Law Places

[tram]

hey,

I was just wonding about how hard it is to earn a place in the melbourne JD. Becasue of the melbourne model, your enter/atar counts for very little towards gaining a place in this law degree because it is a graduate degree, that is, unless you score above 99(guranteed full fee place) or above 99.90(guranteed CSP place). If you do fit into one of these bands, you need to maintian a H2A(75%) adverage though, but if you do get one of these scores, that shoudn't be too hard.

I would really like to get a CSP place as it make a hell of a lot of difference in the amount you have to pay, i.e. the JD course cost just under $90,000. Being realistic, it is unlikely that my enter score will get me a guranteed CSP place.

That means i will have to compete for my place in the law degree in my final year of my undegraduate degree. These places are awarded upon concideration of: your uni marks, a personal statement, and your score in the LSAT(the law equivalent of umat from what i've heard).

Of the places in the course, 50% are CSP places. Of these, at least 20% are awarded to people that qualify for the 'access program', i.e. they are disadvantages in some way. I also do not fall into this category. This means i will be competing for a place that makes up 40% of the places offered in the degree.

Basically, what i would like to know is;

1) How many places in the JD are offered per year in total? Is this likely to change in the next few years?

2) How hard is it to get a CSP place? How many people apply for the degree in total? What type of marks do you need to achieve in your undegraduate degree?

4) Does applying for the JD twice hurt your chances? E.g. If i applied for a place in the third year of my undegraduate degree and was not accepted, did a honours year, then applied again, would i be alredy be looked upon badly because i've alredy been rejected once?

3) How hard is the LSAT, i.e. what kind of appitudes does it test and how? are they essays, short anwsers, comprehension questions, are they multi choice? etc.

Thanks a lot guys, reli appreciate any and all info you have

[Eriny]

1) I think 100. Numbers usually increase over time for all degrees.

2) It's hard to tell, but you would want to be doing pretty well. Final year marks are always the most important. You would definitely need distinctions/H2s at the very least.

3) No, it wouldn't. Doing the LSAT mutiple times may do, I'm not certain?

4) It's mostly writing and comprehension/logical reasoning from what I can gather. I don't really know how hard it is, but practice tests are available online.

[tram]

1) WOW i did not think it was that little..........>.< dammit, so basicly i'm going to be competing for one of 40 places......crap

4) Searching up those lsat's now

[ninwa]

Remember that Monash also offers JD, unless for whatever reason you can't possibly go to Monash. So that doubles your chances.

[tram]

Remember that Monash also offers JD, unless for whatever reason you can't possibly go to Monash. So that doubles your chances.

I'll be honest, i actually was caught in melbourne mania and didn't even concider monash >.<  But yea, completely true, and it looks like a just as good course, goes for the same amount of time too ,and classes are taught in the city, not at clayton so that's a big plus for me too.

But still, do you know how many CSP places Monash offer for their JD/ how hard these places are hard to get?

[ninwa]

I'll be honest, i actually was caught in melbourne mania and didn't even concider monash >.<  But yea, completely true, and it looks like a just as good course, goes for the same amount of time too ,and classes are taught in the city, not at clayton so that's a big plus for me too.

But still, do you know how many CSP places Monash offer for their JD/ how hard these places are hard to get?

I would say similar to what Eriny said.

Re: just as good a course, it would probably be exactly the same course, law degrees are all fundamentally the same because there are always a number of subjects you have to do to receive a law degree (which is why I always recommend people try for the bachelors LLB, because the LLB is exactly the same as the JD and it's a lot easier to get into)

[tram]

Yea, true, i have heard that before about all JDs, Still, i do wanna do acturial first off to see how that goes and I can only really do that melbourne really because the monash acturial cource is still in it's infantacy (next year will be the first year they're offering it) and i don't want to go interstate for uni.

