Coronavirus FAQs for prospective applicants

LSE is not participating in UCAS Clearing or Adjustment. We do not have vacancies on any of our undergraduate programmes. 

We are taking advice from exam boards and anticipate that they will take this disruption into account when awarding grades. We will also refer to the information supplied in your UCAS Reference to gain a greater understanding of the disruption caused to the teaching provision at your school/college.

UCAS have announced that the January equal consideration date for undergraduate applications will be the last Wednesday in January.

For 2022 entry and deferred 2023 entry, the on-time equal consideration deadline is Wednesday 26 January 2022 at 18:00 (UK time).

More information is available on the UCAS website. 

All applicants to our LLB Laws programme are required to sit the Law National Admissions Test (LNAT).

The LNAT is classified as 'testing for essential purposes' and therefore Pearson VUE-owned and operated Pearson Professional Centers test centres in many countries remain open.

Country specific testing information and safety measures can be accessed on the LNAT website. 

LSE requires students studying certain qualifications to complete the Undergraduate Admissions Assessment (UGAA) before a final decision can be made on their application. If you are required to take the UGAA, LSE will invite you to sit the assessment. 

The assessment is usually held in the first week of March. Please see our Undergraduate Admissions Assessment (UGAA) page for information about the assessment. 

Following the cancellation of this year’s summer exams, Ofqual and the Department for Education have announced that grades will be based on teacher assessment, with teachers supported in making decisions with guidance and training from exam boards. We will continue to assess candidates based on predicted grades supplied by the school/college, and will use teacher assessed grades as the basis for our confirmation decisions. We continue to work with UCAS, exam boards, schools and the rest of the university sector to make the necessary arrangements for our applicants.

We are also closely monitoring the situation with schools overseas and their exam boards. 

The Department for Education has advised that private candidates or candidates studying a qualification independently, will need to work with a school, college or exam centre in order to receive a centre assessed grade. Candidates will be required to provide a range of evidence, such as exam board provided assessment materials, existing work or mock exam results, to enable teachers to determine a grade. Private candidates should receive their grades at the same time as other candidates. Please refer to the information here for more detailed information on how qualifications will be awarded in 2021. 

Whilst LSE does consider applications from private or independent candidates, please note that applicants who are unable to provide predicted grades may be disadvantaged in the selection process. In the absence of predicted grades provided by an individual who is familiar with your academic performance, it will be more difficult for LSE to make a judgement on the suitability of your academic profile and the likelihood of you meeting our usual standard offer requirements. Where predicted grades are not available, applicants will be assessed on their existing education profile (such as GCSEs or equivalent), their Personal Statement and UCAS Reference. 

If you are still at school/college but studying one or more subjects independently, your school or college may be willing to provide a predicted grade. In some cases private tutors may also be able to provide predicted grades. 

If you are unhappy with a calculated grade received in summer 2021 and subsequently decide to sit the exams in autumn 2021, we will not consider them as re-sits and you will not be disadvantaged. You are expected to sit the exam at the earliest available opportunity, i.e Autumn 2021. 

Please refer to the publications on the gov.uk website for more information relating to the awarding of GCSE, AS and A level qualifications in the academic year 2020 to 2021.

Applicants should still be predicted to meet the entry requirements stated on our programme pages. 

As we anticipate that exam boards will take disruption caused by COVID-19 into account when awarding grades, we would expect that you attain a grade 6 in English Language and a grade 6 in Mathematics (this requirement may be higher for some programmes).

It is not necessary to provide proof of English language proficiency at the time of application. This does not form part of our assessment process. If you are made an offer for one of our programmes and we require an English language qualification, we will request this as part of your offer conditions. Please see our English Language webpages for details of acceptable qualifications and the required scores:
Undergraduate English Language requirements
Graduate English Language requirements

Visit our accommodation COVID-19 pages to find out more about the current measures in place to ensure the safety of our students. 

Propsective applicants and offer holders are advised to consult our International Student Visa Advice Team's COVID-19 advice page.

There are a number of enhanced health and safety measures in place on campus and in halls of residence to help make LSE COVID-secure. This includes social distancing, mandatory wearing of face coverings in School buildings and designated campus areas (unless exempt) and our LSE Track and Trace system. For the remainder of the 2020/21 academic year, all compulsory teaching, learning and assessments will be delivered online.

Please visit our COVID-19 FAQ page for current LSE students for more detailed information. 

Prospective students and applicants with long-term conditions who have questions or concerns about their wellbeing whilst studying at LSE are welcome to contact the Disability and Wellbeing Service.

Our expectation for the 2021 / 22 academic year is that all LSE students will be in London and studying on campus, where many of your learning experiences will be in-person, supplemented by some online elements. This approach has been informed by our student and academic community, building upon the innovations and improvements we have put in place over the past year.

From the start of Michaelmas Term 2021, we anticipate the following to be in place:

• We will deliver all compulsory teaching and learning activity in person, including seminars, tutorials, workshops, classes and Harvard style teaching sessions. However, there may be occasional rare circumstances which must be well-justified where we may need to move an activity online.
• We are not planning to have mandated social distancing in classrooms. However, we are prepared to reintroduce this if the need arises.
• The standard expectation is that other types of staff-student engagement will take place in-person on campus. These include office hours, academic mentoring and dissertation / thesis supervision.
• Some other aspects of your programme may also be online but when this happens, we will always prioritise on-campus opportunities for interactive engagement.

