The MJur/BCL: Admission

By Oxford Blogger 2015 in LLM GUIDE Student Blog: Oxford MJur/BCL 2015-2016 on Apr 23, 2016

One of the most pressing issues for prospective applicants to the MJur/BCL is the question of admission. I have talked some issues through with other MJur/BCL students and will present my insights in the following paragraphs. Suffice it is to say that these are obviously biased and maybe not to be generalised. Besides the usual CV and transcripts you will have to hand in the following three important documents: • Statement of Purpose • Essay • Three letters of recommendation The first is supposed to be about one page (300 words). I assume that this is an opportunity for you to give a compelling story of why you desperately need to study at Oxford University. No babble here. Be precise, specific and credible. Overall, the essay seems to be the most important part of an application. So put a lot of effort into this one (and don’t neglect the other parts of course). I think it makes sense to hand in a paper that could theoretically be published in a journal (= academic!), although you only have around 2000 words for this. Needless to say, contentwise it makes a lot of sense to match your interest expressed in the statement of purpose. As concerns the letters of recommendation, it seems to be highly recommendable to have people in academia write all three of them. Legal practitioners are not necessarily bad, but considering that you are applying to university I have the impression that letters by academics promise a higher rate of success. These should probably best be professors. Again, this is only my own assessment: Find a personal “story”, hand in a really good paper that matches the latter and get three letters of recommendation from people in academia. And most importantly: you need a good portion of luck. Fortunately, graduates do not have to sit exams to get into Oxford University. (Photo: GETTY, telegraph.co.uk)