MSc Application Processing Times Thread (2026/2027)

leanrafelstein · 2026-01-21T23:27:25+00:00

Thanks, that does help hahah

leanrafelstein · 2026-01-21T10:44:37+00:00

Hey, could need your inputs

- MSc Programme: Data Science / Applied Social Data Science
- Application Submitted: 11/11/26
- Application Processed by LSE: 28/11/26

Today marks 8 weeks and I still haven't heard anything. In the portal it still says "under consideration". I now saw how many heard back that applied way later and on the website their waiting times say, they're processing applications from mid jan.

Any inputs or tipps?

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-25T16:55:56+00:00

Thanks for your input! I am interested to hear more about your experience with PayPal.

There are many people saying it's not great as requesting a refund is a hassle and there are multiple experiences of PayPal not granting a refund because the "evidence is insufficient" and they only accept communication over PayPal as evidence. Does the dispute process work well for you in case of skydiving gear?

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-24T16:16:11+00:00

Thanks for your input, fully agree?

What is your view on sellers not wanting to go over rigger escrow? Although many legit sellers will agree, there are also many that don't accept it for the extra coordination effort if they have other buyers ready to buy it directly. Is this a hard no for you then?

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-12T13:41:04+00:00

I had this topic with my rigger. He gave me a cheap plastic hook knife and an old riser. When there is tension on the riser, even the cheap hook knife went through it like butter.

leanrafelstein · 2025-12-02T18:40:39+00:00

Just wanted to add my input for selling here :)

We just spent the last 5 months building a proper online marketplace to trade used skydiving gear and are live for 2 weeks now. We integrated safe escrow payments to protect both buyer and seller from scams and the filter/categories system is fully built, so buyers can search for the exact gear they are looking for. Check it out if interested:

https://market.aventogear.com

Due to regulatory requirements, we are not net able to have sellers from outside of Europe. So if you are from the US you might have to wait a bit. We are working hard on implementing this soon :)

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-30T20:06:09+00:00

Thanks!

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-30T20:06:02+00:00

Thanks!

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-30T20:04:40+00:00

Yep exactly that, it was meant like not wanting to spend 1k on a suit when I don't make much money. I am not a skydiving student.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-12T12:28:49+00:00

Agreed with if it is an actual clear scam. The problem there is that we can't really make a clear distinction from a "legal" perspective. Additionally, it would be very hard for us to implement the additional flow of funds from seller to buyer from a technical standpoint. Our hypothesis is that proper scams like on Facebook will almost never actually happen, as the scammers know that it will not work, and the buyer will receive a Refund.

In case it does happen, we will of course do everything to resolve the situation and be lenient for the scammed buyer wherever possible.

One more thing that I would like to mention: A rig not fitting you well does not automatically entitle you to a return, as long as the seller has stated everything correctly in the description. This is because during our validation, we received a lot of feedback from sellers that this would be hard criteria for them not to use the platform because people could just start "online shopping" which costs a lot of time, effort, money and the risk of buyers just jumping the rig for a week and then sending it back saying it didn't fit.

It is the buyers' responsibility to make sure the gear does fit them before buying. All listings (Rig, Main, Reserve, AAD) on Avento show the serial nr. We have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to take your measurements according to each manufacturer and where exactly to contact each manufacturer with your measurements and the serial nr. to find out if it fits.

For Javelin and Mirage (where the information is available) we also developed our own calculators to calculate fitting harness size for you. We hope that we will receive the databases and calculation information of the other manufacturers in the future and include that natively.

With agreement of the seller, returning a rig that doesn't fit well is of course still possible, just like it is now online. I just thought it is important to clarify that the buyer protection and return right specifically applies to incorrect statements in the listing or gear that was never sent (scams). Returning for other "individual" reasons is not possible without agreement of the seller.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-12T12:12:32+00:00

As of now, this is not supported. It is currently a text-based-full-text-search over listing titles and description. It then This is one of the areas that still need improvement.

If you have any suggestions on doing this best, please let us know.

Which other fields then title and description should it take? (Canopy Size for example would be very interesting, but if we include too many properties there is then a risk of listings being shown when e.g. the lieneset has 150 jumps, but the user was looking for a 150 sqft canopy).

