Which Unis should I apply to for Economics FAQ: The Econ uni Application Guide

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How about Bristol? They were letting me with 34 for AccFin, but I guess Economics is more oversubscribed.

I think it is fairer to compare IB tariffs with the total tariffs for UK students from all qualifications (e.g. all 4/5/6 A-levels and AS-levels) than with just the points from 3 A-levels. If you do that the discrepency is still there but it is a lot smaller.

I have now done this and uploaded it into the spreedhseet verion of TAELT:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14282131&postcount=164
and
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=619184
The IB figures are now about 100 more than the average tariffs. Still a gap but a smaller one.

cabso1

How about Bristol? They were letting me with 34 for AccFin, but I guess Economics is more oversubscribed.

Bristol is also 6,6,6:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14272777&postcount=163

Reply 42

Mglafas

Hmm, does that mean that with my 41 points I am almost certain of getting into Warwick? Maybe I am interpreting the spread sheet incorrectly, but from what I can see 41 points is around 670 points and the "actual average tariffs" for Warwick is 473.

Reply 43

Paulwhy

Mglafas

No I am afraid you are interpreting the data incorrectly. :frown:

e.g. Warwick has 10 International applicants for every place,

The average tariffs are from A-level students and so are not directly comparable to IB qualifications. (As I was saying to TheGrove the tariff points used by UCAS are pretty arbitary and can't easilly be used to make comparisons between different qualifications used in different countries)

I suspect that all the unis with high points requirements e.g. 36+ are going to have specific conditions on HL grades: it is just that they have not all said on their UCAS entry what those conditions are. So you will need to email them individually to ask what they think of your grades and what HL conditions they typically make,.

(But my guess from looking at the table is that Warwick Durham Nottingham St Andrews will all want 6,6,6 as the unis above and below them all do)

Reply 44

Wizardtb

Email/call the universities beforehand is the best way. However, from my experience with the IB- 41 points should be enough to guarantee you a place at a top five university.

Reply 45

Paulwhy

Wizardtb

Email/call the universities beforehand is the best way. However, from my experience with the IB- 41 points should be enough to guarantee you a place at a top five university.

I agree completly about the need to contact the unis directly. But unfortunately I do not share your confidence that the OP can get into a top 5 uni. He does not meet the HL requiremnets for 3 of the top5 and with the other 2 it depends on how they feel about 7,6,5. c.f. 6,6,6. And I have my doubts that they will accept 6,6,6 e.g. if they did not have a preference about the grade distribution they could simply have said 18+ and not 6,6,6

Reply 46

Paulwhy

I have added in comments on the QAA data which has been added to TAELT 2009:

QAA Reports:
source http://www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/reports/archive/oldSubjReports.asp?subjID=1

Strengths
i) assessed on common basis
ii) group include economists
iii) Leeds and SOAS at bottom of their groups with low points

Weaknesses
i) old: 2001
ii) include msc courses
iii) more to do with competency than excellance
iv) box ticking
v) only covers ENG and NI
vi) separate review basis for Scotland and Wales

conclusion one of a range of factors worth considering

comments: I have processed the Scottish reviews and tried to put them onto a common basis with the English data.

Reply 47

Orange mood

Hello! Thank you, very useful material. but still cannot decide where to go... I've got straight As for Economics, Maths, Statistics and Accounting - As level. I have already decided that will apply to:
LSE
UCL
Warwick
Southampton
And???Birmingham? Bristol? Or something else? Could you advise me?

Don't want to go to Scotland or somewhere too far from London + big city. :smile:

Reply 48

Paulwhy

Orange mood

You need to email all your prospective unis with regards to a couple of points:
i)How they regard Accounting. I know it is black-listed by LSE and Cambridge. need to find out will your target unis accept it as either a 3rd or 4th A-level. In particular will Warwick accept it as a 4th AS-level?
ii)How they regard Statistics. It might be ok but as it is close to Maths will they accept it as a 3rd subject or only a 4th. Would you be at a disadvantage c.f. students who had taken other subjects? I am pretty sure no top place will accept Accounting as a 3rd A-level. So it is critical to find out how they regard Statistics.

Putting that issue to one side, there is a bit of a hole in your uni list. Big drop between (LSE,UCL, Warwick) and Southampton. The AAA.2 and AAB.1.1 unis would go in the gap. So yes Bristol would be an obvious choice.

Reply 49

Orange mood

thank you, i'll take your advice into account

Reply 50

Paulwhy

Update to the FAQ:

So can I get anything out of the Newspaper League Tables?
Well I have now included each of the 3 league table rankings in the spreadsheet version of TAELT 2009:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=619184
Whilst a lot of the data they are based on is soft, if a uni you are interested in has a particularly high or low set of rankings relative to unis in it's TAELT group then you should investigate further the underlying cause.

Three unis with particularly high ranks are Warwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh. In two of the cases (Warwick and Edinburgh) I had independently recorgnised this and promoted them to .0 subgroups.

Four unis with particularly low ranks are Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Reading. In the case of Leeds its rankings are one of the factors leading to it's AAB.1.2 status. (Maybe this is evidence of a big city bias. i.e. that certain big city unis can make higher typical offers than could be explained by their non-geographic characteristics.)

