I'm putting this out there to see if there is any wisdom on this board with regard to Leiden University's LL.M. program. Any feedback is appreciated.

My situation is this: I applied to Leiden while I was also Fulbright finalist (I was rejected for the grant), but now I have been accepted to study Public International Law at Leiden. Unfortunately, I will not have the financial padding of the anticipated Fulbright.

I'm a former ICTY intern, and was a decent student at a relatively unknown U.S. law school, and am definitely interested in the program.

Is this too good of an opportunity to pass up? Opinions? Any insight from those who have studied at Leiden would be greatly appreciated.

I think it depends on a lot of other factors that only you can weigh up, like how much you can afford to pay without the scholarship, whether you can get a loan/the interest on it, how much of a hurry you're in to study more, what your job/study opportunities are at home, whether you think you'll get a different scholarship next year...

I think it's a great opportunity and I'm going without a scholarship. It has a great reputation and really long history with international law, really good ranking (see www.topuniversities.com - it's well within the top 100 with only its scores in Engineering & IT dragging it down, and those are of no interest to me), it's taught in the Hague...

Having said that, if you don't waste the whole year doing nothing, I don't see why you wouldn't be offered a place again next year - especially if you write them a nice letter explaining everything. Of course, whether that'll do you any good depends on whether you can save up some cash or get a different scholarship next year.

I don't know what citizenship you've got, but you could also look at the free courses: International Human Rights Law at Lund (Sweden) - extremely difficult to get into; European Law at Stockholm Uni (Sweden) - somewhat less competition but with more of a private law focus; International Human Rights Law (MSc, not LLM) at Abo Akademi (Finland) - easier to get into but not ranked at all; and there were a few things in Oslo and Helsinki... Again, though, you'd be missing a year and you still have to weigh up your prospects of being admitted and getting a scholarship.

Hope that helps,
Alex