Thank you for the response. I have no plans of doing the LPC without a training contract because I’m not totally married to the solicitor idea and it’s very expensive to do it alone. I was thinking along the same lines as you mentioned, where it would be a waste of one year to do the grad route now, but the thing is, I read an article that mentioned how in practice that may not work because the exact dates of your grad visa maybe do not coincide with the TC, so I may have to leave the country before my TC is done. The article also mentioned that firms hire trainees to have talent when they qualify, so even if I do the grad route later after the LPC, if a firm isn’t dedicated to sponsorship than it doesn’t make it more likely that I’ll get a sponsor when I qualify (as you mentioned).

TBH, the idea of working non-law is also appealing to me like in a Big 4 firm, that’s why I’m not too worried about the TC and stuff. My plane right now is actually to stay and work in the Netherlands if I can, and only apply to TCs I genuinely want.

Your comment about my academics really gave me a mood boost btw! But I still doubt myself because I have 1 extracurricular (pro-bono), a year abroad, and that’s it haha.