especially when you have past record of how well people from that university typically perform/can form a demographic of just how good their scores are in relation to their peers etc. In short, having percentages rather than a few letters, from more accurately disseminating and harder exams goes a lot further than A-levels or their equivalent, even at the relevant stage. IMO, anyway.

Reply 94

JG I can't go through and quote in little bits because I have to run, but in terms of the ceteris paribus comment, I think that a 1st or even a high 2:1 at the end of a degree constitutes high enough academic achievement to be considered for a taught postgraduate degree. So all things considered equal--that the applicant has shown a reasonable degree of academic achievement compared to his or her peers--the individual application should be given more merit. That is, someone who wrote a brilliant dissertation and has incredible references with a 68% should not be tossed aside for someone with a 71% average just because the 68% person wasn't as motivated in year 2 as they were in year 3. I think that difference is negligible--hence all things considered equal.

Reply 95

shady lane

JG I can't go through and quote in little bits because I have to run, but in terms of the ceteris paribus comment, I think that a 1st or even a high 2:1 at the end of a degree constitutes high enough academic achievement to be considered for a taught postgraduate degree. So all things considered equal--that the applicant has shown a reasonable degree of academic achievement compared to his or her peers--the individual application should be given more merit. That is, someone who wrote a brilliant dissertation and has incredible references with a 68% should not be tossed aside for someone with a 71% average just because the 68% person wasn't as motivated in year 2 as they were in year 3. I think that difference is negligible--hence all things considered equal.

Nobody is tossed aside. Some people win in overall competition and some lose. It is all done by detailed grading. Quite possibly the person with the 68% average will beat the person with the 71% average when everything is considered in the round. I never meant to suggest otherwise. I only meant to suggest that when all else is equal (including the university, the average, the references, the dissertation, etc.), a more consistent first (70s throughout) is better than a more mixed one (70s only towards the end).

In the context of cut-throat competition for the BCL, a bunch of 50-somethings in year one is virtually always fatal (unless there is an explanation based on illness or similar). But we often do take people with decent 60-somethings in year one, that start to turn into 70-somethings only in year two. I'm puzzled to discover that this is controversial. It's why we ask for a complete transcript, and as you say yourself, Shady, it's the international norm to use the complete transcript. Only in the UK degree system, so far as I know, do people expect to get top degrees on the basis of top marks only towards the end of their programme. This strikes me as a silly way to classify degrees, and I would rather see the back of degree classifications altogether in favour of three-year GPAs and full ordinal class rankings based on them.

References are hard, though. We have discussed this on the forum on other occasions. They are even harder to compare than most other factors in the application. Many from the US and some other places are worthless (every student is supposedly the best). UK and Australian ones are better - they usually tell you about the downsides and sometimes rank several candidates - but even then it can be hard to know whether a particular referee knows (a) as much about his student as the next referee knows about hers or (b) as much about one student as about another or (c) as much about the degree that he is recommending the student for as the next referee. On top of that there can be inequities based on the referee's non-academic favouritism towards particular students (e.g. towards more charming students). Finally, there can be inequities based on the academic reputation of the referee. These are unavoidable: since the whole recommendation system is based on trust, and people are justified in bestowing more trust on those of whose trustworthiness they have knowledge, being Einstein/Wittgenstein can give your students a big boost.

Now I'm not sure how I feel about all that, are you?

Reply 96

From the website:
"So far as formal academic qualifications are concerned, we are looking for a first class (or equivalent) undergraduate law degree for our taught postgraduate programmes (except the MSc in Criminology, where a high upper second class degree and a relevant subject other than law are acceptable)."

I suspect the exception for Criminology has less to do with the quality of the course, but rather with the demand. What do you lot think?

Reply 97

I think if degrees 'counted' from day one then it would indeed encourage people to work from day dot, rather than seeing first year as what it currently is: a qualifying year. Many do not think about the problems of doing badly in first year and quickly learn when they come to apply for any sort of job/postgrad study!

I'm interested to read your thing about references - the bit about the US especially lol. But I think that, yes, it must be very difficult to decide which students to take.

Reply 98