kent law 2020

hii
i have received an offer to join law with honors (M100) in the university of kent starting september 2020. although in terms of it being a critical law school, law clinic and all of that it still sounds like an excellent choice of uni, its drastic decrease in ratings (as a whole and for just law) is disheartening. I know i should not rely so heavily on rankings but this is very disheartening.
what is your take on this? what is the reputation of kent in the uk, and in the general work space?

Reply 1

username5042652

It has a decent reputation, not super high, but decent. Well done on your offer!

University of Kent

Canterbury

Original post by Anonymous

Hey!

Congrats on your offer to study Law at Kent :biggrin:

I'm in my final year at Kent studying History, but I wanted to share my thoughts/experience about the university's and course rankings, which might help a bit :smile:

While Kent's league table rankings have decreased in recent years, from personal experience when applying to jobs/chatting to friends and family, its general reputation outside of the league tables remains roughly similar to what it was when Kent ranked higher. I think the vast majority of people honestly don't look at league tables, and most employers don't really seem aware of what universities are ranking where. League tables are a useful starting point for some people, but at the same time it's important to take them with a pinch of salt. It's hard to quantify a university experience by a number really, as I believe university is truly what you make of it!

When I applied to university I based my entire decision off of league table rankings, as I wanted to go to the best possible university, reputation-wise. I also (quite stupidly) didn't really practically consider other factors about university such as what is the accommodation like? what support services are there? does this university feel like 'home'? Ultimately, although I went to a university that ranked highly for my course, I had a pretty rubbish time. The course and the environment just didn't fit me at all. I ended up re-applying for university and transferred to Kent. The main reason I chose Kent was because of the campus and simply just how it made me feel, I was able to look around and really see that I could feel settled here :smile:

I found that because I was happy at Kent, I then started to perform better in my coursework and exams, and wanted to become more involved in student life, which then opened up opportunities and even jobs that would have not otherwise been available to me. I know that my experience is obviously entirely personal to me, but the main take-away is definitely to not get too focussed on league table rankings.

I know for Law, league table rankings can matter a bit more than for other subjects, but if you're having doubts simply because of league table rankings then I'd encourage you to not rule out any university just because of this. Obviously, I am biased towards Kent because it's somewhere I feel settled and have had a great time at, but I think that all of this applies to any university :smile:

I hope that this helped a bit! Also, if you had any questions about life at Kent or anything, I'd be happy to help out :biggrin:

Reply 3

LWare

Also just to chime in...if the critical law element of KLS attracted you, it's the best critical law school in the country bar none, and that ripples into its international reputation as well. If you're into critical law, that's a *significant* factor to be weighed against general rankings. You want to go where the modules and expertise are what you want to learn from. But let me know if I can say more.

Reply 4

MPapaya

Original post by LWare

What makes the critical law so different from other law schools? I was accepted for the llb senior status and I want to go see the campus. Do you study law there and do you like it?