Foundation year at SOAS? Will I be guaranteed a place on the LLB?

I missed my offer so was offered a place on the foundation course. I wanted to know how likely it is that I can get a place on this course.

I’m in the same position ! I emailed and they said successful completed of the course would result in you being able to move onto your chosen course. However, you might want to email for yourself

Omg, I guess I'l see you in Sept then!

HI, I honestly really loved SOAS. The foundation degree was relatively ok. Some assignments were easier than others. The final project was the hardest. But overall, it was great and I met some really lovely people. The people at SOAS are so calm and friendly random people smile at you and nod at you. You need to pass the overall module to pass the foundation year which I did. The pass mark for each module is only 40% which means it's not very hard. Even if you a fail a module you can still resit an assignment during summer so you pretty much are guaranteed a place on your chosen course. You don't get an overall grade for the year as it is not an awarding year. I am pleased to say that I passed all modules and will be starting Law LLB in September.

Advice I would give is to really read the assessment criteria that they give so that you make sure you include everything that is required and do not drop marks. Do not use Wikipedia as a source as you will be penalised. Use harvard referencing. They told us to buy some of the books and I bought all of them but no one in my class did so it really was a waste of money and the teachers just gave photocopies for Academic Practice module and for digital skills we didn't even need to buy 'bloggers bootcamp'. We didn't need to even know the information in that book. In the digital skills module, which was one of my favourite modules because of how creative and laid back it was, we had an assignment where we needed to make a video but loads of people, including myself didn't add an artefact that was a snippet of a video within it so we were all penalised and dropped marks; please remember this!

In terms of social life, there is plenty of things to do nearby in Bloomsbury. With regards, to making friends our entire class was literally friends with each other and there was amazing discussion and juicy debate, but it wasn't a pressurised atmosphere or anything; I personally didn't join in and you didn't have to if you didn't want to. After class, people from our class would wait outside and mingle planning on where to go (mostly KFC). If I could go back, I would probably have done more societies and clubs and gone to more events in freshers. Next year I will do so. For uni work, I would recommend revisiting notes before class and trying to contribute more in seminars and lectures; ask questions and for help. If you can read ahead on moodle then make sure you do, not all powerpoints were available before the seminar when I was there; but for future generations this may not be the case as the course has taken its course.

I'm really happy with my choice of SOAS. It's filled with all different types of people; you will definitely feel welcome and like it.

All the best!

Hi, in year 13 I did the LNAT, however even before I sat the LNAT I was given the lowered entry requirements of AAB.

If you are going doing the foundation year and studying law afterwards, then no you don’t need the LNAT, as that would be for going directly onto the law degree via a levels. Even at SOAS you do not need the LNAT even if you are studying a levels, however if you do well in it, you are given a lowered offer. You do not need to resit the LNAT during the foundation year nor do you need to have it for the foundation year.

HI, I honestly really loved SOAS. The foundation degree was relatively ok. Some assignments were easier than others. The final project was the hardest. But overall, it was great and I met some really lovely people. The people at SOAS are so calm and friendly random people smile at you and nod at you. You need to pass the overall module to pass the foundation year which I did. The pass mark for each module is only 40% which means it's not very hard. Even if you a fail a module you can still resit an assignment during summer so you pretty much are guaranteed a place on your chosen course. You don't get an overall grade for the year as it is not an awarding year. I am pleased to say that I passed all modules and will be starting Law LLB in September.

Advice I would give is to really read the assessment criteria that they give so that you make sure you include everything that is required and do not drop marks. Do not use Wikipedia as a source as you will be penalised. Use harvard referencing. They told us to buy some of the books and I bought all of them but no one in my class did so it really was a waste of money and the teachers just gave photocopies for Academic Practice module and for digital skills we didn't even need to buy 'bloggers bootcamp'. We didn't need to even know the information in that book. In the digital skills module, which was one of my favourite modules because of how creative and laid back it was, we had an assignment where we needed to make a video but loads of people, including myself didn't add an artefact that was a snippet of a video within it so we were all penalised and dropped marks; please remember this!

