Personal statement for LSE

Have you received a rejection email from LSE, stating that your UCAS personal statement was not convincing and this is the reason you have been denied? If yes, read on:

LSE receives thousands of applications for a few spots in their programmes. It is logistically impossible for them to go through each application carefully and read each applicant’s personal statement. Hence, an initial selection factor is used to determine if an applicant can be evaluated further or denied straightaway. This initial selection factor is a combination of the grades obtained in your 9^th, 10^th and 11^th grades (if 12^th grade scores are available, then those are considered as well). If an applicant does not make the cut based on this initial evaluation, an email is sent out to the applicant denying admission. Now, LSE cannot state that the applicant’s grades are not strong enough, because in many cases, applicants do meet their basic admission criteria; and hence the reason the school gives the candidates is that their “personal statement is not convincing enough”. While this may not seem fair, LSE has no choice due to the large volume of candidates they receive. "We have received over 2400 applications for one of our popular undergraduate courses and we can accept only 100 of these applications. We have been short-staffed for over a year now and it's not possible for one person to go through so many applications. We have no choice but to deny most of these applications solely based on their grades," adds an LSE admissions officer, on condition of anonymity.

If you have received a rejection email from LSE stating that your personal statement is not convincing, check to see if you have spoken about your reasons to study a particular course and what experiences do you have with a particular subject. If your personal statement focusses more on your academics and less on extracurricular activities, you have made the right kind of statement for LSE. If they still deny you stating your personal statement, then you know that LSE has not given your application a thorough review.

Unfortunately, LSE admission decisions cannot be appealed and neither can you send more information to them about your application. Your only choice is to move on and look at the other colleges where you have secured admission.