Among high-school and college students in the United States, the words "freshman" (or the gender-neutral terms "first year" or sometimes "freshie"), "sophomore", "junior" and "senior" refer to the first, second, third, and fourth years respectively. It is important that the context of either high school or college first be established or else it must be stated directly (that is, "She is a high-school freshman". "He is a college junior."). Many institutes in both countries also use the term "first-year" as a gender-neutral replacement for "freshman", although in the US this is recent usage, formerly referring only to those in the first year as a graduate student. One exception is the University of Virginia; since its founding in 1819 the terms "first-year", "second-year", "third-year", and "fourth-year" have been used to describe undergraduate university students. At the United States service academies, at least those operated by the federal government directly, a different terminology is used, namely "fourth class", "third class", "second class" and "first class" (the order of numbering being the reverse of the number of years in attendance). In the UK first-year university students are sometimes called "freshers" early in the academic year; however, there are no specific names for those in other years nor for school pupils. Graduate and professional students in the United States are known by their year of study, such as a "second-year medical student" or a "fifth-year doctoral candidate." Law students are often referred to as "1L", "2L", or "3L" rather than "nth-year law students"; similarly, medical students are frequently referred to as "M1", "M2", "M3", or "M4".