I'm not sure what you mean about electives? Would you mind explaining?

comparing KCL to Leiden? are you kidding me?

Why would he be kidding you? It's a legitimate question.

Hi,

I can offer you some help. I got into plenty of other universities with much better rankings than both Leiden and KCL, but I am nevertheless going to Leiden this September.

Leiden''s admission process (just like all universities in Holland) is simply not competitive based (which translates to possibility of low quality students) and because of that it will never get into a good ranking overall. Doesn't mean the program is not good though.

For public international law, the reason for going into Leiden is first and foremost, just the clarity and proximity with actual practical activities of international law.

I had already worked in Den Haag, so I am biased, but I chose Leiden because for me to do a great research on the area, I need to see everything first hand and grab everything first hand, but other universities will be able to provide a view from outside, and that can also be advantageous. Leiden's great because you can be in Den Haag and find yourself drinking with the trial lawyer for Darfur, for instance. You can see all the trials first hand too, and it helps you to form your own opinions, and then later only compare it with the views of others.

Not to say that Leiden's not going to be great academically. I will only officially study in Leiden this september, so I can't speak about the academics for now. But the staffs and lecturers for the Advanced program so far are all excellent people.

You are definitely right that their LL.M classes are very specific and there's not much option. It's not a problem for me, but it could be a factor which breaks the deal for you. If you can, go take a trip to Leiden, see the classes for yourself and ask if it is worth going to a lower ranked school for.

(To be honest, I'm looking at this also from a career perspective. Most of the jobs in international organizations requires me to attend face-to-face interviews. I can't do this if I'm studying in Oxford, but I certainly can do it right after buying groceries in Holland.)

mikeadyla already said everyhting I wanted to.

Ok, so KCL is better ranked than Leiden, but you have to look at the specifics. For PIL, Leiden is highly regarded as one of the best institutions in the world, and it's staff is simply amazing.

Keep in mind that I say this from an undergrad perspective, I don't have any experience with neither of their programmes, but I've been reading extensively about it for quite some time now.

In my personal opinion, I would definitely choose Leiden. In fact, I think the only university that could make me set them aside is Cambridge, and maybe not even then (mostly for the same reasons mikeadyla posted, the proximity with most PIL institutions, the Grotius Centre, and it's specialization in International Criminal Law).