USYD combined law atar is lowered... (1 Viewer)

[Amundies]

Law Lecturer: "Courses like engineering have low atar cut offs for stupid people."

He says in a building not collapsing designed by a civil engineer into a mic whose systems are fully functioning and were designed by an electrical engineer, while he/she travelled to the uni that day in his car which did not break down and which was designed by mechanical and aeronautical engineers. Good one mate.

Engineering degrees take average students and turn them into outstanding engineers, while law degrees take above average students and turn them into dull people

 

[yak_stefan95]

can confirm 100% bullshit

I can confirm that what the UNSW lady said was true. I achieved an ATAR of 99.65 last year and was not accepted into either UNSW or USYD Law.

 

[charlottegoodma]

Law is hard to get into initially and comparatively easier to transfer into due to the amount of people who pick it due to "prestige", "not wasting their Atar" or realise it's not as glamorous as they thought it was, and drop to doing just the degree they combined with. Unis let existing students transfer into these spots to artificially keep entry atars high (and thus perceived prestige of the course). I know a girl who got an offer from Cambridge law who didn't even make the usyd cut off that's how out of lines the atars are with ability.


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[RishBonjour99]

aside from med it pretty much isn't

This is bullshit. Two of my mates missed out usyd law in 2013 with 99.65 and then went into UNSW law. When they realised half the cohort's ATAR was no where near the cut-off and cohort wasn't as 'strong' as you expect, transferred out (one into unsw med, other into usyd law - had a hd wam at unsw law).

Usyd fucked up by lowering its ATAR to 99.5 first. Now year 12 kids will think UNSW law has more demand lol.

Realistically, 99.5 is the better cut-off. A large number of transfers make it into the cohort and I'm fairly sure a 99.5 ATAR student will be more 'quality' compared to someone on 80 WAM in a straight 1st year commerce course.

I could have done Law/Engineering if I wanted to, but I chose pure Engineering because that was what I wanted to do.

Its time they introduced a Law entry version of the UMAT for medicine.

But you don't have to be a good human being to be a good lawyer. You just have to be fucking smart.

Doctors are not chosen solely based on academics for obvious reasons.

please don't judge when you don't know the full situation haha
this was entirely my line of thinking 1 week ago, but a lot can change that. There may be people who are genuinely well-suited to/have an interest in both medicine and law

but for those people in it for the prestige/money, gg its going to be hard both the med and law ways

lol I agree. I would love to study Maths/Finance/Med/Law/Engo. Interested in all, but we do have to chose. First world problems.

 

[D94]

But you don't have to be a good human being to be a good lawyer. You just have to be fucking smart.

Doctors are not chosen solely based on academics for obvious reasons.

Obviously it wouldn't be like UMAT in terms of the assessments. ATAR doesn't dictate aptitude for a degree or your intelligence. I have no doubt that many students doing Law won't end up doing anything legal related, or that they are simply using as many ATAR points as possible.

LSAT is one example of a Law entry assessment akin to UMAT for Medicine in Australia.

 

[RishBonjour99]

Obviously it wouldn't be like UMAT in terms of the assessments. ATAR doesn't dictate aptitude for a degree or your intelligence. I have no doubt that many students doing Law won't end up doing anything legal related, or that they are simply using as many ATAR points as possible.

LSAT is one example of a Law entry assessment akin to UMAT for Medicine in Australia.

I can confirm that more than 50% won't practice anything legal. After you're in, its another game all together being in the top 10% of usyd law cohort to get those top jobs. Those in that bracket are generally exceptionally hard working and also quite 'intelligent'. You need both.

If LSAT is introduced, people who are expecting high ATARs will still do it. It won't deter too many people.

 

[RivalryofTroll]

Realistically, 99.5 is the better cut-off. A large number of transfers make it into the cohort and I'm fairly sure a 99.5 ATAR student will be more 'quality' compared to someone on 80 WAM in a straight 1st year commerce course.

But you don't have to be a good human being to be a good lawyer. You just have to be fucking smart.

Doctors are not chosen solely based on academics for obvious reasons.

I wouldn't make that assumption so easily.

Yeah, a UMAT style test for law isn't really necessary.

Though, we wouldn't want ''terrible'' human beings in the legal profession either.

''Fit and proper person'' and of ''good fame and character''. There isn't an Ethics & Justice course in law for no reason.

Obviously it wouldn't be like UMAT in terms of the assessments. ATAR doesn't dictate aptitude for a degree or your intelligence. I have no doubt that many students doing Law won't end up doing anything legal related, or that they are simply using as many ATAR points as possible.

LSAT is one example of a Law entry assessment akin to UMAT for Medicine in Australia.

What should it actually assess though?

- The critical thinking/problem-solving ability that the discipline of law demands?
- Ethics?

Definitely agree on the argument that ATAR doesn't determine one's aptitude for law or their overall intelligence.

I'm sure there's a good amount of cases (no pun intended) where a law student has outperformed their higher ATAR peers. I'm sure RishBonjour would fully understand this though.

