Interpreting Your Results

There is a variety of situations in which a degree may not have been awarded - these are listed below.

 

Please note that failing only a half unit course [see point (iii) below] does not necessarily mean that a degree will not be awarded in the current year.

 

Students on the MSc Global Media & Communications (USC) are required to complete and pass four units at LSE in order to graduate from the double degree programme.  If you do not initially complete four units, you must either (i) re-sit until all LSE courses are passed or (ii) replace the failed course by registering for additional courses at USC.  Contact your programme director if you have any queries on this issue.

 

i. Assessment incomplete

 

A student must have attempted all elements of assessment for each course within the MSc programme to be considered eligible for the award of a degree. If any part of the assessment for any course has not been attempted (e.g. the MY451 exam for MC4M1) the student is not eligible to graduate and must complete the course the following year. Marks already gained in, e.g. the coursework component of MC4M1, would be carried forward and combined with the MY451 exam component marks the following year.

 

ii. Bad Fail marks

 

A Bad Fail mark (39 or less for MC-prefixed courses) in any course will result in an overall Fail for the degree. See Calendar for a list of Bad Fail marks for all courses offered at LSE.

 

iii. Failing a half unit course

 

A Fail (but not a Bad Fail) in a course of 0.5 unit value does not need to be compensated, i.e. you can fail a 0.5 unit course and still be awarded the MSc without a drop in class of award.

 

iv. Failing a course/courses to the value of 1.0 unit

 

If you have a Fail (but not a Bad Fail) in a course(s) to the value of 1.0 unit, you will be required to re-sit unless the fail can be compensated by either:

• a mark of at least 60 in: a) one full unit course; or b) each of two half unit courses; or
• an aggregate mark of 165 in the non-failed courses.

If compensated by either of the above options, then a Fail will automatically result in a drop in the overall award classification given to you (e.g. if you would otherwise have been eligible for a Merit, your overall classification would drop to a Pass).

 

v. Failing a course/courses critical to assessment:

• All students must pass MC499 (Dissertation) to be eligible for the award of the MSc degree.
• All MSc Media and Communications (Research) students must pass MC499 and MC4M2 to be eligible for the award of the MSc degree.

A Fail in a course/courses critical to assessment cannot be compensated; you must re-sit and pass the course/s before a degree can be awarded.

 

Access to Moodle

 

Using your LSE login details, you must enrol on Moodle in order to be able to access the most up to date teaching material, assessment information and documents.

If you have not been successful in obtaining your degree, you will be entitled to re-sit any failed courses on one occasion only. 

 

If, following re-sits, you have still not been successful in obtaining your degree, your classification will state 'No Award Made'.  Unfortunately, this means that you have failed to be awarded a degree from LSE. 

 

Challenging results - Appeals

 

The School has an appeals procedure for students who wish to appeal their overall classification.  Full information on this procedure is available on the Appeals webpage.

General (LSE) information

 

(i) Students are automatically re-entered for assessment in the next academic session on any failed or deferred courses. You will receive email confirmation of your re-entry from Registry by the end of March 2017.

 

(ii) For full details of the re-entry/re-sitting process, please see Registry's web pages on Re-Entry

 

(iii) Re-sit (but not Deferral) students should note that only a Pass degree overall can be awarded.

 

Specific information for re-sitting and deferring MC courses only

 

(i) Courses assessed by unseen examination

 

If the syllabus of a particular course has changed, a special re-sit examination paper, based on the syllabus you studied, will be set. Re-sit examinations take place in May/June each year alongside examinations for current year students.

 

(ii) Courses assessed by coursework

 

Submission date

 

Students resubmitting coursework for examination in 2016-7 should do so by 4pm Monday 24th April 2016.

 

Essay titles

 

Students should either rewrite the failed piece of work or select another summative essay title from the list of summative coursework questions for courses taught in 2015-6, available here. 

 

Submission procedure

 

Coursework must be submitted in hard copy (1 copy) and online via Moodle.  The hard copies must arrive in the Department before the deadline.  Essay coversheets and full submission instructions will be available on Moodle.

 

(iii) Courses assessed by both coursework and examination (MC4M1 and MC4M2)

 

Re-sit candidates are required to re-sit only the failed component/s of the course, i.e. coursework or examination/s, but you may, if you wish, retake both components in order to attempt to raise the transcript mark. If you choose to re-sit only the failed component(s), the successful component mark(s) will be "banked" and added to the re-sit mark to give an overall mark for the course. If you choose to re-sit a component which was previously passed, your 2015-6 mark will replace your previous mark even if the mark is lower.

 

(iv) MC499 Dissertation

 

Students resubmitting dissertations for examination in 2016-7 should normally do so by 4pm Monday, 21st August 2017, using the same submission procedure as for coursework (above).

 

Note, however, that students re-sitting ONLY MC499 Dissertation are entitled to resubmit by the earlier date of the last day of the LSE Lent term - 4pm, Thursday 23rd March 2017. If successful, the degree can then be awarded correspondingly earlier in the year to make you eligible to attend the July 2017 presentation ceremony (if you wish), rather than waiting until December 2017.

 

No formal supervision is available to re-sit (or deferral) students but your former dissertation supervisor will send you brief feedback. In addition, you may contact the Dissertation Officers for advice and guidance. Their details will be posted on Moodle towards the end of the LSE Summer term.You may re-submit your existing dissertation with revisions, or you may change the topic and submit a new dissertation. Please note, given that supervision is not available to re-sit or deferral students, most students choose to submit a variation of their original dissertation.

 

(v) Re-sitting assessments for courses taken outside the Department

 

For failed courses taken outside the Department of Media and Communications (including MY451/MY452 as part of MC4M1/2), you must contact the appropriate department for specific information concerning re-sitting.

 

(vi) Access to Moodle

 

Using your LSE login details, you should enrol on Moodle in order to be able to access the most up to date teaching material, assessment information and documents.