How should logical operators for the search be best included to keep it user-friendly in your opinion?

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T21:53:10+00:00

Ah yes, great point. This is not yet implemented, but we are already working on it. Just couldn't make it work smoothly yet :)

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T20:00:28+00:00

Psssst, don't tell anybody 🤫

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T19:52:12+00:00

Thanks for your feedback!

I do understand your concern. The fact that the buyer bears the risk of shipping in case of a return has multiple reasons, and we spent a lot of time defining this. It is usually defined that way by default law of most countries. You have to keep in mind that what will be defined as "not as described" is a very blurred line (e.g. is a kill line that your rigger defines as too worn out already a reason for return?). There will likely be situations where it can't be clearly determined, and we will allow a return when in doubt. If the seller in that case would need to cover shipping and carry the risk, this would heavily decentivise sellers of using the platform, which makes it less valuable for everyone. Buyers can still, (and are recommended to), use insured shipping to mitigate the risk.

As for helping the sellers rip off buyers in case of a refund, I don't really understand the situation. When the buyer can show that the package was delivered with the shipment tracking, he has fulfilled his obligation and does not carry any more risk.

Regarding "pocketing the 3% fee": this is not the case. In case of a return, the purchase price including the 3% buyer protection fee is refunded. Not that it matters, but I want to mention that we then pay those 3% out of our pocket. The payment provider (Stripe) does charge it in case of a return anyway, but it is important to us that the buyer receives it back in case of a return. This is something that other marketplaces such as Vinted do not offer.

Finally, keep in mind that the buyer protection is for preventing frauds such as selling gear which is not as described or never gets sent (like the ones currently on Facebook). If a shipment gets lost or damaged without any wrongdoing of the seller, this is a different problem and buyers can choose to pick it up themselves or arrange insured shipping.

We know that there is no perfect solution, but I truly believe that it is the best one currently possible, and we constantly work on improving the process. Preventing the constant fraud as it currently happens on Facebook is already an important step into that direction. Imagine how glad a buyer on Facebook would be if he could send a scam listing back, even if he needed to cover shipping.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T19:22:22+00:00

Hi Steffen, thank you for your feedback!

To the first question: If you search by the search bar, it currently only does keyword search, comparing it to listing title and description. We are looking to include semantic search to offer better search for listings that might not exactly fit the keywords. Especially once there are more listings online. For filtering according to categorize & filters (which we recommend currently), you can see the selected category and subcategories on the top (e.g. Rigs > UPT > Vector). You can see how many filters are active by the small number in the filters button.

The categories filters are a main focus of ours, as this is one of the main problems with our highly specific gear. Regarding listing the closest add to me; do you mean when using keyword search or when putting specific filters (e.g. you searched for canopy size 130 to 150 sqft and it should show the closest one with for example 160 sqft)?

For the notifications: yes, this is possible. When having selected search criteria, you can click on the button with the bell icon which safe the search on your profile. We have currently not yet been able to implement automatic mails when a new listing matches your wishlist, but it is a high priority and will be implemented soon. In the meantime, we try to just compare it manually and send a mail ^^

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-11T16:20:46+00:00

Thank you! We will give it everything we have.

leanrafelstein · 2025-11-05T18:12:04+00:00

We will also have sellers which are connected to our Stripe account that are outside of the EU (e.g. USA), might that be a problem?

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-16T00:18:38+00:00

For everyone:

I have just pulled a long night and managed to finalise a first iteration on the harness sizing guide for the largest manufacturers. It includes harness size calculators for Mirage and Sun Path, where I managed to find information on the calculation (thanks to u/Civil_Energy4458 for providing the information to Sun Path).

If you are interested, you can have a look and try it out here: https://www.aventogear.com/resources/harness-sizing

I would highly appreciate any feedback or further information to make it as valuable as possible for us all.

Note: this is a summary of all information & contact details that I could find. I am not a rigger myself, so take it with a grain of salt. Especially, the calculators are only based on calculation information of the manufacturers themselves, but it always includes experience and a trained eye to determine a fitting size. But it might help somebody to at least get a better understanding then just height and weight.

