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TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26

law_mania

Standard Member
  • Jan 15, 2026
    6
    4
    The wait for Orrick rejection begins today.
    I’m not expecting much cos it’s either gna be a PFO post app or post WG. I’m baso looking forward to nothing at this point. It’s a PFO either way…

    Episode 4 Ufc Embedded GIF by UFC

    Disappointed World Cup GIF by Goldmaster
     
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    msclm

    Valued Member
  • Oct 22, 2024
    106
    400
    from what i have heard, Sidley (at least for the summer VS) will get back to us only in early March - pls correct me if im wrong

    I’d imagine those who applied for spring for Sidley will hear back earlier. There is 2 stages and they also do a full background check before the vac which takes some time. Given that the spring vac is in April, they should start giving out the first hr interviews soon!
     

    LawAspirer

    Legendary Member
  • Feb 19, 2024
    169
    212
    I’d imagine those who applied for spring for Sidley will hear back earlier. There is 2 stages and they also do a full background check before the vac which takes some time. Given that the spring vac is in April, they should start giving out the first hr interviews soon!
    Has anybody gotten rejected yet?
    I remember applying for Winter very early on (like September) and heard back almost within like 2 weeks.
    I applied for Spring now in early December and yet to hear anything
     

    Rosie_Kitten

    Legendary Member
  • Dec 26, 2025
    183
    355
    Agreed, but AI certainly makes applying easier for those who may not be confident writers.
    I think it makes the quantity of applications increased. Let me use a very simple numerical answer (Obviously, there are way more candidates and firms, and people submit way more applications).

    Say you have 100 candidates and 20 firms. They can write 5 apps each, so they will submit to the 10 firms they are a best fit for. For simplicity, let's say there is an equal distribution of applications to each firm. This means there are 500 applications for 20 firms, so each firm received 25 applications. They decide to take 5 candidates on, so they have a simple screening process to whittle 25 applications to 5.

    With AI speeding up the research writing process, each candidate now decides to submit 20 applications. Each firm suddenly has to review 100 applications each. In addition, because of the economic outlook and AI integration, each firm is only taking 2 applicants. The process to reduce 100 applications to 2 candidates is a whole different challenge; they aren't able to use the same review system anymore.

    Now imagine this, but with 5000 applicants, all with strong grades (or mitigating circumstances), 5% need reasonable adjustments (So they have to account for this when choosing the assessment method), and only 5-10 places at the end (varies a lot by firm ik). It's honestly a nightmare for grad recruitment. The good news is that most AI is not very good at writing or research at this stage. The candidates who copy/paste from AI can instantly be rejected. But those who use it roughly take ideas from it without copying output, making it difficult to differentiate from purely human-written applications. And this is where they have problems.

    This isn't a law problem. It's a problem for the entire job market.
     

    Rosie_Kitten

    Legendary Member
  • Dec 26, 2025
    183
    355
    I’m not expecting much cos it’s either gna be a PFO post app or post WG. I’m baso looking forward to nothing at this point. It’s a PFO either way…

    Episode 4 Ufc Embedded GIF by UFC

    Disappointed World Cup GIF by Goldmaster
    I was going to apply yesterday, but ended up not applying and submitting an application for Harbottle and Lewis instead. My reason was that on legalcheek the work-life balance was a Cand social life also C - for commercial law. When work-life balance is an A/A* , then usually that is already pretty tough working hours, so C must mean basically killing yourself with work without any sleep 😅.

    Obviously, take legal cheek with a grain of salt, it's not going to be accurate.
     

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