u/labourbiscuit

hii! i would really appreciate some advice. im a student going into year 13 and i currently am thinking of applying to manchester, edinburgh, warwick, leeds and liverpool. however after giving it some thought and looking at league tables ive been considering applying to durham. i have all 8s and 9s at gcses and predicted A*A*A so ive been wondering applying to somewhere more prestigious without looking at oxbridge or london.

im happy with the choices i already have but im worried about looking back in 5 years and wishing i had applied to somewhere slightly more prestigious. durham isnt somewhere i would particularly RATHER live than any of the other places ive applied to, its just its prestige for law.

is that a good enough reason to register for the LNAT now and cram in practice before its too late? the cost also worries me because its quite a noticeable financial hit for me especially if im not 100% on wanting to take the test anyway.

any advice would be very very appreciated and i apologise if im being unreasonable!!

edit omg APPLYING to

first of all this post is not me saying that i'm too good for anywhere, i just want to know if im wasting potential by not appling to the MOST prestigious unis!! for context i'm applying for law, and my stats are 999988887 at gcse and predicted A*A*A in history, english combined and spanish a level.

I’m also doing an EPQ and have done quite a few supercurricular things around law so I feel like I have a reasonably strong academic profile, although i know that everyone else applying to the unis i already have in mind probably has similar stats. Oxford has been my dream uni since year 9 however more recently i have been toing and froing over whether i would realistically be happy with the workload there, and rn i'm about 80/20 in favour of not applying.

my current choices are manchester x2, leeds, sheffield and ljmu. i'm deliberately not applying to london unis because unfortunately i'm not in the financial position to do so.

I think i could see myself being happy with the universities i already have in mind but I’m wondering whether I should have at least one more ambitious choice, I don’t want to apply somewhere purely because of prestige if I don’t actually want to go there, but equally I don’t want to look back and think I played it too safe. also my parents are friends with lots of people whos children go to london/oxbridge and they are quite dismissive of my current choices.

i would really appreciate hearing any thoughts or if anyone is facing the same kind of decision!! tysm :)