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Economics applicant thread UCAS 2014

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Original post by tooambitious
what happened? Were you just close in 6 subjects?


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too close. Physics i was 1 UMS off an A* , Biology, German and French 2-3 UMS off in each , Maths i was 3% off and english language i was one raw mark off ( Maths and Eng Lang were IGCSE )
Original post by Boy_wonder_95
Someone's overconfident :wink:, if you wanna be safe then you could always pick an AAA option


Might go for nottingham instead of bristol depends on AS ums.


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Original post by Epic Flawless
Well, you should have confidence in your abilities. Most of us are in the same situation as yourself but we are sure that we can achieve the A* and are more concerned about obtaining the offer as opposed to achieving it so applying to those universities means we have the best chance of getting into a top university for economics.

This is what I'm inferring btw as I also peak to apply to those 5.



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Thankss its just different people say different things and it all gets very confusing.


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Original post by Fas
too close. Physics i was 1 UMS off an A* , Biology, German and French 2-3 UMS off in each , Maths i was 3% off and english language i was one raw mark off ( Maths and Eng Lang were IGCSE )


That sucks! Damn :console:


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Original post by Fas
yeah i didn't think so either - but someone i spoke too said try and make it original :tongue:

like one book i read , i said that i learnt that mathematical approaches to treating economic issues contain difficulties such as blah blah etc. the person i spoke to said not to include that cos it wasn't good enough , so i'm veryyy confused !


Pretty sure I said something along those lines in my ps too :lol:

Tbh, I would always play it safe with the PS - I don't think it adds much to an application (in most cases, it could be exceptional, but what would an exceptional PS even look like?) but can really detract from one if it's awful


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Original post by kiirankapoor
Thankss its just different people say different things and it all gets very confusing.


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Well, different people will have different situations and opinions. Do you believe that the probability of not getting an A* exceeds the p probability of getting rejecting from the 4 A*AA universities? There's others things to consider too like the pride from applying to 5 A*AA universities and whether you'd be content to go to Nottingham if you didn't get the a*.

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Original post by tooambitious
That sucks! Damn :console:


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yeah haha , i guess 3A*'s and 6A's wasn't a bad result in the end , just annoyed me that i could have had 9 A*'s so easily :tongue:
Original post by Epic Flawless
Well, different people will have different situations and opinions. Do you believe that the probability of not getting an A* exceeds the p probability of getting rejecting from the 4 A*AA universities? There's others things to consider too like the pride from applying to 5 A*AA universities and whether you'd be content to go to Nottingham if you didn't get the a*.

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Ahaa thanksss just need to be positive :biggrin:


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Original post by tooambitious
Pretty sure I said something along those lines in my ps too :lol:

Tbh, I would always play it safe with the PS - I don't think it adds much to an application (in most cases, it could be exceptional, but what would an exceptional PS even look like?) but can really detract from one if it's awful


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haha well that's definitely reassuring ! :smile:

yeah ive been writing it this past week , and that question's been going through my head really , most applicants PS's will be the same anyway , so the only real job is just not to have a **** one haha - although still gonna try and make it as good as i can , cos otherwise i won't really have my own ' USP ' per say.
Reply 329
Original post by kiirankapoor
Sorry for so many questions but excluding cambridge, what sorts of extra stuff is good for ps. Ive done DofE, school council, prefect, and econ society prefect. Is that enough or should i do more, and if so what sort of stuff should i be doing. I have no work experience in economics ;(


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I didn't write anything about work experience, and still got offers so I don't think its THAT important. But all the stuff you mentioned sounds good as well :smile:
Original post by Nadine10
Well your volunteer/leadership thing sounds interesting and defo worth a mention in your ps - my advice would be don't just state what you did but draw out the important skills you gained and maybe link it back to your course. For example, if you do MUN or debating, say that it allows you to look at current events from different perspective, and engineer solutions, which is was macro attempts to do with the economy.

And for the interview i got asked about dematerialisation in the first (dont worry! the interviewer knew we would know absolutely nothing about this and wanted to see if we could handle new material when he explained this) and in the second i was asked to sketch a output per worker against quantity of labour and we discussed it a bit.


Would you recommend writing about Model UN and European Youth Parliament (my team is in the nationals) for an Economics PS? I have a massive list of extra curriculars and I want to make sure to prioritise the most useful for my PS
Original post by Nadine10
I didn't write anything about work experience, and still got offers so I don't think its THAT important. But all the stuff you mentioned sounds good as well :smile:


Okay thanks for all the help.


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Original post by Nadine10
Well your volunteer/leadership thing sounds interesting and defo worth a mention in your ps - my advice would be don't just state what you did but draw out the important skills you gained and maybe link it back to your course. For example, if you do MUN or debating, say that it allows you to look at current events from different perspective, and engineer solutions, which is was macro attempts to do with the economy.

And for the interview i got asked about dematerialisation in the first (dont worry! the interviewer knew we would know absolutely nothing about this and wanted to see if we could handle new material when he explained this) and in the second i was asked to sketch a output per worker against quantity of labour and we discussed it a bit.


That's very useful. :smile: But what about things like sports teams and music grades? I am currently doing grade 4 piano (which isn't impressive) and am on no sports teams... :s-smilie:

Oh interesting... Did you just have two interviews then? I thought people had like, five?

Thanks so much!
Reply 333
Original post by Nadine10
Well your volunteer/leadership thing sounds interesting and defo worth a mention in your ps - my advice would be don't just state what you did but draw out the important skills you gained and maybe link it back to your course. For example, if you do MUN or debating, say that it allows you to look at current events from different perspective, and engineer solutions, which is was macro attempts to do with the economy.

And for the interview i got asked about dematerialisation in the first (dont worry! the interviewer knew we would know absolutely nothing about this and wanted to see if we could handle new material when he explained this) and in the second i was asked to sketch a output per worker against quantity of labour and we discussed it a bit.


What does the curve look like? :smile:
Original post by Smko
What does the curve look like? :smile:


I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it's bell shaped? My reasoning is basically about economies of scale: with more workers, investment in more efficient machinery becomes worthwhile so productivity rise but at a certain point, workers begin to feel alienated so productivity falls and etc.

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(edited 10 years ago)
[Double posted accidently
Reply 336
Anybody been to royal holloway or queens ? Curious to know what they are like :smile:


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Reply 337
Original post by Epic Flawless
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it's bell shaped? My reasoning is basically about economies of scale: with more workers, investment in more efficient machinery becomes worthwhile so productivity rise but at a certain point, workers begin to feel alienated so productivity falls and etc.

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Thats close - actualy its the first part only, its an upwards sloping curve with diminishing returns to labour. The more labour you add, they will add to output, but the amount that each worker adds gets less. xx
Reply 338
Original post by Jkizer
Anybody been to royal holloway or queens ? Curious to know what they are like :smile:


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I just graduated from Royal Holloway this year having studied Economics BSc. Whilst I cannot compare it to other Economics courses, I personally think the RHUL course is pretty good. It is by no means 'easy', however people who have put in the work have done well, those who have not have failed - it's a fair course.

From what I have heard, and seen, the Royal Holloway Economics degree is looked at favourably by postgrad courses. We have had people going to Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, etc.

If you have any specific questions feel free to inbox me :smile:
I will be studying economics as part of my first year. I am not mathematically inclined, however I am very interested in the theories and mechanisms of economics. Having no gcse's or A-levels I'm sure my maths and statistics module results will be quite brutal. Any idea's on what I should specifically study to get up to scratch (as much as I can).

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