In terms of social life, there is plenty of things to do nearby in Bloomsbury. With regards, to making friends our entire class was literally friends with each other and there was amazing discussion and juicy debate, but it wasn't a pressurised atmosphere or anything; I personally didn't join in and you didn't have to if you didn't want to. After class, people from our class would wait outside and mingle planning on where to go (mostly KFC). If I could go back, I would probably have done more societies and clubs and gone to more events in freshers. Next year I will do so. For uni work, I would recommend revisiting notes before class and trying to contribute more in seminars and lectures; ask questions and for help. If you can read ahead on moodle then make sure you do, not all powerpoints were available before the seminar when I was there; but for future generations this may not be the case as the course has taken its course.

I'm really happy with my choice of SOAS. It's filled with all different types of people; you will definitely feel welcome and like it.

All the best!

Somebody PM'd me asking for some advice. So I gave some module to module advice, for anyone interested I copied and pasted it here, but BEWARE..it is very long:

I don't have access to my previous work as everything has now been removed from Moodle but I will give you some pointers based on what I recall:

Academic Practice:
-In AP we learn about writing different styles of work. It was really good for me to get some hands on work on what uni work is really like so that I didn't make the same mistakes and mess up my actual law degree. University style of wiritng is so different.
-Be concise; don't use just use jargon to make your point sound clever.
-Back up everything you say with evidence
-In our first assignment we had to write a critical review. I did well in this and got a 1st, 73% as I was very analytical and clear. I planned all my points and paragraphs. A applied my A Level writing knowledge and structures in this assignment from Psychology and History, as I wrote about the provenance of the source, in particular the author. I also used a writing structure from Psychology called GRAVE (Generalisability, Reliabillity, Applicability, Validity, Ethics). I think I analysed the year in which the article was published as well as the authors background and how this may influence the info. Of course, I analysed the arguments themselves and found studies and data that supported them. I then argued against that either of them and made a judgement about which could be more valid. Essentially, you can be really outside of the box as long as you are criticising and analysing the source. But don't be all over the place have points, intro, conclusion, structure extra. But for first class honours you do need to be original.
-Following on from that PLAN! It goes without saying, but I'll say it again PLAN!. I wasted so much time and put things off all cos I didn't have a plan. Know where you're going with everything, make sure you're not repeating points because you find that the evidence you decided for one argument doesn't really prove anything different and acc ties in and fits in with you're previous argument more .
-For our second assignment , which I found really good but was surprisingly marked lower than expected (a low 2:1), we had to analyse three articles perspectives on well being. Find three aspects that tie in together and then criticise them and show how they're not all really the same there are acc difference within the opinions themselves. I remember my teacher saying how there was so much thought point into a particular paragraph but then how my closing sentence was so clumsy- be firm and clear in your writing- succinct. Get to the crux of it but do not be vague of it Be detailed but do not be long-winded.
-For our third assignment we had to do a project plan, this was planning our main project. I got a 2:1 but I remember losing marks because I didn't add in all my sources and the exact ones in my bibliography for my plan. We had to choose how one social aspect religion, race, gender, class etc affected a particular area of economics, law, business, management. But you need to be specific it cannot be too broad,
-In my final assigment, I realise how much me not properly planning led to me getting quite a low grade I think I got around the 40's. I struggled a lot because of how niche my topic was and my lack of sources made me struggle. This was during covid-19 and I really cba so i didn''t care. Stay motivated all throughout the year! I also, didn't debate my points very much because of how niche my topic was and my lack of research. Make sure your topic is specific but still has thorough and well-established information for you to report on. I was also penalised for having a journalistic writing style which was unsuitable a formal piece of writing such as this. Have a dispassionate 3rd person perspective writing style. I was significantly below the word count too as there wasn't much on my topic. Other people in my class were penalised for being over the maximum word count. remember for pretty much all assignments you can be 10% over or under the word count/time limit, Try and keep within reasonable parameters of that bracket.
-Being the idiot I am I used Wikipedia even though I know you should never and I was penalised for this in my final project. Use the sources in Wikipedia if you need to.
-We also had to do an evaluation assignment, We had to evaluate our work and progress; I didn't score very highly on this and can't remember much. You need to be very critical of your work. I didn't go to the online seminars/lectures during covid-19 so didn't really understand the task at hand; so here's a really good tip-acc attend your seminars and lectures as you can enquire more into your tasks and also read the assessment criteria properly. I just rushed the assignments we had during lockdown lmao.
-Read, read, and re-read your work before submitting. I cannot describe how even after editing my TSR comments, I still seem to find so many typos and grammatical errors; my work being the same I would only read maybe once or twice and a few days later still find grammatical errors in my submitted assignments that I had not checked properly for so please do not make these silly mistakes!
-You also do not need to buy any of the two books they asked for you to buy as the teacher simply gave us handouts from those two books.
-Use harvard referencing, I sometimes used footnotes in order to save words and the teachers didn't comment or anything but the majority of time harvard referencing is preferred and you should really get in to the habit of this.
-AP is kind of useless in the sense that in lessons you will largely learn obvious stuff, but you will learn relevant stuff like Harvard referencing, but perhaps later in the year. If you haven't learned it already I recommend learning it perhaps now with all the free time you have. It will be very useful.

