Vac Schemes generally are bagged by students kids from very well off fams. This is not to discourage you but see yourself from students who were selected in last 10 years. Barely people from humble beginnings. Most of your expenses are covered but you will need to act, dress and eat like you are an associate. All these things will require you to shed some money. Don't hang out with teams for beer that's something you can always say no to. But it will be a little expensive but should be bearable for you. That said having money with daddy always a plus.

I think you can make it on merit, if you speak and dress a certain way - one which is associates with elites and children of theirs. Pretending is bad but you gotta become a part of the crowd right. Will it be worth it- financially yes. But figure out do your parents take care of their own when you work abroad for life, do you have enough family support to sustain for the period you are out. All these questions. Again it will be very difficult even if you are from a T1. The vac schemes have lobbies too if you are yet to enter law school. Knowledge is often not passed onto as equally as it should be. Groups and lobbies you are a part of also operate in your applications and preparation. So all the best but you are flowing against the wind. But hey even a T1 job is not the worst.

The only sensible response to an utterly nonsensical (and frankly irresponsible) suggestion. Whoever wrote the comment about NLUs '[putting] their foot down' has no idea how to read a room - they should really open their ears. A lot of the talk in the UK RN has been about reducing immigration levels (both legal and illegal). You can do armchair rants all you like, but those won't get you anywhere; as Ron says to Neville in The Deathly Hallows, 'There's a time and a place for a smart mouth', and the UK environment in its current form is most certainly not it.

Frankly, if I were an MC firm partner reading this thread and I saw this nonsense about 'putting foot down' especially from non-UK unis, unless I really had a need for Indian talent, I'd go back to my firm and put through policy changes that meant my firm wouldn't sponsor visas for Indian law students' vac schemes (this would, ironically, in a way give me browny points with the UK government in my hypothetical scenario, as a key line of attack used by Sir Keir Starmer is that 'bad bosses' rely on immigration to import low-cost foreign labour, so I'd be able to convince a government whose instinct is to be suspicious of entities like mine that I am not a 'bad boss'!), so please be careful what you wish for.