Hello everybody, just wondering what you guys think my chances are of being accepted for a BCL?

- Australian
- Graduating this year from a non-Go8 Australian university, though one that has had a few accepted to the BCL in the last 10 years and a couple of Rhodes
- Received first class honours for my thesis, looks like I should get the Uni Medal. Top 5% in my cohort in every year of my degree.
- Mooting experience including a national prize
- Not a lot of work experience but have interned at a Top 6 Australian law firm and a Big 4 consulting firm and have been a research assistant
- Presently going through the process of publishing my first academic article in a reputable peer-reviewed Australian law journal
- Solid referees (two law school deans and a QC who all taught me)

Would appreciate some feedback, thanks.

I would say go for it! Participation amongst Australians is fierce and many of them tend to be in the top 3% but you will never know if you never try :) And remember that there is always a bit of luck involved as well!

If you receive the uni medal your chances are very good. From what I can gauge, they seem to make an effort to select students from smaller Australian unis. Imo a medallist from a non-Go8 uni has a better chance than someone who was say, ranked 5th or 6th in year at USyd. I don't believe that work experience is particularly important for selection to the BCL compared to grades, references and the writing sample. 

A note of caution regarding referees - having a big name as a referee is great and can be valuable, but the most important quality you should look for in a referee is that they will take the time to write something detailed, personalised and effusive. Ideally they should be able to talk about your academic ability, but also some of your other traits e.g. curiosity, leadership, work ethic. Sometimes tutors are in a better position to do that than people higher up the food chain within the university. You may also wish to think about how best to approach your potential referees in order to encourage the type of letter that you need to secure from them e.g. refreshing their memory of some of the specific work that you did if they taught you a long time ago. "I taught X in this course; X did very well and obtained a grade of Y" is never going to be as persuasive as "X submitted an essay that examined the topic of Y. (S)he raised a novel argument as to Z, arguing ... The quality of X's reasoning was beyond my expectations of someone in an undergraduate course. I was struck by by the quality of the research ..." - you get the picture. 

Source: Aus student who was accepted into the BCL.