Which university? UCL or LSE

So I have LLB offers for law (both AAB) from both UCL and LSE and i don’t know which to pick.
UCL is ranked top for Law in the UK, but LSE is ranked higher overall
Also I’m commuting so I don’t know if this will make an impact on my experience
Also I’m not sure which university is preferred by employers, particularly law firms
Please let me know your thoughts

Reply 1

cksiu

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by pelumimariaa

Congratulations to your offers.

LSE and UCL are so close. Look at the course modules to see which you like more. LSE has compulsory modules for all 1st year students on LSE values, quite interesting and fascinating. Good Luck.

Reply 2

Picnicl

LSE accepts about 175 new Law students a year.
UCL accepts about 275.
So, rounded, LSE has 64% of the number of Law students that UCL has.

They're both quite small compared to some other universities. Bristol and Exeter accept 400 each, for example. KCL has 1048 at a time so maybe 350 new Law students a year.

The Chamberstudent report from 2019 (I know people don't like it because it's several years old and a limited sample and the proportion of students at each place might have notably changed since then) say that:
KCL provide 3.4% of Law trainees.
UCL provide 3.1%
LSE provide 2%

So, rounded, LSE were providing 65% of the Law trainees that UCL were. In other words, there was no real difference between the 2 universities for this, proportionately. However, at UCL, which is an older university, you can mix with more people and from a much wider range of disciplines and, anecdotally, it is more sociable than LSE, although maybe not as sociable as KCL. To compare with KCL, LSE were providing 59% of the Law trainees that KCL were despite LSE only having about 50% of the Law students of KCL, making LSE (and UCL) 15% more successful (100 - (50/59) than KCL for this.

LSE accepts a higher percentage of international students than UCL, which has a higher percentage than KCL. And this happens to be in inverse proportion to the size of their law schools, so KCL has the highest number of home students, then UCL, then LSE.