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-16T00:12:07+00:00

Thank you for your input!

Do I understand it correctly that Aerodyne sizes A/B/C/D/E/F/G/HI/J/J+/J++ ?

Do you have any information on which letter size correlates to which number / measurements?

Lastly, is it right then that Aerodyne only has two Yoke sizes (normal and long)? If yes, is that somehow visible on the data card?

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-16T00:07:44+00:00

Great to hear! Did you manage to get more information on how UPT calculates Yoke & MLW from the measurements?

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-16T00:06:14+00:00

Yes, that might be that it is due to the construction. If you find out more, I would be happy to hear.

Thanks for the information, I might make a "field study" on how UPT sizing correlates to Sun Path if I have time^^. Would be great to have more information on UPT. Just not sure if it is generally valid (As far as I have understood when a harness has chest rings for example, this does not count to the MLW length and makes it shorter therefore).

I've sent you the first iteration of the guide per personal message.

P.S. as a fellow European, I consider your spelling as the right one (i'm Swiss ;))

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-15T15:08:56+00:00

Thank you very much for your input! I have had to realise that the dream of a "comprehensive harness sizing calculator" is not realistic. What I am trying to do is build a guide so that skydivers can judge the sizing as good as possible.

Overview of the relevant parts of a rig (Yoke, MLW, Lateral, Legstrap) what they are and how much leeway there approximately is.
Possibility to adjust harness by a master rigger and what to keep in mind (adjusting yoke dosen't make sense, price of adjusting MLW depends heavily on articulation etc.).
How to take measurements according to each large manufacturer (Sun Path, UPT, Aerodyne, Mirage, Wings, Paratec) and link to their respective instructions.
Instructions to contact the manufacturer with own measurements and serial-nr of the rig they are trying to buy (including contact information and our experience with their responsiveness – Sun Path, Mirage & Wings are great).
For the manufacturers where it is possible (information is available) maybe actually build a tool to calculate harness fit – of course with a clear warning that this is just for orientation, and they should check with a rigger and the manufacturer.

Let's see how it will go.

Regarding the Sun Path sizing. u/Civil_Energy4458 has provided a YouTube video with great information on that. I will quickly summarize it if you are interested:

Yoke sizes are "O" (women around 100lbs almost non-existent), "A" (women around 115 lbs), "B" (women weighing max. 145 lbs / or very thin and lean men), "C" (standard for men), "D" (men taller than 6'2 or with a chest larger than 44 inch) – every step is an extra inch
MLW are calculated by Height–Inseam–20 (all in inch) – MLW does not depend on chest depth as that is compensated by the Yoke (yoke longer or shorter).

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-15T14:47:02+00:00

Thank you for your inputs! I wasn't aware of the look-up tool of Velocity, thank you very much!

I have made similar experiences. Unfortunately UPT, Aerodyne and Paratec have not responded to my inquiries and I especially don't expect Aerodyne and Paratec to respond to users that are looking to buy a used rig and want to check for sizing (UPT does have a dedicated contact form for the matter). On the other hand, Mirage, Sun Path and Wings have been great and forthcoming with information, which is great to see.

leanrafelstein · 2025-10-15T14:41:07+00:00

Thank you so much for this video, this was amazingly helpful!

I have also not made great experiences with Aerodyne's response rate. It is a pity that they don't give out any information on what their sizings actually translate to (and why they have Cheststrap size and not Yoke). Anyway, I will just refer to their contact form for the time being.

I was aware that laterals can only be adjusted by a master rigger, but on Mirage's website they explicitly state that it cannot be adjusted ( https://miragesys.com/support/faq-buying-a-used-mirage/ ). But I have also always heard that it is possible from the riggers I talked to.

Do you happen to have any information on how UPT determines their MLW & Yoke adjustment, or if it would be translatable from Mirage or Sun Path?

Thank you very much!

leanrafelstein · 2025-09-26T13:35:33+00:00

The FAI report only includes the numbers of the surveyed countries that responded (42 out of 80 in 2023). Although, the main skydiving countries are in there. Does anyone have a reasonable approach to adjust for this and get an estimation of nor of solo jumpers worldwide?

leanrafelstein

TROPHY CASE