The Law Faculty is to abandon the Law National Admissions Test (LNAT) next year. This year’s applicants will be the last candidates expected to sit the two-hour test, which includes multiple choice questions and a timed essay.

Geoff Parks, Director of Admissions for the Colleges, said the LNAT was no longer considered useful in Cambridge’s admissions process.

“The studies we have done show that there is no statistically significant correlation between performance on the multiple choice questions and performance on the Law Tripos,” he said.

Future Cambridge applicants will still be expected to write an essay under exam conditions in conjunction with interviews, in order to demonstrate their command of written English and their ability to advance a logical argument.

The decision will also mean that future applicants will not need to pay the £40 test fee, although it is uncertain whether this will widen access. The cost of the test is currently shared between candidates and the Universities they are applying to and the fee is waived for low-income families.

Dr Parks believes the decision could increase applications: “Application numbers for Law have fallen steadily since we started asking applicants to take the LNAT so one might reasonably expect them to increase next admissions round.

“If the LNAT was deterring students from non-privileged backgrounds from applying to Cambridge then obviously this decision will have a positive effect on access. Ultimately we won’t be admitting significantly different numbers of Law students, so the only effect will be in application patterns,” he added.

Second-year law student Andrew Wheelhouse was unmoved by the decision. “I guess I’m relatively indifferent... I mean, the test is not too arduous. But I don’t know how applicants are going to be hit by the fact that Cambridge is separating from a scheme that other top universities endorse,” he commented.

The decision marks Cambridge’s exit from the LNAT Consortium, of which it was a founding member. The move is thought to be unrelated to February’s scrapping of the £10 fee for general Cambridge applications.

Chris Robinson