Three more leading universities have signed up to the national admissions test for law (LNAT) as the number of candidates with top A-level grades applying for places on law courses reaches unprecedented levels.

Glasgow, King's College London and Manchester Metropolitan will use the test in the 2005/06 admissions cycle, joining the eight universities - Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, East Anglia, Nottingham, Oxford and University College London - that established the LNAT consortium and used the test for the first time in 2004/05.


Changes have also been made to the administration of the test, which will now be mandatory for all candidates, including overseas applicants, seeking admission to the 11 universities.



Candidates will have to complete the two-hour test electronically at 150 test centres around the country, rather than manually in schools as before. They will also be able to sit the test any time during the admissions cycle that runs from 1 September 2005 to 30 June 2006.


Individual tests will be created from a bank of questions, with the test comprising two elements: 30 multiple choice questions, completed on a touch screen and machine-marked, and an essay.


Phil Syrpis, chairman of the LNAT consortium and undergraduate admissions tutor at Bristol University, said: 'Last year we received more than 2,200 applications from UK students alone for 145 places, and half of those applying had straight As at both GCSE and A-level.'


He said: 'The test worked very well. It enabled us to find out a lot more about potential candidates and helped us distinguish more fairly between highly qualified candidates.'


Jane Henderson, deputy associate head for undergraduate admissions at Kings College London, told the Gazette it had decided to use the test because it was becoming impossible to select candidates. Results from last year's LNAT tests showed it did not favour candidates from particular groups, she added.