Lecture arrangements for Michaelmas Term 2021

• Lectures, which are non-compulsory, will normally be delivered online - either synchronously or asynchronously. We will aim to deliver a small number of lectures in-person.
• All lectures, whether in-person or online, will be recorded for your benefit
• It may be possible to deliver more lectures in-person in Lent Term and we will continue to explore this
• This approach towards lectures means that, should we need to reintroduce social distancing measures, we would be able to continue providing face-to-face class and seminar teaching for a much larger number of courses in-person on campus. This will also enable us to use these spaces for community building, networking activities as well as peer and faculty engagement while these measures are not in place.

Coming to campus for Michaelmas Term 2021

• We expect new students to join us on campus in London for the start of Welcome, Monday 20 September. Term starts on Monday 27 September.
• However, we understand that due to exceptional circumstances outside of your control, such as visas or local COVID challenges, you may not be able to arrive at this time.
• If this is the case, we will continue to support you remotely during the first few weeks of term before your arrival. We will aim to offer hybrid teaching to ensure your experience at LSE is maintained despite other delays outside of your control.
• You will still need to come to London for your studies which will include in-person components for all students, and you should aim to arrive within a few weeks of the start of term, enrolling by 22 October at the latest.
  
  

  The School may be able to offer some flexibility to this deadline for students who face significant extenuating circumstances beyond their control. If you think your arrival at LSE might be delayed by a few days beyond 22 October, as a result of significant extenuating circumstances, please contact your department. 

Maintaining a low-risk environment and preparing for future scenarios

• We will continue to monitor the situation and may extend the COVID-secure measures that we currently have in place or introduce further protocols if required, such as mask wearing in classrooms and lifts and negative testing requirements to enter LSE buildings.
• All staff and students will be strongly encouraged to wear masks in LSE buildings particularly in high-traffic or confined areas
• We strongly encourage all new and continuing students to get fully vaccinated, if you are not already. We are working on plans to offer on-campus vaccinations via our St Phillips Medical Centre.
• To support students arriving from overseas, over the summer we will also be introducing Day 2 and Day 8 testing, to help students comply with government-imposed testing requirements for international travellers. At this stage, we do not expect to be able to provide managed quarantine facilities (“hotel quarantine”) for arrivals from countries included on the government’s red list for travel.
• We are also preparing for a range of scenarios that will allow us to flex our approach to teaching and learning swiftly and with minimum disruption to our community, should we need to respond to changing health advice over the winter months. You can read more about this in the accordion below and we will continue to keep our community updated as we progress towards the start of term and beyond. 

LSE is putting in place comprehensive health and safety measures on campus to keep you safe and secure while on campus and in the halls of residence.

We hope that London does not experience another lockdown in the 2021-22 academic year. However, we are also preparing for a range of scenarios that will allow us to flex our approach to teaching and learning swiftly with the minimum disruption to our community, should we need to respond to changing health advice over the winter months.

If we are required to reintroduce social distancing we could pivot a minority of in-person classes and seminars online to ensure the majority of face-to-face teaching can continue in a safely distanced and secure environment.

If we are no longer permitted to teach in-person on campus for a period of time, all teaching and learning will pivot online, similar to Lent and Summer Terms 2021 where we kept campus open as much as possible.

A key aspect of planning for all scenarios is keeping lectures normally online in Michaelmas Term.

Below is a summary of the actions the School could take in the event of further COVID disruption:

• Issue clear guidance from the School and your department regarding the plans for teaching, learning and support;
• Implement government advice regarding student and staff access to campus;
• Provide lectures online;
• Pivot in-person teaching to synchronous and asynchronous online provision using the mechanisms in place in 2020/21 to support those students unable travel to campus;
• Deliver departmental teaching materials via Moodle;
• Provide support services remotely, via Zoom, Teams, email, telephone, Livechat, etc. 
• Provide support and guidance for your health and well-being via Zoom appointments and web-based information;
• Continue office hours with class teachers and academic mentors online;
• Maintain access to the online Library materials;
• Deliver department-appropriate assessments online, taking into account the specific needs of quantitative and qualitative programmes;
• Provide support and advice to students resident in LSE and UoL halls of residence; 
• Make available hardship funds for vulnerable students adversely affected by the pandemic;
• Offer practical guidance and adopt a sympathetic approach to students seeking to interrupt or defer their studies.

Self-guided campus tours

You are welcome to take a self-guided tour of the campus, using our LSExplorer. This self-guided tour has been designed to allow you to explore LSE’s compact campus at your leisure. In light of COVID-19 restrictions, it leads you around the streets and external public spaces that surround our buildings. To maximise social distancing on campus and ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff and students, it isn’t currently possible for visitors to enter our buildings. Please accept our apologies for any disappointment this might cause. 

Book an appointment with the Student Marketing and Recruitment team

If you are a prospective LSE student and have questions that are not answered by our website, you can request an in-person appointment with a member of the Student Marketing and Recruitment team. Please visit our campus tour page to find out more.

Guided campus tours

We are currently finalising plans for our campus tours in 2021/22. Further details will be available on our campus tour page shortly.

Yes! We are running a number of online events for prospective students and offer holders. Visit our Virtual Undergraduate Open Day, Virtual Undergraduate Offer Holders' Day, Virtual Graduate Open Day, join a Discovery Session, listen to a webinar or talk to us on Live Chat. Use our events finder to view upcoming events.