Which Oxford college to pick for law

Hey guys!

So I will be applying to Oxford to study law. I'm having some difficulty deciding which college to pick. My front runners right now are Worcester, Brasenose, St Catz, University and Trinity. My conditions for a college are pay-as-you-go for food and the option to cook, as well as a gym. A 24/7 Library and a law library would obviously be tremendously helpful. Any tips? If you feel that a different college from the ones above would be more suitable for me I am open to suggestions.

Thanks for the help

Hola maltamishfa1,

Thanks for your post and for including us among your front runners.

We have no kitchen fixed charge and food is pay-as-you-go. There are no kitchen facilities on main site in First year (where you would be accommodated) and for this reason the food subsidy is high. There are kitchens in the 2nd year annexe which is located 4-5 minutes walk from the main site. Our main Library is open 24/7 and we also have a dedicated Law Library called "the Stally". There is no college gym but we offer students membership of a local gym instead.

You can read some student-written blogs about studying Law with us here: https://insidebrasenose.org/profiles/law/ and here https://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/about-brasenose/news/1822-student-blog-three-years-at-brasenose

We are celebrating the fact that one of our Law alums just got elected to the Supreme Court! Law is very active in the College with various super-curricular events. Our quota is 10 students a year and we have three permanent Law Tutors: Bill Swadling, Tom Krebs, & Adam Perry: https://www.bnc.ox.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate-admissions/undergraduate-courses/174-arts/353-law

Let us know if you have more queries!

Brasenose Admissions

Thank you very much for the information! I would apply to Brasenose but the thing keeping me from doing so is the high number of applicants already choosing Brasenose, thus I currently am leaning more towards Worcester or St Catz. Nevertheless, I appreciate your response and since there still is time until the deadline, maybe I will change my mind.

Thank you very much for the information! I would apply to Brasenose but the thing keeping me from doing so is the high number of applicants already choosing Brasenose, thus I currently am leaning more towards Worcester or St Catz. Nevertheless, I appreciate your response and since there still is time until the deadline, maybe I will change my mind.

You mention not wanting to apply to brasenose because of high application numbers, and in the same sentence mention wanting to apply to Worcester instead because of this. mate

Hola maltamisgfa1,

We understand why you might feel that way since last cycle the success rate (ie % chance of receiving any Oxford offer) for our direct applicants wishing to read Law was a few percentage points below the University average (the ratio varies from year to year). We always advise prospective applicants to make the choice that they are most comfortable with.

Brasenose Admissions

Three year average (2016-18) for law applicants at Brasenose is 98 while Worcester is 51. Considering that Worcester receives a bit more than half of Brasenose, and it still is a very good college for law (according to my research) I feel like choosing Worcester over Brasenose is the right choice when purely looking at applicant numbers.

Hey guys!

So I will be applying to Oxford to study law. I'm having some difficulty deciding which college to pick. My front runners right now are Worcester, Brasenose, St Catz, University and Trinity. My conditions for a college are pay-as-you-go for food and the option to cook, as well as a gym. A 24/7 Library and a law library would obviously be tremendously helpful. Any tips? If you feel that a different college from the ones above would be more suitable for me I am open to suggestions.

Thanks for the help

Brasenose law alumna checking in (Hi @BrasenoseAdm!)

Ironically, I actually got pooled to Brasenose (originally applied to Jesus) The Law pooling system (see https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/admissions-feedback) is such that it is actually possible to be pooled from a less oversubscribed college to a more oversubscribed college. This is not to say that applicant numbers are wholly irrelevant, but I'm a good cautionary tale that sometimes things work out the complete opposite to what the numbers would suggest.

In any case, I have absolutely no regrets, 10/10 would recommend Brasenose, amazingly central accommodation for all years, lovely law community and tutors. I also really liked the PAYG system for food, and in my view Brasenose food is super value for money and very decent (especially the desserts!) And as someone who wasn't the best with time management and basically went from one essay crisis to the next, having a 24/7 law library was super helpful. I also think it really helped to foster a sense of community across different years because you could almost always count on having a sympathetic ear or someone to ask for help. I remember one of my seniors giving me a pep talk in the Stally after I had a rough day mid-way through Finals, and that meant a lot to me.

Brasenose law students actually have some tutorials at Worcester (and vice versa). Personally, Worcester is one of my favourite colleges (aside from my own, obviously) - absolutely beautiful grounds (a lake and ducks!) and lovely food at formals. The main downside IMO is that it's on the other end of town from the law faculty (but in any event not all that far - Google maps puts it at a ~18 min walk).

St John's has a 24/7 library and study centre with state of the art facilities to be opened in October 2019, a dedicated law library also 24/7 right next to the student cafe, 2 free gyms and 3 squash courts on site. The food is pay-as-you-go and highly subsidised with lots of variety, especially at lunch, and first years all have access to hobs (if you're one of the lucky 30+ in the Beehive there's a recently renovated kitchen with 4 ovens too). If you want a kitchen in second year you're certain to get one, and if on museum road one with ovens. Third-year there's lots of choice so you can choose modern accommodation with great kitchens. All the colleges you've listed are amazing though (I'd be partial to Worcester and Univ myself!)

