What is an affiliate student?
Affiliate (adj): officially attached or connected to an organisation
Affiliate student (noun): a university student who has already completed an undergraduate degree, and chooses to pursue a second undergraduate degree in a different subject, completing their second degree in two years, rather than the usual three. Synonym: Also known as “senior status student”, when the subject of the second undergraduate degree is Law
There are a whole host of reasons that students choose to come back to university for a second undergraduate degree. You might be interested in pursuing an interdisciplinary career or academic options, looking to change career later in life, or perhaps, in the case of a Law degree, you are interested in becoming a lawyer, but wanted to study another subject at university level first.
If you already have an undergraduate degree in another subject, you can pursue your second degree on an accelerated track, typically called the affiliate student option, or in the case of law, a senior status degree.
Course Structure
The affiliate degree option requires you to complete all of the course requirements for your degree in two years, rather than three. This means that you will not have as many optional modules. For Law, the structure of the affiliate degree will look something like this:
Your first year at Cambridge
- Tort Law
- Constitutional Law
- Contract Law
- Land Law
- Option 1
Your second year at Cambridge
- Criminal Law
- Equity
- EU Law
- Option 2
- Option 3 (or dissertation)
This structure is designed to allow you to complete all seven “foundation subjects”, which are the legal subject areas that are currently considered to be the core focus for anyone intending to become a practising lawyer. This means that, like the 3 year BA in Law at Cambridge, the senior status option is currently considered a qualifying law degree in England and Wales.
Mature Students
“Mature students” are any university students who are over 21 at the time that their course begins. The affiliate degree option often gets lumped in with mature students, but the two are not exactly the same. If you are considering the affiliate degree option, you will probably also be considered a mature student. However, not all mature students will also be affiliate students.
As a mature student, you will have the option to apply to a mature student college. Although you can pursue the senior status degree option at any college, the mature student colleges offer a different community, and in many cases different accommodation and resources, than the traditional undergraduate colleges at Cambridge. For instance, mature student colleges offer family accommodation, support finding childcare services, or events and societies suited to an older student body.
Applying for the Affiliate Degree
If you’re interested in applying for the affiliate degree in Law, the application process is generally the same as that for traditional applicants. You will need to apply online through the UCAS application system, and will need to provide information such as your A level qualifications, recommendations, and a personal statement.
If you want to be considered for the affiliate degree option, you will still use the same course code (UCAS Code M100) as the standard Law undergraduate degree. You can then indicate your interest in the affiliate degree on the Supplementary Application Questionnaire, the Cambridge-specific aspect of your application that we will ask you to submit 1 week after your UCAS application.
Usually, conditional offers are set on the basis of your A levels or equivalent qualifications. However, for affiliate students, your first undergraduate degree will be the most recent evidence of your academic achievement, and your offer level may be set on your final marks for your degree. In all cases, we will evaluate your application holistically, considering your academic record as well as your personal statement, school or college reference, and your performance at interview and in the Cambridge Law Test.
For all applicants considering the affiliate degree option, we highly recommend contacting the admissions team at one or more college that you are interested in applying to.
Because affiliate applicants tend to have unique educational backgrounds, the individual college admissions teams are usually best placed to give specific answers to questions about your application. Additionally, although you are not required to apply to a mature student college, you may find that the admissions teams at the mature student colleges will be well used to seeing applicants with a wide range of previous work or educational experience.
For more information on second undergraduate degrees and applying to Cambridge as an affiliate student, please see the University’s website.
The information in this article is considered correct at the time of publication.
