Environment, Law and Economics

The Environment, Law and Economics course (or ‘tripos’) is a three-year degree. Please visit the University website for full details of the course content and structure, including the course film. You will also find information on the Department degree page. If you have further questions, please contact tripos@landecon.cam.ac.uk.

Taking this degree gives you partial exemption from the legal professional requirements of The Law Society and The Bar Council, as well as accreditation by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Incorporated Society of Values and Auctioneers (ISVA).

The Department of Land Economy (five minutes’ walk away) organises your lectures and Christ’s Director of Studies Kelvin MacDonald arranges your ‘supervisions’ here at the College. These are tutorial teaching sessions in small groups, usually with students from other colleges, which enable you to benefit from personalised feedback on your work.

Each year this course admits around 55 undergraduates across the University. Although the department is fairly small, there’s a strong community spirit among students, bolstered by the thriving Land Society.

Hannah and Mati both studied Environment, Law and Economics here when it was called Land Economy. They have written about their experiences in their student profiles.

If you would like to hear from other Christ's students, please watch the Christ's student Q&A film, and visit our Student Profiles page.
 

Subjects: what do you need?

If you apply for Environment, Law and Economics we don’t expect you to have studied Law, Economics or the environment at school. We’re looking for students with the highest intellectual ability. We don’t require you to take any subjects in particular, but when choosing your post-16 options, Economics, Mathematics and Geography would be helpful. For information about common subjects taken by successful applicants, please see the entry requirements tab in the university course information.

We encourage students to attend one of our regular Subject Matters webinars for help with choosing Post-16 subjects for competitive university applications. This webinar is pitched for students aged 14-16 though it is also possible to attend when you have started sixth form. 

If we select you for interviews, these take place online (on Microsoft Teams) in early December. Selected candidates are normally interviewed for 35-50 minutes in total. At Christ’s, we split the time into two interviews with academics in Environment, Law and Economics. You will normally have two interviewers in each interview, and you can choose to do your interviews at home (most candidates do this) or at school if easier. 

During the interviews we may ask you about topics you’re not familiar with. Our aim is to assess your innate ability when working through unprepared questions and see how quickly you absorb new ideas. It’s not about catching you out. 

There is no preparatory reading, no test that you take on the day of your interviews and there is no additional 'general interview' - you just need to attend the two Environment, Law and Economics interviews scheduled for you. 

Further, more general information about interviews (including two useful films) is available in the Cambridge interviews section, and it's worth also having a look at supervisions (short film here), as interviews are similar to what you do every week as a Cambridge student.

At Christ's we don’t have fixed quotas for places, so the number of students we admit in any year depends on the strengths of the applicants. In Environment, Law and Economics, we admit around two students each year.

We define the conditions of each offer individually, but our minimum conditional offer for Environment, Law and Economics is: 

> A*AA at A-level 
> 42 points overall in the International Baccalaureate with 7,7,6 in Higher Level subjects 
> A1, A2, A2 in three Scottish Advanced Highers

You need to be academically ambitious: the majority of Christ's students arrive with higher grades than are required.

If you're taking another qualification, we expect you to be working at or close to the top of the mark range i.e. 

> Baccalauréat français international (BFI): 17 (mention très bien) out of 20 overall, with a minimum of 17 in individual subjects 
> European Baccalaureate: at least 85% overall, with 9/10 in relevant subjects

You can look up other qualifications in the offer levels for other exam systems and international entry requirements, and if you are applying from outside the UK please read the Christ's international students section for further information and check the country pages.

If you will have finished school when you apply, please also read about post-qualification applications, taking a gap year, and, if relevant, applying from a university.

For more detail of what the course involves, read Undergraduate Land Economy admissions on the University website and visit the Department of Land Economy site too.

If you have any queries, please send them to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk and we’ll help however we can.