need help applying for US Universities

I'm currently in Year 12 and looking to apply for US Universities to study law, I do extra-curricular such as volunteering, mma, football, charity work. I also have work experience at a law firm in leeds and I've ran social media accounts to 30k followers as well as made $50,000 in business. Where should I apply? What do i include in application and when should I get started? My GCSE Grades are 9,8,7,7,7,7,6,6,6,5

Reply 1

bibachu

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Judahmaloba

Unfortunately, US universities don’t offer undergraduate degrees in law like UK universities do. If you wanted to study law in the US, you would need an undergraduate degree and before you could apply to a 3 year JD programme, which is a postgraduate course. You could still study another subject at undergraduate level in the US then take the steps to obtain a law degree there.

The question “where to apply” is quite vague and highly dependent on what you want as an individual. What to include also depends on the universities you apply to, but generally, most will use Common App as their application portal. Think of it like UCAS but more complex and tailored to each individual university. Ideally, the best time to get started would be as soon as Common App opens for applicants hoping to graduate university (4 years) in 2030. The current cycle is open for class of 2029 applicants.

Lastly, the study of law and the practice of law are two different things. If you wish to study law with the intention of practicing law in the US and you are certain that you want to study law now, it might be better to take the route of studying an undergraduate LLB in the UK and then sitting the bar exam in the relevant US state, as most states will accept UK LLBs as a qualifying law degree. This would mean you wouldn’t need a JD (postgraduate degree) to become an attorney in the US. Again, you could still obtain an undergraduate degree from a US institution and go on to apply to law school in the US, but this is a longer route, assuming you wish to qualify as a legal professional in some capacity. If you merely wish to study law and are certain about this, studying in the UK would allow you to obtain that knowledge at a faster rate. You could then go on to obtain an LLM from a US institution if you were accepted into their programme. All of these processes are far more complex than what I’ve described and will require you to do your own research, but to reiterate, you cannot study law at undergraduate level in the US. Despite some US universities offering a “pre-law” track/major, this is not the same as a qualifying law degree.