Londoner not wanting to go to uni in London

[Acheeserollplease]

my DD is London born and bred - loves it here but wants to sample uni elsewhere. Trouble is she wants law - so cannot disregard KCL and UCL - arguably the most prestigious unis after Oxbridge and Durham for law. Would it be bonkers for me to suggest she lives in London halls even though we live in Westminster?!

I am a solicitor with 4 solicitor children (the twins qualified last year). All of mine also deliberately avoided London. There is a reasonable list from 2019 here of from whence where firms . Three of mine rejected Durham offers for Bristol by the way and loved Bristol (Durham of course is very good too, arguably better but only one place ahead of Bristol on this list) -
https://www.chambersstudent.co.uk/where-to-start/newsletter/law-firms-preferred-universities-2019

London is a very different university experience; often very expensive accommodation, sometimes 40 minute journeys to get to lectures, hugely larger number of foreign students (some, not all, with poor English). I would not have stopped mine staying in London for university but am glad they did not.

I think that's so true. I have family who live in London and the number of stupid questions I get asked, they seem to think the rest of the country is stuck in the 1940s.

I grew up in the far north of Scotland and when we got married a friend who worked for one of the big four and regularly travelled internationally for work said her London colleagues thought her trip to the north of Scotland for our wedding was the most exotic and exciting trip ever.

I'm a Londoner by birth and upbringing. I was the last year of O levels, full grants and polytechnics, so I am proper old. I had a place at KCL, but I went to Newcastle! I was desperate to get away from home and London. It was a bit like the teen equivalent of the toddler insisting "I can do iiiiiiit".

I've lived and worked in Yorkshire and the NE ever since. Family have all left London too. Never wanted to go back.

If Durham is a highly ranked university to study law, why not? And it's on a direct line to LKX.

Where did these foreign nationals come from ? because foreign students don’t usually study Law in the UK because they wouldn’t be able to practise in their own countries with an English legal qualification
I know that LSE has a high intake of foreign students studying Economics/ Finance type degrees

If you are on wiwikau facebook (group for parents of students going to uni) you’ll see lots of law threads. Some parents fail to realise just how competitive the top law universities are for law and how few places for home students at some.
This is a FOI I saw for Warwick.
Picking up on some other suggestions York is well ranked and offers a unique problem based learning experience.
Edinburgh doesn’t offer English law. Glasgow has a highly ranked common law (English) degree totally separate to their Scots law course.
I’m a Solicitor with a law degree and dc in yr1 studying law, I visited many of the law open and offer days in last couple of years.

An English law degree will meet requirements in many common law jurisdictions. There’s lots of international students on my dc’s course.
It’s not a new thing I recall a sizeable group from Israel and Cyprus on my law degree over 30 yrs ago.

I would 100% argue that those two are NOT the most prestigious after Oxbridge for law

Nottingham appears very oversubscribed this year for law I’ve seen several people being offered criminology instead despite A and A* predictions. It’s well regarded and none lnat.

OP, you may have already done this, or planned this - but my top tip would be to go visit some places

I started going to Uni Open Days with my young adults from about 16 (because it can help inform A level choices as well as put school in to context of what might come next). Each had their own favourites

Uni is (at least) 3 things - an education (ie learn stuff) , an adventure (ie learn about self) and the start of a career (based on the first 2 and what emerges along the way)

We live in London and DD didn’t apply for any London Unis. I missed out on the ‘living at Uni’ experience and very keen that she does not. Also, this is probably her only chance to have a non-London life for few years. She’s unlikely to work/settle outside London in the longer term.
She might have considered UCL/LSE if she had the grades and plans to do so for post-grad.

My DD is also a Londoner and one of the 'best' courses for her is at LSE. She knew she didn't want to study here, but actually ended up putting it down as one of her five choices anyway - because, short of Oxbridge, it's arguably one of the most interesting/challenging/prestigious places for her subject. A friend of hers had the same dilemma with Imperial...