So look like i have to go wtih the jd, plus, i'm not 100% sure i wanna do law anyway, so this i'll give me a chance to see where my intrests really lie

Two side points:

1) Will i be disadvantaged having not already done a course at monash when applying for the monash jd?

and

2) Will my enter/atar count for anything at all in my application? e.g. getting 99.85, just missing out a guranteed CSP place, will that be taken into concidertaion at all?

I'm guessing not tho, and that my final year marks in undegrauate will count for a lot more so it looks like i'm gonna be working my butt of in uni >.<

[tram]

Oh, and if anyone's interested (and this is taken stright from http://www.lsac.org/LSAT/about-the-lsat.asp)

The LSAT is designed to measure skills that are considered essential for success in law school: the reading and comprehension of complex texts with accuracy and insight; the organization and management of information and the ability to draw reasonable inferences from it; the ability to think critically; and the analysis and evaluation of the reasoning and arguments of others.

The three multiple-choice question types in the LSAT are:

   1. Reading Comprehension Questions
      These questions measure the ability to read, with understanding and insight, examples of lengthy and complex materials similar to those commonly encountered in law school. The Reading Comprehension section contains four sets of reading questions, each consisting of a selection of reading material, followed by five to eight questions that test reading and reasoning abilities.
   2. Analytical Reasoning Questions
      These questions measure the ability to understand a structure of relationships and to draw logical conclusions about that structure. You are asked to reason deductively from a set of statements and rules or principles that describe relationships among persons, things, or events. Analytical Reasoning questions reflect the kinds of complex analyses that a law student performs in the course of legal problem solving.
   3. Logical Reasoning Questions
      These questions assess the ability to analyze, critically evaluate, and complete arguments as they occur in ordinary language. Each Logical Reasoning question requires the test taker to read and comprehend a short passage, then answer a question about it. The questions are designed to assess a wide range of skills involved in thinking critically, with an emphasis on skills that are central to legal reasoning. These skills include drawing well-supported conclusions, reasoning by analogy, determining how additional evidence affects an argument, applying principles or rules, and identifying argument flaws.

Also, here is a practice LSAT

http://www.lsac.org/pdfs/SamplePTJune.pdf

[ninwa]

Two side points:

1) Will i be disadvantaged having not already done a course at monash when applying for the monash jd?

and

2) Will my enter/atar count for anything at all in my application? e.g. getting 99.85, just missing out a guranteed CSP place, will that be taken into concidertaion at all?

No, and no. I did some notetaking for a few JD classes, they were mostly middle-aged businesspeople, most of them probably didn't even do the VCE

[tram]

crap, so is doing the jd gonna be superrrrr boring cos of the ppl there will be likely to be at least 10+ years older than me? >.<

[darlok]

God you are stupid, think it through. Melbourne no longer offers undergraduate law. People do their undergraduate in other fields in order to get in to the JD post graduate. Number of younger people in JD rises as those that couldn't do undergraduate law graduate.

All the young people that could be doing the JD now did the LLB, the first generation to not have the option of undergraduate law hasn't even graduated yet to start the JD.

[tram]

ummmm i was referering to monash law thanks, and due to the fact that ninwa had said

I did some notetaking for a few JD classes, they were mostly middle-aged businesspeople, most of them probably didn't even do the VCE

[ninwa]

crap, so is doing the jd gonna be superrrrr boring cos of the ppl there will be likely to be at least 10+ years older than me? >.<

I'm not sure, I personally didn't see any younger people but remember that was only for Monash and only for a particular subject. Anyway that shouldn't influence your choice. I advocate the LLB over the JD for those who definitely want to do law, but since you are not sure, your way is probably better.

[darlok]

Sorry, pent up study rage.

[AzureBlue]

1) WOW i did not think it was that little..........>.< dammit, so basicly i'm going to be competing for one of 40 places......crap

Lol ditto. :O
So basically a CSP means you have the equivalent of a scholarship and you don't have to pay the normal $90k? And is the JD more advanced and accelerated than the LLB?