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TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26
- Thread starter Ram Sabaratnam
- Start date
I also went to a Northern RG uni! The ratio of Southerners to Northerners seemed to be 20:1My face when I arrived on campus for a seminar at a Northern RG uni for the first time only to discover I was in fact the only northerner in the room…
It was a struggle frfr! I’ve got a weird hybrid of a scouse and manc accent and I would get made fun of for how I pronounced diff words.
It’s been nice to read you guys’ experiences and stories. We should all embrace our accents cos it’s what makes us who we are ultimately!
I went to a top uni and many non-law students scored MC or SC vacation schemes and training contracts. To be honest, I think for many top firms, the university you go to matters whether you are law or non-law. However, it’s also important to keep in mind that many firms have a blind application process where they don’t see what uni you went to unless you tell them in your application questions or interview!
I emailed and this was the reply I received 3 days ago:
We are aware of an issue with the Bright Apply links indicating that the opportunity is now closed. Please be assured that we are investigating this as a matter of priority and will contact you once it has been resolved. This will not affect your application, and we will provide a new deadline for completing the assessment.
Haven't received a new link yet
Hey!
I think there will be differing views on this (and it definitely differs between firms as well), but I'd say that the university you attend can have some impact on your opportunities, particularly when it comes to commercial law. I went to a non-RG university, and one of the most striking differences I noticed when speaking to RG and Oxbridge students on vacation schemes was the amount of opportunities and firm engagement they had access to. For example, at my university's law fair we never had London firms attending, only regional firms, which sometimes made it harder to gain insight into the commercial law market or speak directly to people that worked in those firms.
However, I think the significance of the university you go to has less of an impact in the application process now than it used to. Many firms now operate CV-blind or partially blind recruitment processes, meaning that written applications and SJT / interview performance tend to carry far more weight than the name of your university.
Ultimately, it is likely that there is an advantage in the process if you go to a leading university, but this doesn't mean that you are absolutely doomed if you don't come from a top RG uni! I know plenty of people who have secured TCs at top commercial firms from non-RG universities, which really shows that it isn't a barrier if you don't let it be one. What really helped me was to make the most of the opportunities that were available to non-RG students (such as BIUCAC), as this gave me unique talking points for my applications and beyond
I went to a mid-tier university (as my parents kept reminding me) and I have an interview with a reasonably decent American law firm (Gibson Dunn) if it provides you with any consolation.
Gibson Dunn and ‘reasonably decent’ in the same sentence? I thought they were pretty good? This is Gibson Dunn’s reaction after seeing this comment about their status as a US firm:
I said they were reasonably decent, didn't I... that means pretty good lol.Gibson Dunn and ‘reasonably decent’ in the same sentence? I thought they were pretty good? This is Gibson Dunn’s reaction after seeing this comment about their status as a US firm:
I'm pretty pleased, don't get me wrong. Gibson Dunn, if you're reading this, I love you really.
I go to a non RG university and so far this cycle I’ve got a magic circle AC coming up, a silver circle AC, and I’ve gotten through initial application stage at Skadden. I don’t actually see it as the barrier it may have been historically. I was also recently told by grad rec at Ropes & Gray that they review applications without seeing what university an applicant is from.
No. I just received an automatic report.
Gibson Dunn putting you on a watch list like:I said they were reasonably decent, didn't I... that means pretty good lol.
I'm pretty pleased, don't get me wrong. Gibson Dunn, if you're reading this, I love you really.
@angdps this is a very good question! Personally, I've played around with this topic many times over the last few years (especially when I felt like my applications were not getting anywhere) but my honest opinion is that it doesn't matter a great deal so as to affect the likelihood of your application progressing.
The reason being, it's not factored into the screening process. Traditionally ATS's such as CvMail and Vantage (which allow the primary user e.g. Grad Rec to filter out applicants based off any question in the application) were only used to filter out academic criteria and where there were EC's these were decided holistically. I'd be surprised if anyone would then filter out based off universities without disclosing this as part of their initial criteria. For example, I think Slaughter and May used to filter on universities and in line with industry-wide transparency they disclosed it. If this was actively happening, other firms would disclose it too (it's not illegal and unnecessary applications cost £1000's). The only time it could realistically affect you is through some bias of the end-reader, however unconscious bias training is now actively given to graduate recruitment/assessors on the VS/TC so as to prevent the likelihood of this happening. So, for anyone worried about whether or not their university will hold them back, please don't be.
