hey i wanted to know how important is doing a moot for gaining acceptance into harvard or oxbridge? many people say that oxford gives you a lot of brownie points if u have done say jessup and the value of a national moot is not very high, while Harvard and other American law schools dont give as much importance top mooting. i am very confused!! PLEASE help!!!!!!!!

hey can some1 please reply! i see that people are viewing the post but no1 is replying! it would really help me if some1 replied!

It's quite likely that no one on this forum knows because there are no admissions co-ordinators on here!

My point of view would be that the admissions criteria are on the Schools' web sites and I very much doubt that there are any additional 'secret' criteria - so if mooting is not mentioned, it's not a factor. Maybe brownie points as you say, that's it.

hey thanks for your reply! i meant does it add great value to ur cv? i have not done any big intl moots and was worried whether that would affect my applications? so i have one more year left in college ( i am in 4th year) and i want to know whether i should spend my time working on a publication or a moot like jessup?

My guess would be that it is of quite a bit of interest to future employers such as law firms, but not really for admission to postgraduate studies. So it depends on your future plans.

Generally it is a good idea to try to publish or moot, and I think any lawyer would be generally impressed if you had those important moots on your CV, but I do not think they would be at all important for admission to postgraduate study in the UK.

I couldn't say anything about the US, I am not at all familiar with the system.

hey thanks again for ur rely!! u relly are helping me :) i do not want to workl in a law firm, most probably litigate in the courts in india or go into policy, in which case both mooting and publications (unless in the same field) will be irrelevant. so i was interested purely from the cv perspective of getting into oxbridge. coz one of hte admission blc/llm myths here in india is that oxford only looks at 3 things: 1. ur marks, 2. ur references and 3. mooting and cambridge gives a lot of importance to mooting and publications and if u have neither then ur applications sort of gets downgraded even if say ur an excellent sports player or piano player or some other non-law related activity.

I have to specify that I don't have inside knowledge of Oxbridge admissions!

I have noticed though that there are a lot of myths and rumours out there, and people trade information rather than checking the source. I would always recommend going first hand to the source, in this case the admissions web sites, to see what they ask for. If they ask for a first and 7.5 on the IELTS, there is no amount of mooting or glowing references that will make up for a shortfall...

... I have just had a look at Oxford's 'qualitative' admissions criteria, just to be better informed - I would conclude that they are being intentionally vague to allow them to take into account all and any kinds of evidence of excellence, including publications and mooting.

Again, you can't make up for a first, so I guess your decision is whether mooting is going to compromise your chances of getting a first (if that's what the degree you are aiming for requires).

thanks again!!! ya this year i have set aside to work on my grades. i am currently doing fairly well, second in class. The problem is that if oen does something like a Jessup, it takes away the whole year and then there is no time for an international publication. I have a few national publications and some conferences, but apart from that nothing to show for. unfortunately Oxford does not give much credence to work on social issues, since it is no9t really academic. that is something only American law schools give importance to :(

Yes, I drew the same conclusion - evidence of any kind of excellence in legal thinking and production seemed to be the key. I did think publications looked like something that would fit in, especially considering the last sentence.

It sounds to me like you are on the right track so best of luck!

i think your classification and grades are the most important thing (and it follows, good references). at least that's the case from my experience...
i'd never done any mooting, have no 'work' experience, and did not publish any articles...and i'm off to oxbridge :)

Yes, of course - I for one was not trying to say anything different. Grades and sufficient English language skills are the great separators.

My general impression is that usually these objective requirements are set at a level allowing the School to admit every candidate that fits the criteria and end up with the right number of students - based on the School's experience of the number of applications and the take-up rate. Assessing candidates' soft factors is an unnecessarily labour intensive task that I think most Schools would happily avoid...

granted johannahj : i never thought you meant otherwise ;o)
and moreover, i'm sure that any 'extras' would help to secure a place, especially in the case that there are a lot of qualified applicants.
however, i wanted to point out to llmdreams that the most important is having good grades, a first class degree and meeting the min requirements...