UK's ok (preparing for my second -and final- MSc) and mostly easy to get a place, but it really depends on what you want to study and your financial condition. I'm here because of a scholarship (so is my girlfriend) and I'll probably do the MSc because of a scholarship or a student loan. Fees are usually less that £5000 for a simple MSc at a reasonable, well-respected university (not in London though).

@Mnemon: I don't mind learning a new language, but probably not for academic purposes. I can pick up new languages very quickly, but if I pursue a postgrad degree, it will have to be conducted in English

@cjrgreen: that's a good point. I'll keep that in mind. What are the prerequisites to get into any law school, generally? Do I need to have a solid GPA for my Bachelor's degree, or is it less important than if I do well for SAT?

Also, how do scholarships work overseas? How do they judge whether you qualify for a scholarship?

Seconded. It's the same in the UK. Wherever there's an ambulance there are lawyers tailing it.

For some reason I thought lawyers are really wanted in the UK, all career fairs in the universities are always full of law firms. :-/

I'm in that situation right now, unfortunately. I did my undergrad in the US and then came back to the UK for my postgrad, but I was charged as an overseas student because I had lived in the US for so long. I've decided to wait the three years for home student status... It was fun relaxing for the first month but after that it starts to get boring. Half-way there though :)!

Edit: typo

That's because you don't require a law degree to qualify as a lawyer. Hence, they try to get the best of the best from every department.

Back in my university days, I talked with a couple of students who wanted to do a Masters, but didn't have the marks and what they'd do is take a bunch of extra classes after they were done with their degree to improve their GPA.

As long as you don't graduate, you can take all the extra classes that you want. That's how I ended up taking 45 extra credits of Maths & Stats.

However, education here is dirt cheap so taking a couple of extra classes is no big deal financially.

Depending on where you are, you might not have that luxury I guess.

In the US, there is little financial aid for law school. Many students finance their education through loans. Worst case, you can end up with a JD, $150,000 or so in debt, and no offers.

Graduate school is different; it's said that nobody pays for a Ph.D. A graduate program that actually wants you to attend will offer a teaching assistantship, a fellowship, or similar financial aid to cover your tuition and pay you a stipend you can more or less live on. A program that offers you admission but no financial aid is one that doesn't really want you.

This means, however, that you should already have made a strong impression on the professors in the department by the time you submit your application; you should already know that they want you in their program and have grants or other resources to pay for your attendance.

The most common way to score law school applicants is a weighted average of GPA and LSAT. The weights and required scores differ from school to school, and you should inquire not only what the minimum acceptable scores are, but also what the average (median) scores of students admitted are, for each school of interest to you.

Law school admission is extremely competitive. The best US law schools expect an LSAT score in the 170's (out of 180); 170 is 97.5th percentile (only 2.5% of test takers qualify).

Thanks bros. I'm going to have a look around after my graduation and see if I can get a scholarship. Maybe Law school is out after all, since based on my GPA, I don't think I qualify. Has anyone here taken postgrad Statistics btw? I hear the market's quite good for that, but I don't know if a Masters or PhD in stats can get me a job that's good enough to cover the expenses incurred from school fees after a few years.

My brother's girlfriend is doing a postgrad in statistics in London. Let me know what exactly to ask of her and I'll try to do it tomorrow. Also my brother is doing a postgrad in mechanical engineering, so let me know if there's anything to ask of him as well. They are both in UCL (University College London).

Maybe not only as prerequisites. I think post-grad in general should be much more closer to real life than undergrad... not sure if that is the correct description, but real work experience will help a lot in discussions, papers, assignments, etc. in post-grad. At least that's my understanding.

It depends - are these school fees from your college your trying to pay off? Because going for a PhD (even a Masters) in Math or Basic Science should be free - you should even get paid although probably not very much. If they don't offer to pay you, then they don't really want you. Engineering works a little differently - Masters students may or may not (more likely) get support, but once your past that into PhD you should have support.

Even if you do already have loans, statistics is a good field for a lot of different job types as it is an applied math field - though that's not a good reason to get a PhD. If you are looking for something that will set you up for a job, go for a Masters. Go for a PhD only if you love you what you do because otherwise you'll hate your time in grad school. It's true that Masters programs often entail less support, but you can get teaching positions - though teaching is a lot of work, so it will slow down how quickly you can graduate - to offset/negate tuition and even have enough of a salary to live on depending on the institution and the package they offer. Unfortunately such packages are highly variable from field to field and institution to institution which limits how much pertinent advice I could give you since I am not in Statistics myself.

Thanks man I gotta run, but I'll PM you when I get back.

Here, a job in statistics pays about the same as a programmer (~60k once you have a fair amount of experience).

However, the working conditions are often better (less unpaid overtime because of deadlines), especially if you work for the government (they tend to need their stats).

I researched it about 3 years back.

I'll probably look around a bit more first, get a better understanding on the admission criteria in general. Based on my GPA, I'll probably only be able to do post-grad after I get some years of work experience. We'll see how it goes. Thanks.