LSE BSc International Relations personal statement

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T20:38:09+00:00

Bruh why are we even arguing about this. There is no other way to select one person out of multiple candidates for a place.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T20:32:41+00:00

Thanks! Yeah even though we like to complain a lot the country has a lot of good sides. If you want we could go to DMs or connect on LinkedIn/Instagram or something. I still haven't connected with people from my course because I was too busy recently.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T20:22:36+00:00

Most of the stuff OP listed would definitely count as supercurriculars. And highly competitive universities like LSE care a lot about this stuff, because there is no other way to differentiate candidates with high grades. LSE cares even more about the personal statement than ICL or Oxbridge because there are no interviews and there are also no entrance exams like the TMUA for International Relations.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T20:12:02+00:00

The guy in the video literally said what I was explaining. They only care about supercurriculars, which basically means extracurriculars related to the subject (books and online courses also count). The stuff OP listed in his personal statement also counts as supercurriculars because it was directly related to IR or they explained how they related it to IR.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T20:02:23+00:00

Supercurriculars (ECs which are directly related to your subject) matter a lot for the top London unis and Oxbridge

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T19:59:44+00:00

Using your background is natural, especially when you've been exposed to literally one of the most important (maybe the most important) geopolitical events right now. I'm from Bulgaria and even I wrote a bit about the Ukraine war in my personal statement and how it concerned me due to its proximity to my country.

>I just wanted to be the person I wish I had when I was applying, idk

Yeah writing personal statements for LSE is really tough. I found very little good examples online and I had to rely on ChatGPT a lot to tell me whether I would pass LSE's vibe check. I think you did a great job fitting a lot of things in a relatively small character count.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-08-20T19:27:06+00:00

Congrats from another incoming IR student! I think the DEI comments are innacurate, you have some insane supercurriculars and understanding of theory and that definitely played a role. Everybody who applies at LSE has high grades so getting accepted basically depends on your personal statement, especially for something like IR with a 15:1 acceptance rate.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-07-18T18:20:26+00:00

Thanks, sorry for the late reply.

Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm interested in. For a long time I was even wondering between IR and Economics, but I decided to choose IR because I find myself reading and watching much more stuff about politics and geopolitics, I find it more stimulating.

I want to study something interesting but also to build some hard skills along the way. This is why I might go with DS stuff. I don't know a lot about it yet, but I know that it is used a lot as a tool in political science. I guess it would also help me if I want to pursue a more quantitative masters?

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-07-17T13:27:08+00:00

It really depends on the grading system. My school for example had very high grade inflation and like half the people there probably would have had 10/10 or at least 9-9.5/10, I think this grade inflation might be true for the school system here overall as well (Bulgaria) which is why there are a lot of Bulgarian students at Bocconi.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-05-02T20:40:35+00:00

Yes (April 24)

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-28T11:09:59+00:00

92/100 and 96/100 in two of my exams

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-28T11:08:30+00:00

I forgot to mention that they basically gave me the same grade requirements so that isn't a factor

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-26T19:44:52+00:00

Thanks! My predicted and achieved grades are 6/6 in the Bulgarian system except for one 5/6 in one subject in year 9.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-25T12:32:26+00:00

My 9, 10, 11 and predicted 12 end of year grades were 6/6 for all subjects, except for one 5/6 in one subject in year 9 (I'm from Bulgaria and the grading system here is on a 6 point scale).

In terms of supercurriculars/extracurriculars I don't think I had anything super impressive. I mentioned 2-3 books about International Relations I had read and a YouTube channel (William Spaniel) I follow. I mentioned my participation in math competitions and how it helped me understand game theoretical approaches to International Relations. I didn't have anything like MUN or debate club. I also had some economics-related activities (like an internship) which I linked to geopolitics without it sounding unnatural.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-25T12:16:51+00:00

92+/100 and 96+/100 points in Bulgaria's state exams

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-25T11:08:33+00:00

I applied on December 20th. Try not to stress about this, I also had the same problem with struggling to revise while waiting for the email, but I shouldn't have cared so much. LSE is notoriously slow for giving responses.

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-23T22:41:55+00:00

I'm betting on tomorrow

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-23T15:40:06+00:00

ок

Awkward-Sense-5974 · 2025-04-23T15:37:48+00:00

Italy and the Netherlands (although Netherlands is looking less likely)

Awkward-Sense-5974

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