Eight leading university law schools this week agreed on a new admissions test for law students, faced with a tide of applicants who have achieved the top grades at A-level.

Law schools at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durham, Nottingham, Birmingham, East Anglia and University College London (UCL) will make the new 'LNAT' test a requirement for entry on to law courses beginning in 2005.

The exam, designed specifically for law courses, will test candidates' logical reasoning and ability to perform penetrative analysis of high-level language.

It will not require legal knowledge and is intended to be impervious to coaching.

Administration of the test will be contracted out to an examination body, with tests held in schools throughout the country this November.

As many universities already use their own separate tests, it is intended that the LNAT should lessen the burden on pupils.

Other universities will be encouraged to join the scheme, which it is hoped will become a national test.

LNAT will be used in conjunction with A-level results, and the importance attached to it will be at the discretion each individual university.

Rodney Austin, sub-dean and law faculty tutor at UCL, said: 'At the moment, I have 2,966 applications for 150 undergraduate law places.

Of those, 1,253 have A-level grade A, or better.

Making a selection between them is impossible.

'GCSEs reflect [a student's] ability two years previously, and looking at extra-curricular activities can lead to accusations of social bias.

Interviews are subjective.

This test seems the fairest, most objective and rational way to select the best possible candidates.

'We have already introduced the BMAT test [at UCL] for medical students, and so there is a precedent for discipline-specific testing.

'There will be a 15 charge for taking the test but this will be waived for anyone who can't afford it.'

Rachel Rothwell