UNSW to abandon Law Admission Test from 2026

Many UNSW law students will be familiar with the Law Admission Test (LAT), with almost all domestic entrants being required to sit the exam to be able to apply for the #1 ranked law school in Australia (according to the 2025 QS World University Rankings). However, the Faculty has recently announced that LAT entry will be discontinued from 2026, with ATAR likely to become the primary factor in determining who makes it into UNSW’s Law programs.

What is the LAT?

The LAT is a 2 hour admission exam specifically for UNSW’s undergraduate Bachelor of Laws program. It is a written critical thinking test, similar in concept to the UCAT for Medicine, that exists as an additional requirement to apply for the degree. However, unlike the UCAT, the test involves being given a set of text and being asked to evaluate the arguments the text makes. The test does not assess legal knowledge. 

The LAT was developed by the Australian Council of Education Research in conjunction with UNSW and is delivered in-person or via a remote proctoring service, where you are monitored through a camera.

Students’ marks on the LAT would then be combined alongside their ATAR in order to meet admissions criteria. 

UNSW was the only law school in Australia that has an admission test as part of its entry requirements. 

What does this mean for prospective law students?

Potential 2026 law students will still require an LAT score to apply for the program, but those applying for T1 2027 and onwards will be assessed on ATAR Selection Rank alone. UNSW emphasised on its website that students “can rest assured that the value and importance of this test is not lost during this time.”

While the test result is normally valid for two years (meaning you used to be able to take it in either years 11 or 12), only students who want to be admitted to the course in 2026 should take it. If you did the test last year while in year 11, your result will still be usable next year. 

2025 is the last year that the LAT will be run. The change comes less than a month after UNSW committed to switching back to a semester model. These two changes combined put UNSW in line with most other undergraduate law programs in Australia.

Is this a good change?

The test did have some positive aspects. It specifically targeted relevant skills such as critical thinking needed for a law degree, which the HSC and its interstate equivalents may not directly target. It could hypothetically serve as a lifeline to assist a weaker ATAR. However, UNSW does not publish each year’s minimum LAT score so it is difficult to pinpoint the precise influence it has on increasing admission chances. 

On the other hand, the test, even discounted to a $100 concession fee, has a significant cost accessibility barrier. This is in spite of the Law & Justice faculty having significant benefits to disadvantaged students through the Gateway Plus program, which provides services ranging from financial support for textbooks to paid work programs with top tier law firms. 

Furthermore, if students didn't know about the LAT or missed the date to complete it, they would need to wait until the following year and transfer universities, or apply for an internal program transfer. Students at high schools where university programs are not as well advertised could easily miss the LAT requirement. 

In addition, the remote proctoring is about as difficult as one would expect, with network connectivity issues for remote students, and supervisors yelling at you through the speaker if you accidentally look away from your computer. There is also the additional stress of high schoolers needing to take an additional exam amidst their pre-existing academic preparation. 

Overall, despite this change being added to UNSW’s pile of overturned ‘unique’ practices, it seems to be a positive change for those considering UNSW as an option for their law degree. Only time will tell whether these changes have any long term effects on UNSW’s ranking as the #1 law school in Australia.