I'm finishing up law school in the US and am interested in applying to an LLM program in London. I have a few questions and would GREATLY appreciate any responses.

(1) Does anyone know whether UK LLM programs require passing a test called LNAT? One of the administrators at Kings said this test was required, however, I'm wondering if she misunderstood that I was applying to the LLM program.
(2) Also, please tell me what the following means:
"an upper second-class Honours degree in law from a UK university or an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard."
(3) Lastly, I'm trying to get a feel for how challenging acceptance into a UK LLM program is...so if anyone can give me a sense of that it would be much appreciated!!

Thanks in advance!
Vanessa

Hi Vanessa,

You shouldn't require an LNAT for an application to an LLM degree in the UK - it sounds like the admissions office thought you were interested in the LLB.

An upper-second class honours or 2:1 is a degree result with a 60% average aggregated mark usually taken from years 2 and 3 of the undergraduate degree. Although it is a very crude comparison - it is widely felt that the US equivalent would be a GPA of 3.2 (on the 1-4 scale) from a four year honours programme. Although I thin if you had a 3.0+ that would suffice. I got in to UCL in London with a 57% score which is obviously lower than the 60% upper second band. So there is some flexibility.

To be perfectly honest - I thought that the process for being accepted on to an LLM degree at colleges such as UCL, Kings, QM would be a lot more daunting - but it was OK in the end.

Jazzman has covered most of the answers in his reply above.

I wanted to add that one way to ease your application experience, may sound a little obvious, but working with admissions I know that students who make sure they comply fully with the application process generally have an easier passage through the administrative process. For example: if the application process requires you to have sealed and signed references then make sure you don't open them first; if the process requires you to include original or notary signed copies of transcripts then make sure you don't just send photocopies.

Every Uni in the UK deals with postgrad applications in a different way, but you can make things easier for you (and them) by submitting everything as they woudl expect!

Hope this is useful for you.

Good luck

Colin

School Of Law
The University of Edinburgh
LL.M Innovation Technology and the Law
www.law.ed.ac.uk/distancelearning/

I would definitely agree with you on that Colin. I think the admissions department looked on my application much more favourably because I gave them the necessary documents exactly as asked for. I think anybody applying to an LL.M at the moment should not underestimate the importance. Even when I missed my offer requirement by a couple of percentage points - I think the fact that I sent a letter stressing how UCL was my first choice and the effort I had put in to the application process may well have tipped the balance in my favour.