Part iv) has been updated to include the LSE example:

3:1 sounds a lot better than 11:1 but I still want to hedge my bets and apply for some easier to get into courses.
I can understand why you want to hedge. But:
i) In order to be suitable for the variant subject you risk compromising the PS and not getting in the places you do apply for economics at. There are some exceptions for example Maths and Economics at Warwick, which gives out the same standard offer to all applicants whatever your PS.

ii) You risk end up with a course you not want to do and 3 years is a long time to spend on a course your heart is not really in.

iii) Doing multi applications for one uni is not great. Remember admissions tutors will know about other applications at same uni. So may end up looking like you are more interested in the uni than the course.

iv) Variant courses may be harder not easier to get into. 2 examples:
a) At Warwick in 2005 for straight economics there were 1185 applications and 104 entrants. (11:1), whilst with Industrial economic there were 116 applications and 5 entrants. (23:1). So the variants has twice the applicants per place of the straight course.
b) At LSE Straight in 2007 econ is 2,861:236 (about 12:1), Econ with Econ history is 123:5 (about 24:1) and BSc Econometrics and Mathematical Economics is 282:8 (about 35:1):
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/und.../economics.htm

Reply 51

big A

Ok, basically, I was set to get 3 A's last year and fulfil my Law offer for UCL, but I missed it by getting AAB because I flopped one module in History. Sooo, now I am retaking that single module at school and reapplying, and I decided that I still want to go to UCL and also give Oxbridge or LSE another shot. Would the course be a wise decision? How are my chances? My problem is really my GCSE grades: 1 A*, 7 A's, 3 B's. They got me an invitiation for an interview from Oxford, but I don't want to get a straight LSE rejection, and their Economics course is even more intense to get into, so is there an Economics joint course in LSe that might ease out the GCSE competition. BTW, I do have a Maths A level, which was a decent A. I also did ENglish Literature, and I got ridiculous module grades on that, and to be fair, the A2 modules I took for History excet for that one I flopped were almost full marks. If these things are considered, would I be have a decent chance with Oxford and LSE, I am sure I will get a UCL and DUrham offer, and UCL is the place I had my heart set for the whole year anyway.

Reply 52

Noémie

i perhaps wouldn't go for lse myself, i'd look at like, leeds or kcl edit: or warwick maybe?

Reply 53

Paulwhy

big A

i) Do you mean law?!??
ii) Without extenuating circumstances I can't see LSE letting you in. Sorry. And variant courses are often more compettive than straight econ. With LSE Econ with Econ history is 123:5 and BSc Econometrics and Mathematical Economics is 282:8:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/undergraduateAdmissions/AdmissionsCriteria/economics.htm
iiii) You will need to email each of your target unis with the details of your situation as I know many of the top unis are very negative about retakes.
iv)Have you studied economics A-level?
v)What will you do in your year out?
vi) Check out TAELT 2009:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=619184
vii) Check out the econ uni application guide:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=658957

Noémie

i perhaps wouldn't go for lse myself, i'd look at like, leeds or kcl edit: or warwick maybe?

???
viii) Warwick demand a 4th AS-level grade b that the OP shows no indication of having
ix) Leeds is not a great course for economics:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14302749&postcount=165
x) and finally kcl don't teach economics!

Reply 54

jkyng1

unis are not happy with retakes. especially the top few.

Reply 55

Crazster

i lolled when someone suggested that ration of apps to places is what dictates how hard a course is - then uses that to justify the joint courses being harder to get into then the straight econ at lse.
If thats the case oxbridge is not that hard to get into =).

Edit: OP, I can't see you getting a B i your other modules are top. I dropped one econ module to a D and still got a relatively good A in econ, and in bio I didn't even finish half of my last exam (cockiness but meh) - still got an A there.
Its really not that hard to build 60 - 80 points of margin so i'm suspect about your high ums in the other modules.
If you got into ucl law you should be a strong candidate so give it a shot.

Reply 56

ILIGAN

^ It's not conclusive, but it's telling, especially when all you have are the ratios. But knowing the mimimum cut-off A-Level requirement for LSE, you can easily tell that it has a very competitive admissions.

Reply 57

Paulwhy

Sorry if my post on the issue of applications per place was overly simplistic. And I agree that it is the case that you can't simply use applications per place to assess how hard a course is to get into because yes the characteristics of the students applying for each course vary

See the Uni Econ application guide for a fuller exposition of my views on the topic:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14076405&postcount=3

But I do think that a number of things are clear:
i) only a handful of places on both variant courses: BSc Economics with Economic History 5 places and BSc Econometrics and Mathematical Economics 8 places. So they are expecting candidates to be exceptional not just good at both economics and maths/history. It is a really small target to aim at.

ii) The application figures do nothing to suggest that the variant courses are easier to get into (esp. for candidates who are principally economists)

iii) LSE in joint applications expect candidates to showing their ability at and interest in both subjects:

Applying for combined honours degrees

LSE offers 16 combined honours programmes. Applicants applying to these programmes are advised that it is essential that you give equal weighting in your personal statement to both combined subjects.
For instance, if you are applying to Government and Economics you must show evidence of interest in both subjects. As half of the course covers Government, the Admissions Tutor would not make an offer to somebody who applies to this course, but only refers to their interest in Economics.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/undergraduateAdmissions/AdmissionsCriteria/UCAS_personal_statement/writing_your_personal_statement.htm
Their highlight not mine!
iv) If you apply to a variant course and don’t follow their advise of an equally balanced PS you don’t have much chance at LSE. If you do follow their advise then that leaves you in a bad position for economics applications at other unis. Because:
1)You will have only half as much opportunity as other candidates to sell your ability at and interest in economics.
2) worse: you will have half a PS selling your interest in another subject undoing all the good work you have done in the space you do have available for economics.

Hence my conclusion that it is not a good idea to apply to variant courses on the grounds that they are/might be, easier to get into.