Kaplan apologises
More than 230 SQE students were left panicked and confused yesterday evening after mistakenly being informed that their exam slots had been cancelled at their own request.
Several worried students who received the email contacted Legal Cheek overnight. One explained that Kaplan had informed them their October SQE2 exam slot had been successfully cancelled, despite them making no such request.
They said the email arrived at around 7:30pm, after Kaplan’s helpline had closed, leaving them unable to find out what was going on. The SQE portal also showed their exam booking as cancelled.
The confusion spilled over to an SQE thread on Reddit, with students scrambling for information about what was going on.
“Has anyone just had an email saying their written exams have been cancelled?!” one panicked student wrote. “I have not cancelled them myself, I have not even contact the provider in anyway.” Another SQE-er responded: “Yes this is insane what the hell is wrong with Kaplan”. “Yeah I got the same email, really annoying,” another replied, with a further student adding, “I have also just received the same email!”
In a follow-up email sent to students this morning (see below), Kaplan apologised for the “erroneous system-generated message” and reassured them that their exams would go ahead as scheduled, at the same date and time.

A Kaplan spokesperson told Legal Cheek:
“Yesterday, during a process to implement enhancements to make the delivery of the assessment more accessible, 231 candidates were wrongly told that their seat for October’s SQE2 had been cancelled. All affected candidates were informed this morning that they should disregard the cancellation message and that their booking is secure. We sincerely apologise for this error and any anxiety caused.”
This isn’t the first time students have been wrongly informed that their exam slots had been cancelled. In 2023, Legal Cheek reported that candidates received a similar email after their exam start time was moved from 8am to 9am. It was later confirmed that the exams would go ahead, with Kaplan apologising for the uncertainty caused.