Chances of getting into economics at UCL,Bath,Durham,Bristol)

Predicted grades of A*A*A (Chem, maths - A*, Physics A)
GCSES : 98886665
Personal statement :
Work experience with PwC
Bronze in UKMT
Essay competitions on with an essay on immigration
More personal stuff like poorer countries

Just wanted to ask what are my chances of getting into these uni’s as I know they are highly competitive. For example Bristol said people with less than 3 A* likely won’t be accepted.

Reply 1

Rebeccacole12

Original post by Peter Adams PA

Predicted grades of A*A*A (Chem, maths - A*, Physics A)
GCSES : 98886665
Personal statement :
Work experience with PwC
Bronze in UKMT
Essay competitions on with an essay on immigration
More personal stuff like poorer countries
Just wanted to ask what are my chances of getting into these uni’s as I know they are highly competitive. For example Bristol said people with less than 3 A* likely won’t be accepted.

bristol accept much worse applications than yours for economics.. from what i've experienced. i think you'll be fine!

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Peter Adams PA

Lack of FM might make UCL a bit of a stretch but it's reasonable to have one or two aspirational choices.

A lot of your personal statement material feels less directly relevant to economics though. It's not a training degree for accountancy or finance so the work experience with PwC I don't see as being worth spending more than a brief sentence mentioning, the UKMT is fine to mention briefly but equally while an economics degree is mathematical (and some of those courses quite mathematical in particular) it's not purely applied maths. Hard to comment on the essay competitions but writing an essay on immigration sounds more like a geographical/political/anthropological matter unless it was specifically about some economic matters e.g. something in development economics and migration or something else where the economics aspect is very clearly tied to it.

Be focused on what the degree is actually about - economics and eonomic theory. It's not a course in "current affairs" or in applied maths or in business/finance/management! Equally if that's not primarily what your interest is - do consider courses that are a better match (e.g. international relations/politics, geography, accountancy and/or finance, etc) :smile:

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Peter Adams PA

Thanks for the feedback.
Alongside UCL, would you describe any other other universities as aspirational.
This is my personal statement that I’ve drafted up. Please let me know what I can do to improve it.

Unfortunately as you have now posted your entire personal statement on a public website cached by google you will need to rewrite the entire thing :frown:

Never post your personal statement on any publicly accessible website. Google will cache the webpage and then it will immediately flag as plagiarism in the UCAS plagiarism checker. I would suggest editing your post to delete the PS section from it for posterity.

You will need to rewrite it, for future reference though if you would like feedback on your PS rather than posting it to a public webpage online, or sharing with an individual (where you risk them posting it elsewhere or copying all or part of it and leading to the same plagiarism issue), you can get free and confidential feedback from the TSR Personal Statement Review service which is a free service for TSR users, where you post your PS to a private part of the forum so a DBS checked personal statement reviewer can review it. You can read more about this service here: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4237154

As an aside I'd note you do not need to and realistically probably shouldn't specifically talk about your A-levels and trying to tangentially relate them to the course you're applying to. They can see what A-levels you're taking from the rest of your application and are more than aware of the relevance (or lack thereof) for the course you're applying to. You should just write about the course itself and what you've done to explore your interest in it.

The silver lining is there was a lot that could've been improved here so a blank slate might not be a bad opportunity...!

(edited 4 weeks ago)

Reply 4

University of Bath

Official Rep

Original post by Peter Adams PA

Predicted grades of A*A*A (Chem, maths - A*, Physics A)
GCSES : 98886665
Personal statement :
Work experience with PwC
Bronze in UKMT
Essay competitions on with an essay on immigration
More personal stuff like poorer countries
Just wanted to ask what are my chances of getting into these uni’s as I know they are highly competitive. For example Bristol said people with less than 3 A* likely won’t be accepted.

Hi Peter A,

What a fabulous set of predicted grades, kudos for all the hard work you must have put in for those! Lovely to hear you're interested in Bath - I would say with PGs like that and as long as you've put in a strong personal statement you have every chance of making a great application, especially if you do your best at Maths as this is our required subject.

Its very difficult to tell how many offers you'll get because econ courses as with any other course vary in popularity year on year. Historically, our econ course is popular but if you work hard for your A levels, have done a strong PS and tell us about any contextual circumstances you have then you have just as much chance as everyone else. Remember that its also a good idea to have an insurance choice with requirements 1-2 grades below your PGs to give you a safety net.

Those choices seem realistic for you given your PGs - its now about choosing which course you like best and which campus/city you feel most at home in.

Best of luck!

Holly
University of Bath

(edited 3 weeks ago)

Reply 5

Peter Adams PA

Original post by University of Bath

Hi Peter A,
What a fabulous set of predicted grades, judos for all the hard work you must have put in for those! Lovely to hear you're interested in Bath - I would say with PGs like that and as long as you've put in a strong personal statement you have every chance of making a great application, especially if you do your best at Maths as this is our required subject.
Its very difficult to tell how many offers you'll get because econ courses as with any other course vary in popularity years. Historically, our econ course is popular but if you work hard for your A levels, have done a strong PS and tell us about any contextual circumstances you have then you have just as much chance as everyone else. Remember that its also a good idea to have an insurance choice with requirements 1-2 grades below your PGs to give you a safety net.
Those choices seem realistic for you given your PGs - its now about choosing which course you like best and which campus/city you feel most at home in.
Best of luck!
Holly
University of Bath

Thanks, amazing to get a response from an actual university