My daughter is planning to attend law school in the US and is currently at St. Andrews. Just as if she was attending a US undergrad school really what matters is her grades and LSAT score and not so much major (she is majoring in Chemistry). She met and spoke to a Berkeley law student who attended St. Andrews back when she was deciding and felt.very good about it after speaking with him. He felt the UK system actually prepared him very well for law school with the emphasis on self learning and study.
@PurpleTitan Definitely! I’ve found 2 other ones that I liked, just not as much as Oxford. Also, why does being American matter in regards to my future profession? Sorry, I’m not up to date with the requirements for lawyers in England.
@VickiSoCal So I’ve heard-that’s why I’m planning on doing a major that involves econ./philosophy/ business in some way.
@Twoin18 I see where you’re coming from. The two topics that interest me the most are economics and philosophy, both of which I have a pretty good understanding of. I’ll definitely make an effort to look more into both and understand the topics deeply, but I have taken college level classes in philosophy. Not economics, but I read ‘The Economist’ to try to understand the subject. While it’s true I’m not fully decided, but I know that I’m leaning towards PPE because you can drop the politics classes after the first year, although politics is still important for international law.
@PurpleTitan I have a huge question for you-would you know if it’s required to take an law undergrad if you plan on becoming a lawyer in UK? Here, it’s not, but I’m just really confused with all the conflicting news I’m getting from searching on the internet. Thank you so much for your help-please excuse my ignorance on the subject!
In the UK, students do law as an undergraduate course. Then they start (paid) on the job training, with a division between solicitors and barristers. Over-simplifying (a lot), barristers argue in higher courts, solicitors do most other stuff (preparing documents, appearing in lower courts). The law in the UK isn’t the same as in the US so you can’t go from one to the other without studying for and passing the bar exam in the US (for which attending law school in the US is a huge advantage and may be a necessity in some situations).
So if you applied for a law degree in the UK you’d have to be intending to work in the UK system (or overseas in countries which draw on UK traditions such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia etc). You’d also need the ability to work in the UK to do your on the job training (e.g. a British passport). If you just want to work in the US, you should do an academic degree in the UK and then come back to the US for law school. In any case you probably won’t get admitted for a UK law degree if you say that your intention is to be a lawyer in the US because it would show you don’t know what you are doing.
Right, @Twoin18 explained it clearly.
Your citizenship/passport status matters a lot in terms of where you may work.
@Twoin18 @PurpleTitan I can’t thank you both enough for how enlightening that was! In effect, though, if I want to do international law, it seems as though I would benefit more from doing an undergrad in law in the UK, so I would be able to practice in other countries as well. (Am I getting that right?) And, law students in the UK don’t have to go through law school in addition to their undergrad, but there would be a British test for law students at the end of the undergrad, right?
@Twoin18 @PurpleTitan But that would mean that I, as an American citizen, would have to apply to become a British citizen? And if so, would this have to happen before or after I went to school in the UK for law?
No, in the UK you do the practical training before qualifying as a lawyer. You may have a law degree but you can’t act as a lawyer, just like here if you don’t pass the bar. People do go through the whole system in the UK then move to the US and go through the studying again here but that’s rare. For example a British lawyer might marry an American who wants to move home.
Think about what you mean by “international law”. Companies hire specialists for each country, not jacks of all trades, because you couldn’t keep up with ongoing developments in both systems anyway. And then what about France etc? Truly international law (like the International Criminal Court) is something different, and comes under a single legal code anyway.
If you are an American citizen, yes, you probably need to become a British citizen to be able to work in the UK. To practice in other (Commonwealth) countries, you’d need a work permit to do so. Do you have citizenship or passports to other countries?
An executive could be sponsored by a company to work in the UK. A fresh graduate not so much. Often companies transfer existing staff from the UK to the US or vice versa (how I got here). Marriage is the other main reason.
You don’t need a British passport to do a degree. You would do to stay/work there indefinitely.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing?wssl=1
The only certain way is to not have any AP/SATII/IB tests scheduled for senior year- which means that you have to have enough scores in hand to convince them that you have the necessary background. While the standardized tests are a hoop to jump through, depending on the subject they can be useful and/or important prep for your actual course.
Gaming admission by college is a source of constant debate! imo you might as well apply to one that you will think you like. About 1/3rd of students get re-allocated (aka ‘pooled’) anyway.
The ‘newer’ and farther out colleges are perceived as less competitive- but everybody knows that stereotype so people apply to them thinking that it will be ‘easier’ to get in. Doesn’t really work. You can get into US law school with genuinely any undergrad degree- they really really really don’t care what your major was (most of them won’t even notice what it was). Be aware that law in the UK is usually an undergrad degree (though there is a ‘conversion’ course for people who do other subjects).
Well, Oxford doesn’t have a ‘business’ course, and the nearest thing to it (Economics + Management) is even worse for admissions than PPE 
back to the law question - in fact it is not necessary to do law as an undergrad£ in the UK. graduates of any discipline can do a postgrad law conversion course.
OP, you may want to check out this http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21094914#Comment_21094914
thread, the OP of which apparently was scared away for good from their original plan, particularly the second page in which some experienced posters discuss whether one of my posts was inappropriately harsh or merely appropriately informational.
It is a very different culture.
