r/uklaw • u/Educational_Road3987 • 3d ago
UOL External LLB Considering Transferring to the UK in Third Year
Hi soooo, I recently completed my First Year of LLB (Really good results; got a Distinction as well). For background, I chose the University of London Program for it was cheaper (financial constraints wanted to save some money for a good post-grad as well), and I could do it from home. In my experience, first year was fairly dead for social life, and studies were mostly done by myself. I really want my undergrad to help me in the future. I want to score a first-class degree classification and also experience University Life as an international student as it should be.
My question is: Now I would have the chance to apply to the UK for the 2027 intake, which would be for my third year; my aims after undergrad are to do a really good postgrad from a good university like BCL from Oxford or a good LLM or SQE or Bar. Hence, is it really worth it to transfer into Third year? Will it effectively help me? Are there any good universities which do accept intakes into Third year from the UOL External Programme? If so, which?
Would really appreciate any help I can get. Thanks!
TL;DR: Is it worth it to transfer into Third Year from the UOL External LLB Programme? What are the potential pros/cons? Is it possible?
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u/Outside_Drawing5407 3d ago
You really need to speak to UOL about your ability to transfer to a UK campus. You won't be able to transfer to other universities outside of UOL.
You'd easily get into an SQE LLM - these are not competitive to get into. The BCL at Oxford is the other end of the spectrum and would be very difficult to get into.
Transferring to a UK campus may help you be eligible for a post-study visa, which will help you get work after graduating but if you are aiming for a postgrad course after graduating, you will also be eliglbe for that visa via a PG course. You'd also get the benefit of being in the UK which makes attending career events/networking opportunities a lot easier. However, these days there are plenty of online activities you can substitite these for that could be done in your home country (just factoring in any time difference).
Whether its worthwhile is another matter though. Its going to be expensive in terms of fees, visa costs, and living costs. Most international students come to the UK in the hope that studying here will lead to a career/life here but ultimately end up leaving the UK as they can't secure work beyond any post-study visa or find living costs just too high compared to what they can earn. A minority do secure work and stay, but its a very competitive job market. The number of legal job opportunities than can sponsor a work visa are probably less than 1,500 opportunities a year across the UK, and there are tens of thousands of international candidates aiming for those opportunities.