@BrasenoseAdm Quick Entry requirements question for an International student for Law

I am studying in Austria and my qualification I will apply with is the Matura/Reifeprüfungszeugnis.

My predicted Grades are
Maths 1
English 1
German 3
Ethics 1
Elective History 1
Latin 1
VWA 1

I would get an "ausgezeichneten Erfolg" (high distinction) and as you can see the majority of my subjects will be 1's (Sehr Guts aka highest possible mark) as requested for Austrian applicants. My worry is that the 3 (average grade. Grades are from 1-5) will be off-putting for admissions counsellors ad thus deny me the possibility to get an offer or even an interview.

Hols maltamishfa1,

Thanks for the summons. Its very common for prospective applicants to worry about imperfections in their grade profile. They think everyone else must have perfect scores or predictions which is not the case. We would not be deterred from applying with your predictions - we would just encourage you to work hard on getting what you are predicted.

Brasenose Admissions

Funny story... I just re-researched St. John's and actually liked it this time. Do not know why but the first time looking at it it just did not feel right. Maybe your comment changed my perspective but now I will definitely add it to my list of colleges to choose from. Are there any big differences between St. John's and Worcester aside from the lake and ducks haha (Sorry this thread is so much about Worcesterpick but that's my 1st choice at the moment). How is the vegetarian food? I love meat but I am extremely picky about it. I also read that it is a bit elitist what is your take on that? (I know this stuff is usually not true but I'd like to hear your opinion.)

Hey, thanks so much for the info. I definitely wouldn't be mad if I got pooled to Brasenose it sounds like an amazing college! The applicant numbers are very off-putting tho otherwise I would 100% apply.
I was surprised when I saw how far Worcester was from the law faculty but then I read somewhere that you have most of your sessions at your college with a tutor anyway. Aside from that 18 min is nothing compared to my hourly commute to my current school haha. I just feel more comfortable with Worcester or the other colleges since applying to Oxford is already extremely competitive and the going a step further and applying to the most competitive college just seems like overkill to me.
Anyways thanks again for the info and maybe I will get pooled to Brasenose or end up applying there anyway since I still have 2 months to fully commit.

No worries! So in terms of space, I suppose the main difference between St John's and Worcester is that John's has much more buildings whereas Worcester's got a lot more greenery and garden space. Worcester has 1 central, pretty old quad whereas John's has 2/3 (depending who you ask). They're also fairly near each other, and subsequently quite close to the Ashmolean Museum. I think John's Vegetarian food is really nice because there is quite a lot of variety, especially at lunch. There is a cafe as well you can go to for lunch for homestyle, healthy meals. Obviously, something like this is subjective, but I've always been very happy with John's food. You can get so much at Breakfast for so cheap. Worcester has a lot more ensuites than John's I think, but John's accommodation is cheaper and there's a lot of architectural variety. I thought I'd definitely want an ensuite room but abandoned that for a huge old room with a separate bedroom up a creaky staircase! John's also gives you £344 a year to help towards study costs (including technology), my friends got £500, some more, to help with their travel costs (I've never heard of anyone being rejected). John's, very sadly, does not have anywhere near as many pets. We do have a hawk called Missy who you'll sometimes see flying about, and a couple of very confident ducks always appear in trinity and swim in the pond in our secret garden. Trinity's cat is also always going missing and being found in John's! In terms of John's being elitist, 6/8 students in my subject group are from state schools, and I think, students are highly aware of the importance of equality in terms of race, class, gender and sexuality. We have workshops on them all in Freshers week, have JCR elected officers for each and things like international formal halls to experience another culture! I was concerned about the same thing, but I've never felt more accepted than I do at John's. At uni, you get to make friends from all over the world, which is really exciting. Ultimately, they're two really nice colleges so its a win win situation.

It's true that most of your tutorials will be in college (except options in third year, which are a different kettle of fish), but in terms of contact hours (i.e. not self-study time), you are likely to actually spend more time in lectures than in tutorials. This is because the typical Law undergraduate has 3 tutorials every 2 weeks, or 1.5 hours/week of contact time. In contrast, lectures, which are almost always at the Law Faculty, run Monday-Friday (see https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/michaelmas_term_2017_final_draft_for_website_4.pdf for a sample, particularly the Law Moderations section).

That being said:
(a) all lectures are completely optional. You can choose to attend as many or as few as you like.
(b) you will spend far more time doing self-study than in lectures/ tutorials, and you can easily do this in college if you prefer. College libraries should have most of the law books you need, although on occasion you might have to go to the Law Bod, which is in the same building as the Law Faculty.

I do agree that your sense of commute time gets warped somewhat at Oxford because most places are so close to the city centre - I would be thrilled to live an 18 minute walk away from work now!

Worcester is absolutely an awesome choice though (and so is John's). I know people agonize a lot over college choice, but in truth pretty much everyone ends up loving their college anyway, regardless of whether they picked it or not.

Good luck!

this is off topic but can anyone tell me if you sat another qualification and made the entry requirements to Oxford, will they view that as sort of a resit or will they see it as OK regardless of the grades of the other qualification that you have? For example: you sat the A levels and you missed the entry requirements of AAA and get ABC, instead of resitting, you complete the IB and get 40 points therefore passing the requirements?