Kaplan admissions test success
More than 60 would-be barristers have accepted spots on Kaplan Law School’s new Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) after taking its controversial admissions test.
Kaplan, the London arm of Nottingham Law School, has made 72 offers and has so far had 63 acceptances back from students wanting to study its new BPTC from September 2010.
The new course attracted around 125 applications from prospective candidates and that number was cut down to 83, who were asked to attend a selection day.
The school’s BPTC head James Wakefield said: “The test really highlighted the really talented students and I’m glad we did it. And from speaking to the students they thought so too because the ones that got offers really know that they stand a very good chance of getting a pupilage.”
Kaplan’s strict admissions policy centred on a selection day for all shortlisted applicants. As well as being interviewed, candidates were required to take an oral advocacy test and complete a written exercise.
Wakefield argued that the exercises allowed the school to assess students more thoroughly than through a written application alone.
The news comes after Kaplan sparked controversy by announcing it would be introducing an admissions test just weeks after the Bar Standards Board (BSB) delayed its plans to introduce a compulsory nationwide aptitude test for entry onto the BPTC until 2010.
Meanwhile, the ongoing issue of an oversupply of bar students hit the headlines again earlier this year after it emerged that BPP Law School and Northumbria Law School had both over-subscribed the number of students on their BVC programmes and were both subsequently investigated by the BSB.
Readers' comments (2)
Beth | 16-Jun-2010 12:16 pm
Maybe it's just me, but an admissions test that admits 72 of the 83 people who made it through the paper sift doesn't exactly sound "selective". Nor does it seem like it's adding much to the paper sift that other providers already perform.
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Tom | 11-Aug-2010 2:58 pm
Beth, I see what you mean, but there are two things worth bearing in mind:
1. You don't know how tough they're early selection to get down to the 83 was.
2. The very fact that they had an admissions test probably put off the weakest applicants from even applying there.
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