Top rank

[Edited by S_P_S on Sep 11, 2021]

Most unis don’t require work experience for neither admission nor their scholarships. Work experience can boost an application with mediocre/decent grades, but the lack of it rarely drags an application down.


UK unis tend to not care about work experience if the grades are good. Oxbridge will likely be more than happy to receive someone who graduated on top (with a gold medal) and ample pro bono experience. Quite possibly on a full scholarship too. If you want a pure human rights programme, I suppose the LSE one is an option. 

Some US unis require 2 years of so of experience (I doubt they care whether pro bono or paid) to apply for their LLM, but those that do tend to make sure to put that in their eligibility requirements, and I also doubt those requirements are strictly followed. 

[Edited by Gobbledygook on Aug 17, 2021]

Thank you for your thorough response. I didn't know Oxbridge would actually consider a student like me because everyone here believes that it's a far fetched dream (for a student coming from a country like mine). Your post did motivate me and I'll consider applying to them.

If I were to prefer unis in US, which ones would likely offer me full rides? I've heard that Northwestern easily provides full ride scholarships to LLM candidates, but their website doesn't mention how many it offers or what factors it will take into consideration. 

Do you happen to know which other universities would value my top rank?

I wouldn’t say Oxbridge is particularly far-fetched in your case (also the admission rate at any of the unis are much higher than people seem to think). Neither would necessarily the top ivies, although honestly I haven’t looked at the specific US LLM entry requirements myself for a while. You can just check entry reqs for various schools and see if they require or strongly recommend 2 or so years of experience post graduation to apply.

As for your nationality, most of these top unis (whether Uk or US) tend to aim for a certain degree of diversity, which generally means that being in an underrepresented group could give you a slight edge. Your main competition will likely be the academic qualifications of other nepalese applicants more so than the rest as far as the initial entry is concerned. Underrepresented groups also often have a few extra scholarship opportunities.

[Edited by Gobbledygook on Aug 19, 2021]

Thank you for such an elaborate response :) No kidding, I feel a lot more motivated after having read your reply.  I will definitely apply to some top schools in UK and US this year and see where it leads.