What are UCAS points?

I'm a US undergrad who'll be applying to law school in the UK. All the law firms ask for UCAS points, but try as I might, I can't figure them out! How could I compare my high school grades (APs, SATs) to UCAS points? Alas, my husband is English, but he graduated from Uni long before the points system came about! 

First of all, do you already have a degree?

UCAS (in case you don't know) is the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.  I applied for law school myself through them, though as an undergraduate.

I do not know how they evaluated my qualifications to their tariff or points system.  I have a booklet that talks about their points system but it only mentions English, Welsh, or Scottish areas of skill (diploma, GCE, etc). 

If you are applying and you have a diploma already, don't you just have to do a conversion course?  Is that what you are doing?  If so, I would talk directly to the firm or school.  If they are really unhelpful I guess you could contact UCAS but if you are not applying through them, then I don't know what they can do.   They may have some sort of thing where they convert your undergrad degree.

Sorry I can't be of much help as I am taking a different route.  I will be going to Manchester University this fall and studying law as an undergrad, but if I can clarify any UCAS things, just let me know.

trisha

The way I understand it, scores on A-levels (and possibly GCSEs?) are worth a particular number of UCAS points.  So, the better you do on your A-levels, the more points you'll get, and the better you'll look when applying to university.

I don't know that there's a way to translate our high school grades to UCAS points because there's no standardised US high school curriculum. 

It might be a good idea to head to www.naric.org.uk to have your qualifications "translated" into UK ones...I've got to get around to doing that myself!