I think the issue is more to do with the applicant pool itself, which can be attributed to recruitment strategy and applicant confidence/perceived prospects (I won't bore you with my theory but please apply).
P.S. If it helps anyone, just know I went to a clearance university that's 79 on the league tables.
Hi, is it too late to apply for rolling deadlines that are due mid Jan? The White & Case VS deadline is 12th Jan, but they also have a non-rolling TC deadline that I would be eligible for. Ideally would like to apply for the VS, but if this is cutting it too close I will apply for the direct TC instead. Has anyone progressed with White & Case despite applying very close to the deadline?
Mishcon High Numerical and Verbal but 18/36 on the rest. Anybody historically got simialr stuff and still went forward?
- Sep 9, 2024
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Just to quickly come in to add to the many amazing responses from other forum members:
Firstly, on the accent bit: I completely relate to your anxiety about it, as this is something I used to worry about a lot as a non-native speak with a quite noticeable Eastern European accent. I remember thinking that I should try to sound more British, but every time I did that I would lose some valuable focus and my responses would end up looking substantially less nuanced and articulated. As such, in my ACs I decided to take a risk and assume partners will care more about the substance of my performance and my abilities rather than how much my appearance fitted what I saw as being a desirable "type" of candidate. This ended up working very well, and while this may have to do with some degree of luck in the particular firms and particular partners I interviewed with, my impression is that this is the rule rather the exception in terms of recruitment attitudes at top firms nowadays.
Secondly, on managing imposter syndrome and being confident: This is once again something I struggled with. Having being rejected in every single application I made the prior year, and also having attended many firm events where I felt somewhat out of place, I had this underlying anxiety that I was not the super-successful and naturally confident type that I thought firms were looking for. As before, I found out that in practice, firms were not really looking for this model of a candidate as much as I envisaged. Particularly in my VSs, I actually noticed that the very outspoken and self-assured candidates tended to convert less often than the quieter candidates - potentially because this attitude can come with a serious risk of being perceived as overconfident and potentially arrogant, features that firms are very weary of. Thus, the first thing I want to tell you is that apparent confidence many not be as important for success as you imagine.
Now, that being said, a healthy degree of confidence in your abilities is of course helpful to prevent anxiety from negatively impacting your performance. To do that, for me it was very helpful to remind myself of the following two things and to aim to internalise them in the days/weeks before the AC:
- You have been selected by competent recruiters as being one of the very best candidates in a huge pool of talent. While you may not believe in your own abilities that much, the concrete proof that a reliable source of authority on the matter considered you to be a great candidate should convince you that is the case.
- In the AC itself, you do not need to outshine others and demonstrate some exceptional brilliance or skill - all you need to do is to ensure you manage each task and question well and avoid scoring badly on any assessment criterion. In my experience, being overly concerned with impressing everyone is what leads candidates to major oversights and thus significantly decreases their success chances. As such, I would advise you to take off the pressure of being exceptional and simply focus on doing well; if you manage that, you will have high chances of succeeding.
- Sep 9, 2024
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Hi @flower1 that's a great question. While I have not had to deal with a lot of antitrust-related tasks and questions in my ACs, I would aim to know the following:
- The main competition law infringements that companies can be fined for: abuse of a dominant position in the market, forming of cartels (such as price fixing agreements, bid-rigging, customer allocation agreements, group boycotts, sharing of confidential information etc), and anti-competitive mergers.
- The basics of the merger control regime: how to the authorities get involved, how do parties protect against risk of intervention by the antitrust authorities via contractual clauses, what remedies are available for a company to appease the authorities to let a deal go through (structural remedies such as selling a part of a target's business + behavioural remedies such as agreements not to raise prices).
- How the recently developed class-action competition law regime works in the UK;
- The main types of issues and controversies economists and lawyers face in this area - such as determining at what level of granularity/generality to define a given market, to determine what counts as a detrimental impact on competition (would a merger of the 4th and rd largest companies in a market have a negative impact, assuming this enables them to better compete with the #1 and #2 largest companies, who dominate most of the market?) and determining what kinds of arrangements and remedies would be economically justified or considered abusive.
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