World from SOAS
-This module focused on discussing and debating particular eras of history that were misinterpreted and particularly about the effects of colonialism. If I could go back I would probably have debated a lot more and joined the discussion
-For this module we were supposed to fill out some sheets; you can either print them or do them on your laptop. Our teacher would sometimes have worksheets for the entire class and sometimes she had only a few and we had to share if we didn't have access to any. You should definitely be prepared either way with your own. I started bringing in my laptop as it was better than having all these loose papers; and this module was only for the first term so it's not really worth repeatedly printing sheets.
-We had a written assignment regarding what the goals of the enlightenment were; I did well on this and got first (75%). I was clear and i was told that my writing was very engaging, but that I could be a bit more detailed but I was it was fine with the small word count of only 1000 words which is what most assignments were.
-We had a seen exam, so we knew the questions and were allowed to bring a piece of paper with about 300 words of notes to help us write essays to two questions. I didn't score very high on this and got a 2:2. I think that this was because I kept it very simple and only really used common sense info and info from the class worksheets. Please use wider reading to make your work stand out and be more interesting. I also stopped writing really early on in the exam because I just wrote as I would normally do an assignment but I think that I could have written more given the ease of this exam.

Digital skills
-This module we worked largely on computers.
-For my first project which was a video on a particular interest of yours I described my topic clearly but I included some music which meant that at times you couldn't hear my voice. Make sure you speak loud enough.
-I was told I didn't describe how I became interested in it, which you could do when you do it.
-I also didn't include a video snippet within my video; so please remember this and again READ THE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA AND CHECK YOU HAVE EVERYTHING! All because of this silly mistake I was penalised a lot and got about a 2:2
-You do not need to buy the book 'bloggers boot camp' that is recommended as it is not helpful to any of your work and no one in my class bought it, so we didn't need it.
-This module was only for the first term, so again I want to reiterate how it really wasn't worth buying the book and how we didn't even use it for that short amount of time either.
-We did a video CV, which I think I got a first in. I don't remember much feedback. But I was very clear and concise about everything and you should be too!
-We also had to produce a digital portfolio and I think I got a 2:1 but cannot recall exactly but I think it was fine. I think I wasted a lot of time when it was a really quick job, and procrastinated and put it off when it wasn't a big job to begin with. In future, you should just get it out of the way cos it really isn't something worth taking up so much of your time.

Business, management, economics and law
-For this module we were supposed to have an exam, but I didn't because of corona. For following year groups I would recommend having your revision notes ready and making good notes form the start of the year.
-I pretty much cba'd to do my coursework for this module so I used lots of info from the class powerpoints which made my first assignment seem simple and bland so I think I only got a 2:2. Please do wider reading.
-We had lectures for this module and AP. This seminar took place on a Friday morning at 9am so less and less people didn't attend throughout the year cos they cba'd. Make the most of the education you're paying for and attend all semiars and lectures at all cost so that you can ask for advice on work and feel on top of it and not all over the place.

Numbers and quantitative reasoning
-Do not attend the maths support group as it is very very basic maths. Like even I consider myself to be pretty bad a maths but I know it's really not necessary. Apparently you would learn things like fractions
-In this module we assess the validity of numbers whether by analysing a key figure of a key issue such as the number of people who are homeless. I guess I would have gained more marks if assessed how true the number was and the provenance of the data, assessing and analysing whether it really was reliable or not.
-I did a lot of the assignments last minute so that resulted in my grades for this module being not so good; so please start assignments as early as possible and research in advance. Next year after seminars and lectures I will try and stay in the library to get some work out of the way before I leave.
-I also bought a book for this module but not a lot of people did so not really sure if it was worth it. Though our teacher did ask people who read it about it. If the entire class say they aren't gonna buy it, probably not worth buying it. This module was only for the last term too.