You need to find out for yourself, ASAP, which subject you’d want to study in the UK. Because.your peers over there needed to decide on that at the end of (the equivalent of) their sophomore year in HIGH SCHOOL, not sophomore year in college. Then prepare how to prove your academic preparation in that and at least 2 related subject to the university by EXAM. (For every subject, Oxford and Cambridge will tell you which subjects they want to see. The one with the least specific requirements will be probably be law. )
There will be no „placing in context“ or „viewing favourably“ - they won’t care whether you took the subject in school or college or self studied, they’ll want to see an A or rather an A+ (A*) or the equivalent on an AP, IB or SAT exam.
Start digging!
@Twoin18 I’m interested in business law, namely why I thought that PPE would have been a good idea. I don’t know yet how to do the quotes thing, so when you said “You don’t need a British passport to do a degree. You would do to stay/work there indefinitely.” Does that mean I need a British passport to be a lawyer there, and work as a lawyer, or would I have to apply for a British passport a little after I completed my law degree? In essence, would I have to be a British citizen to practice law?
@PurpleTitan I have dual citizenship for one other country, but it’s honestly not a place I want to live in. I have it because my parents are from there.
@Conformist1688 Thank you-I’ll make sure to research that as soon as possible.
@collegemom3717
@Tigerle I haven’t been scared off yet, and since I am a sophomore in high school I know that one of two things might happen around application time in my household:
- I apply for a law undergrad, much to the sadness of my parents. I either get in, and pursue that path, (but the only time my parents would feel comfortable in letting me go, then, is when I got into no seriously reputable and academically rigorous college here) or I don't get it, probably going to a college here in the US. I'd probably want to be smart and apply for my passport while I was under 18, so it's less work.
- I apply for probably PPE as my undergrad. Suppose I get in, and go to the UK, I spend 3 years there, figuring out if I want to spend the rest of my life there or not. (I suppose it's no less in the US, though, having to take the bar in every single state, except for the UBE) If yes, then I'd get a job there while I worked on the conversion course. If no, then I could come back to the US where I would go to law school. My parents might feel more comfortable in this situation as well.
I’m in no way saying that I don’t want to commit to anything; I do, but I want to make sure I know exactly what I’m doing as these decisions you can’t really undo once you’ve made them. And while my parents matter very much to me, they and I both know that at the end of the day, a good education is valuable.
Do you know how to get a passport? You don’t just apply.
And you don’t have to take the bar in every single state.
@PurpleTitan I looked it up yesterday-there are a couple of requirements which I think I would be able to fulfill if I was completing a degree there, for that period of time. For minors, however, it seems a lot simpler.
And there are some universal bar programs, e.g. the UBE, but those don’t span every state.
You can’t just apply for a passport unless you are entitled due to a parent having citizenship. Even a grandparent just gets you the right to live there and it takes (I think) 5 years before you can apply.
You don’t have to have a passport to be a lawyer in the UK. You do have to have the right to work. Having a passport is the easiest way to achieve that unless you are a senior executive whose company transfers them there. An EU passport would have worked too, but after Brexit it won’t (the cutoff date remains uncertain AFAIK).
@Twoin18 Apologies-I’m utterly confused. I can keep my American citizenship and work in Britain as a lawyer? And when you said “…a passport is the easiest way to achieve that”, what did you mean by that?
However, on the website for applying for British passports, it didn’t seem to have that kind of requirement-am I missing something?
Thank you so much for all the help you’ve given me.
I mean the right to work. See this for example:
https://www.reed.co.uk/career-advice/your-rights-to-working-in-the-uk/
In order to practice as a lawyer in the UK, you need:
-
a three year law degree (LLB or BA if from Oxford) OR
the equivalency exam after the conversion course, which is one more year of full time schooling (don’t expect to be able to work, even if you have a permit, you will not have the time), offered by a number of universities. Oxford and Oxford Brookes offer a joint program -
yet another year of law school or bar school, depending on whether you want to be a solicitor (the route for business law, mostly working from an office) or a barrister (court room appearances and judges)
-
two years of professional training either with a solicitors law firm or at a barristers chambers (called pupillage).
I assume that by 3) at the latest, you’d need the right to work in the UK. Not sure whether a student visa might cover the conversion course and the additional year of law or bar school.
By 3) you probably make enough money to get a work visa. Don’t recall the cut off, but the trainees are paid quite well. Not sure why you think you’d be eligible for a passport - does spending some time as a kid in the UK make you eligible while living in the US? Sounds unlikely to me.
Honestly, I’d try and go the PPE route. Far more options. If the conversion route doesn’t work out, you have lots of business options in the UK (provided you have the right to work) or you could always go back and go to law school in the US, find a job with a British law firm that does a lot of business with the UK, get a visa as highly paid professional and qualify on the Job. Though I suppose you could always do a BA in law at Oxford and a JD in the US straight after. But seriously, would you want to?
In addition, if PPE is what you WANT to study, you better apply for that. Much harder to immerse yourself in a subject you’re not 100% behind - harder to get accepted, harder to survive, harder to do well in at Oxford.
Personally, looking at the current Brexit mess, I wouldn’t want to plan to immigrate into the UK at all, I am very sad to say. One of the problems being that whatever you research now could change dramatically within the next few years, for EU and non EU immigrants alike - such as city firms losing passporting rights within the EU and needing to shift a lot of business and staff to Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt, wherever. Not a good environment to look for a new job in London as an immigrant.