Happily, they both got Oxbridge offers in the end, so didn't have to consider it further. But my thinking was, if she had wanted to stay in London, I'd have helped fund halls of residence for the first year, but after that she would live at home. It would seem crazy renting privately at such extortionate levels when she could live for free at home!

I do totally agree with posters saying uni is about more than the study. I actually ended up going to a London uni despite growing up here. Didn't live at home - shared a flat with a mate when things were a lot cheaper! - but I still kind of regret it as my university experience was quite limited in many respects. So I'd encourage your DD to look at other options for law as far as possible.

I'm pretty sure that not all lawyers in this country went to Oxbridge, Durham. UCL and KCL.

let her fly the nest and enjoy being a student

Totally this. She needs to leave home, and there are lots of places outside London that are good for law.

@Acheeserollplease You seem to be ignoring Bristol. It’s up there with the others for London law recruitment. Of course many firms are uni blind so doing the tests required will also be important. I think going to Oxbridge. Durham or Bristol or Nottingham gives dc every chance of doing well if they want a job. There’s no evidence recruiters prefer KCL or UCL over, say, Bristol.

In our family we've discussed financially that DC will go to London unis unless they get into Oxbridge or manage to get into an ivy league school in America. We do not want to fork out thousands of £s on house shares. They can live out 1st year and commute year 2&3.

Also the London unis have the advantage of being as good as Oxbridge or even better.

The London Universities don’t get the numbers into the top firms and chambers like Oxbridge do. The Bar is still around 40% Oxbridge. If you don’t manage that, any top 10 or top 15 uni for law is fine and that would also include LSE.

DS went to LSE in 2021-2024 and studied the BSc in Economics. He absolutely loved the course and found he could truly immerse himself there. The professors were fabulous and at the top of their field and would incorporate their research into the course itself. The selection of guests and public speakers was second to none

DS applied for a master's very late and is now doing his MSc at a RG university in the North. The course is quite tough and it's challenging but DS misses that academic environment, he misses the buzz of London. He doesn't really enjoy living away from home.

Of course she can disregard KCL and UCL, just like loads of STEM students cross Imperial off their list because of it being in London.

If the sticking point is not wanting to live at home rather than not wanting to live in London and you can afford the cost of accommodation vs other unis then that’s fine too.

I wouldn't personally say that the difference in prestige/later career success is different enough between KCL/UCL and other top 10/20 type universities to justify studying in London if that's not what she wants. I trained at a major London firm (not Magic Circle but in the tier just below) and did formal vacation schemes at a Magic Circle firm, two similarly highly ranked City firms to the firm I trained at, and one top national firm. In all cases the other students/trainees had a noticeably large proportion of Oxbridge students/grads but beyond that I didn't notice any difference at all in numbers from Durham/KCL/UCL/Bristol/York/Nottingham/Edinburgh/Warwick etc etc.

I think the idea that KCL or UCL give DC a big boost in Law isn’t correct though. Many students are very bright at a good many universities. If dc don’t want to stay at home there’s all sorts of options if you can afford it.

True.
I came to London for university and loved it. Now live here and some of DCs friends stayed in a London for University: they either couldn’t afford not to live at home or from families where girls couldn’t leave home so young to live independently. Having so many overseas students, many of whom study hard and don’t integrate, plus a big chunk living at home, plus mature students changes the experience for those who want the ‘living in halls, all away from home for the first time aged 18’ experience.

I have family who live in London and the number of stupid questions I get asked, they seem to think the rest of the country is stuck in the 1940s.

Yep. I grew up in South London and moved to Yorkshire when I was 21. Some of the stupid assumptions some of my extended family made were ridiculous.

A couple more have escaped the smoke now.

I find my family in Yorkshire think everyone in London is uber rich. They are just as stupid - just opposite!

It's nonsense like that that pedals divides between people.

I could say country people are insular, because they ve never lived in a big city, and they don't know that nothing works outside of london.

People from london are probably the least insular, as live in a multicultural city and have been exposed to all sorts. Tiny little village with zero ethnic diversity there the insula one's imagine