Putting law to the test - The LNAT

The law schools of eight prestigious English universities plan to make prospective undergraduates sit a new admissions test from this autumn

The National Admissions Test for Law (LNAT) will be used alongside GCSEs, A levels and 'other existing selection mechanisms'. It will be a two-hour test, involving multiple-choice questions and a short essay.

The development is being co-ordinated by the University of Birmingham, where undergraduate law admissions dean Dr Tim Kaye says: "The growing number of candidates with top scores at GCSE and A-level has made it increasingly difficult for the most competitive law schools in the country to rank their applicants satisfactorily.

"To help with this problem, several of the law schools involved in this proposal already have, or were about to adopt, admissions tests of their own. The LNAT will allow them to pool their expertise, reduce the overall number of tests taken by aspiring law students, and give more even-handed and transparent consideration to all of their candidates."

Law is an extremely popular subject at degree level. Birmingham's law school has about 2,000 applicants for about 220 places. A number of universities - most notably Bristol (see our separate report in this issue of Student Adviser) - have incurred the wrath of some head teachers by trying to choose what they regard as the best potential students, not necessarily those with the highest grades.

Law Schools involved with LNAT Birmingham Bristol Cambridge Durham East Anglia Nottingham Oxford University College London