 

[RivalryofTroll]

I can confirm that more than 50% won't practice anything legal. After you're in, its another game all together being in the top 10% of usyd law cohort to get those top jobs. Those in that bracket are generally exceptionally hard working and also quite 'intelligent'. You need both.

If LSAT is introduced, people who are expecting high ATARs will still do it. It won't deter too many people.

Basically this. It's already like that for Medicine, which has UMAT.

 

[D94]

I can confirm that more than 50% won't practice anything legal. After you're in, its another game all together being in the top 10% of usyd law cohort to get those top jobs. Those in that bracket are generally exceptionally hard working and also quite 'intelligent'. You need both.

If LSAT is introduced, people who are expecting high ATARs will still do it. It won't deter too many people.

It's not suppose to deter people but rather to encourage more people - you want students to realise whether or not they are capable of being a lawyer. UMAT doesn't deter high achieving students, but even high achieving students can do poorly on the UMAT. If it is designed to test aptitude then by its very nature, it would determine who is suitable.

What should it actually assess though?

- The critical thinking/problem-solving ability that the discipline of law demands?
- Ethics?

Definitely agree on the argument that ATAR doesn't determine one's aptitude for law or their overall intelligence.

I'm sure there's a good amount of cases (no pun intended) where a law student has outperformed their higher ATAR peers. I'm sure RishBonjour would fully understand this though.

LSAT covers:
-Reading Comprehension Questions
-Analytical Reasoning Questions
-Logical Reasoning Questions

So obviously something similar to that.

 

[Crobat]

But you don't have to be a good human being to be a good lawyer. You just have to be fucking smart.

 

[JasonG123]

Why would the LSAT somehow be a better measure of someone's ability to perform in law than the ATAR? The best way of measuring if you have the capacity/desire to study law is to actually study it. If you don't you can change degrees, there is no need for an LSAT.

What actually needs to happen is to limit the amount of law schools open in Australia/NSW. Twenty years ago there were 12 Australian law schools, now there are 30+ since they are very cheap to teach and there is high demand for law. There needs to be some form of regulation, but not in the form of an LSAT.

 

[RishBonjour99]

It's not suppose to deter people but rather to encourage more people - you want students to realise whether or not they are capable of being a lawyer. UMAT doesn't deter high achieving students, but even high achieving students can do poorly on the UMAT. If it is designed to test aptitude then by its very nature, it would determine who is suitable.

But that 'aptitude' thing doesn't work. How do you explain people's UMAT scores changing drastically from less than 50% to 90%+ in one year? (holding the reasonable assumption that cohort quality is relatively stable given it is percentile based). Practice. Practice. Practice + a bit of luck given its MC. So it really isn't a question of whether you are 'capable'. I know people on their 3rd attempts at UMAT and its not too rare to find people getting in on their 5th attempt.

The biggest issue with law is the expectation in high school students that you have be good in English Adv, know 5 languages and have a great memory to do well in law. So when all these 95+ English adv kids with no maths background get into law and end up with a 65 in Torts despite reading and memorising every case, they are inclined to drop it (If this is you, you reallllly shouldn't drop out - it gets so much better!!)


Agree with JasonG, one of the first things a law lecturer said to me was how NSW law society "fucked up law" by opening law schools almost in every university in NSW. There is an overflow of medical grads right now struggling for intern positions which is why there is a bar on new medical schools by the government until hospitals adjust to the new numbers. This precise regulation is what law lacks and now salaries are being driven down and people are complaining about the lack of law grad positions. Well, if you go to uws law while others worked bloody hard to make it into usyd/unsw (and then to do well in these), expect to work in parramatta and not at KWM/Allens/Clutz unless you get the uni medal.

 

[Thank_You]

That puts almost an extra 200 students in the competition pool for the degree... pretty big deal if you ask me.

EDIT: Those people you know that got in with 98.something were probably E12 scholarship recipients

CAN CONFIRM, I only needed a 95 ATAR for 2014 to do LAW at USYD. But i didn't pick it though

 

[Dupain]

LSAT a must. 40% "Inters" have not concept of English and pass law, along with the "disadvandos" EAS rorters - they struggle so hard at Uni to understand the lectures. Cash under the table for a pass is the word. Corruption is riddled within UWS, USYD, UMacq, ACU, UTS law schools. ICAC must investigate.

100% time, the Asians and mainly the mainland CHINESE are killing our Unis standards with their systemic cheating.

See Four Corners website.

A disgrace.

 

[rivaldo]

Not sure if Dupain themself or their post is more of a disgrace.

 

[Aerath]

LSAT a must. 40% "Inters" have not concept of English and pass law, along with the "disadvandos" EAS rorters - they struggle so hard at Uni to understand the lectures. Cash under the table for a pass is the word. Corruption is riddled within UWS, USYD, UMacq, ACU, UTS law schools. ICAC must investigate.

100% time, the Asians and mainly the mainland CHINESE are killing our Unis standards with their systemic cheating.

See Four Corners website.

A disgrace.

lol "inters", "disadvandos", "Asians"?

lol

 

[Dupain]

lol "inters", "disadvandos", "Asians"?

lol

Read today's SMH and over the last months about what I mean. MASSIVE cheating by the above uncovered and you condone it.