Cultural fluency
-This module focused on cultures and social issues such as cultural appropriation and gender etc. It could be interesting if you join in the discussion.
-I got a 1st on my video describing how I would decolonise the curriculum, I was very clear on which subject, what modules I would replace them with and why. I think that my narration was very clumsy and perhaps I could have rehearsed more, but we weren't really marked on how smooth we were verbally.
-We had to do a digital portfolio talking about the these concepts.and giving examples This was during lockdown and I really couldn't be bothered so I was very simple giving straight-forward obvious definitions with a simple picture and caption. You should be detailed and very analytical in order to access the top marks; say everything you could possibly say.


I know that this was an essay in itself, but I didn't want to just give you generic advice that you probably already knew and it was good for me to really reflect on what I learned. I hope this helps and wasn't too much

thank youuu, literally soas should pay you for this haha! This is so useful

Omg thank you so much for taking your time to explain everything in detail!! Seriously, it's so lovely of you. Congratulations for getting into law llb and I'm glad you had a great time at soas and hope all goes well for you!!

Thank you and its no problem. I know from personal experience how info about uni can seem so exciting and interesting for incoming students haha. But I'm really glad it is useful as I was the first year to do the foundation year so there wasn't much about it and I'm glad others will find it helpful. I will keep editing the post if I remember anything; you can come back and see it when you start the course and have your assignments set to help guide you.

HI, I honestly really loved SOAS. The foundation degree was relatively ok. Some assignments were easier than others. The final project was the hardest. But overall, it was great and I met some really lovely people. The people at SOAS are so calm and friendly random people smile at you and nod at you. You need to pass the overall module to pass the foundation year which I did. The pass mark for each module is only 40% which means it's not very hard. Even if you a fail a module you can still resit an assignment during summer so you pretty much are guaranteed a place on your chosen course. You don't get an overall grade for the year as it is not an awarding year. I am pleased to say that I passed all modules and will be starting Law LLB in September.

Advice I would give is to really read the assessment criteria that they give so that you make sure you include everything that is required and do not drop marks. Do not use Wikipedia as a source as you will be penalised. Use harvard referencing. They told us to buy some of the books and I bought all of them but no one in my class did so it really was a waste of money and the teachers just gave photocopies for Academic Practice module and for digital skills we didn't even need to buy 'bloggers bootcamp'. We didn't need to even know the information in that book. In the digital skills module, which was one of my favourite modules because of how creative and laid back it was, we had an assignment where we needed to make a video but loads of people, including myself didn't add an artefact that was a snippet of a video within it so we were all penalised and dropped marks; please remember this!

In terms of social life, there is plenty of things to do nearby in Bloomsbury. With regards, to making friends our entire class was literally friends with each other and there was amazing discussion and juicy debate, but it wasn't a pressurised atmosphere or anything; I personally didn't join in and you didn't have to if you didn't want to. After class, people from our class would wait outside and mingle planning on where to go (mostly KFC). If I could go back, I would probably have done more societies and clubs and gone to more events in freshers. Next year I will do so. For uni work, I would recommend revisiting notes before class and trying to contribute more in seminars and lectures; ask questions and for help. If you can read ahead on moodle then make sure you do, not all powerpoints were available before the seminar when I was there; but for future generations this may not be the case as the course has taken its course.

I'm really happy with my choice of SOAS. It's filled with all different types of people; you will definitely feel welcome and like it.

All the best!

Hi, the degree is known as a four year social sciences and humanities degree with a foundation year if you are doing Law afterwards. I remember having this problem lol; I contacted soas to tell me. Your course should be something along those lines. Type in foundation year and see what comes up. We made our final choice of our main degree at the end of the year so I don’t think it matters that much and four year social sciences and humanities degree with foundation year should be fine.

I had this exact problem too and spam emailed them about it lool, but yeah they said their degrees are listed by generic names rather than by subject (which was super embarrassing later when I found out I did it right in the first place lmao).
it's here on their website too which I just found out:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/registry/fees/undergraduate/undergraduate-student-finance.html