LSE vs UCL for psychology

Hello! I'm a law student at LSE. Congrats to her!!!

If your daughter is worried about rankings, tell her to not worry. Rankings do not matter much. Plus both LSE and UCL and amazing, top-tier unis.

However, I would say that if your daughter likes the sense of community in her uni, LSE is not the best place. This is my first year, and of course, with Lockdown it is harder to create a fun and close community, but I believe it is especially terrible here at LSE. And LSE keeps ranking lowest in the UK for student satisfaction. However, it also is what she makes out of it. If she tries communicating with people and finding people who share her interests and are helpful (and of course she should be helpful too) then she will have a great time. I made some amazing friends here although the majority of studies were online and we help and study together so much, it's amazing and motivating.

haha I went off a tangent, but ultimately it doesn't really matter as both unis are great academic-wise. From what I know, student satisfaction is higher at UCL and there might be a better sense of community there. But let her decide based on where her heart takes her. And of course, it's good for her to pick the course that she will enjoy the most.

Congrats again!

You're welcome! And feel free to reach out if you have any other queries

Hi - you’re anonymous but would you mind PMing me? (thank you @immie36 for creating this thread!)

I’ve gotten an offer for PBS at LSE but haven’t been able to find much about the course until your replies, would be much appreciated if I could ask you a couple Qs

Hello! Wondered if anyone could share their opinion. My daughter has offers from LSE, King's and UCL to read psychology. She likes the broad interdisciplinary nature of the course at LSE, but UCL seem to rank higher overall – though I'm not sure if LSE would be preferable for psychology as they specialise in the social sciences. Any thoughts/advice appreciated. TIA

Hi, congrats to your daughter! I'm applying to the same unis next year, for psychology, so if you'd have any advice regarding the same, it'd be really helpful! Thank you so much in advance!

@bellowingcupcake my daughter decided to go for LSE in the end because the course appealed to her interests more. The UCL course is ranked very highly, but there is more of a focus on neuropsychology and clinical practice, while the LSE course is a broader social science degree with more emphasis on policy and the behavioural economics. I think you should base your decision mainly on which course you think will suit your preferences and interests best.

There is a lot of information available on the LSE and UCL websites regarding the course content and videos which give you a good overview too. Here's the link for the LSE one if you haven't checked it out already.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Undergraduate/Degree-programmes-2022/BSc-Psychological-and-Behavioural-Science
Remember to write a strong personal statement when you apply as many universities don't interview, so you'll need to make your statement stand out and impress. There are some really good videos by admissions tutors on the uni websites and also on YouTube, which give you a good idea of what they're looking for. Hth best of luck!

Hi - you’re anonymous but would you mind PMing me? (thank you @immie36 for creating this thread!)

I’ve gotten an offer for PBS at LSE but haven’t been able to find much about the course until your replies, would be much appreciated if I could ask you a couple Qs

(Original post by jeanniceau)Did you manage to get in touch ? Also got an offer and cannot find too much content online, so have questions.. !
yes it worked out if anyone else has any questions, just drop a message here and I can dm you

Thank you so much for your detailed response! I will check out the LSE course in more detail, because the second that I saw that it wasn't a pure psychology or neuroscience course, I wrote it off without even spending some time checking it out. I'm mainly looking at King's as it has a joint honours program, but UCL is next on my list.

Are there any specific activities that she did that she mentioned on her statement that you think might have helped? If you have any specific tips, it'd be helpful, because I do have a slew of things that I've done, but am confused as to whether to include them or not as I don't want my application to seem like it's all over the place.

Thanks again for your help, and congrats to your daughter! I'm sure she'll have a great time at LSE!

Hi, @bellowingcupcake

Sorry for the delay in replying! I'd say the main thing when writing your personal statement is that anything you include you make relevant – you need to prove to admissions tutors that you have the skills, qualities and commitment that make your suited to the course and that you're the kind of student who would do well at the university. So pick activities, interests etc to write about that best demonstrate this. It's not so much *what* extracurricular interests you write about, but *how* you write about them, iyswim. I think too many students stick in DofE, sports activities etc thinking this shows they are well-rounded, but don't link it back to the course of study they're applying for.

Your personal statement should be around 80% focused on academic stuff with 20% on extracurricular activities, but even that 20% should be linked back to the course.

Sorry for the rambling, hope that makes sense! If you'd like, I'd be happy to look through your statement once you've written it and give suggestions, advice etc. (Btw, I studied at LSE, King's and the Institute of Education, UCL myself back in the day!)

Hi, thank you for your reply, it really means a lot to me. I absolutely get what you're saying, and I've been making a list of the nuanced aspects of my life that have been affected by my understanding of psychology. I know that a lot of people mention stuff like sports and things like that, without connecting it back to the course, and I wasn't planning on doing that, but I think the main reason I was asking was because apart from just talking about the impact of some academic texts and studies that I've read, and supra curricular activities that I've done that link back to psychology, I wanted to mentioned small changes that I was able to make in my daily life with my rudimentary knowledge of the subject, which ended up positively influencing my life in many ways. In other words, "nudges" in my own life, some of which were of my doing, and some, of others'.

I hope I was able to make, and I'm glad I got in touch with you. I would love for you to be able to proofread it when I'm fully done, so maybe if you use your DMs, I could liaise further with you, there. Thanks again for your help!