The University of Manchester signs up to the LNAT
Friday, 01 Apr 2011
Support for law admissions test grows
University of Manchester latest to sign up
Interest from UK universities in the National Admissions Test for Law (LNAT) is growing, with the University of Manchester’s Law School becoming the latest to join.
See: http://www.law.man.ac.uk/undergraduate/lnat/
The consortium which runs the LNAT has seen interest from UK university law schools double in the past 12 months. The increase in interest has been largely attributed to the rising demand for undergraduate places.
Dinah Crystal OBE, Director of External Relations and Clinical Legal Education for the University of Manchester, said: “There is a great demand for places on our undergraduate law courses so we need to make sure that places are being offered to the best candidates.
“We believe the LNAT will give us a medium to look at and beyond A Level results and identify students with raw talent, regardless of their educational or social background.
“It will also give candidates a valuable opportunity to show off their abilities and flair for the study of law, and we look forward to implementing the LNAT as part of our admissions procedures for the 2012 academic year.”
The LNAT is a computer-based test which measures the verbal reasoning skills required to study and practise law including: comprehension, interpretation, analysis, synthesis, and deduction.
It is used alongside standard methods of selection such as A Level (or equivalent) results, university applications and admissions interviews, to give a more accurate and rounded impression of the student’s abilities.
Dr Liora Lazarus, Chair of LNAT and Fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford, said: “For more heavily subscribed courses like undergraduate law it’s almost impossible for admissions tutors to pick the best candidates using A Level results and UCAS applications alone.
“Admissions tests, meanwhile, can be a very valuable evaluation tool as they can demonstrate candidate’s aptitude and skills rather than simply their knowledge, something which is especially useful with borderline cases and with widening participation.”
Recent research conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has identified a correlation between LNAT result and academic achievement. It also suggested that the new longer test format - introduced for the 2011/2012 academic year - will give the LNAT’s most accurate indication yet of the level of students’ future academic achievement in law.
The growing interest isn’t limited to UK universities, however. The LNAT consortium has also seen an increasing number of enquiries from overseas universities, with Spanish-based IE University and National University of Ireland, Maynooth’s law schools also signing up.
The LNAT test was developed in 2004 to help a group of universities to differentiate undergraduate law study applications, and is now sat by more than 7,000 students each year.