LSE BSc Finance - Personal Statement & How To Get In!

Hi! I was accepted into the BSc Finance course at the London School of Economics as part of the 2024-2027 batch. I had applied for Finance in LSE, Durham, and Manchester and Accounting&Finance at Warwick and King's College London. The UCAS application for each university requires predicted grades, teacher references, and most importantly, a 4000 character(including spaces) personal statement. Although the format of the personal statement will be changing from the 2026 entry onwards, my personal statement will still be useful in helping you craft your answers to these three questions(the format from 2026): 

1) Why do you want to study this course or subject? 

2) How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject? 

3) What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful? 

When preparing my personal statement, I was often disappointed by the fact that I had no personal statements of students in LSE Finance to refer to online in order to understand what the department is looking for. I am writing this blog so that any potential applicant will have at least one reference statement, so they can get somewhat of an idea on how to write their own personal statement. 

This is the final version of my personal statement: 

The core of finance, to me, lies in its integration of theory and practicality to solve the dynamic problems of the real world. My initial inspiration to study finance came from utilising cost optimisation techniques to maximise profits in a student entrepreneurship program, which were used to purchase school supplies for underprivileged students in Kannagi Nagar, India. Witnessing the joy on a peer's face who had received stationery showed me the positive tangible change that can be caused by financial activity. 

Observing financial traders while visiting the JPMorgan office in Tokyo ignited my interest in corporate finance, leading me to complete a virtual work experience program as a JPMorgan investment banker. I presided over the indicative bid phase of an auction process for an acquisition. Preparing a discounted cash flow valuation to identify the indicative value of the target enhanced my numeracy skills and taught me the importance of producing accurate estimated values to avoid bad investing decisions. However, conducting sensitivity analysis on the valuation due to unforeseen simulated changes to the target variables made me question the reliability of the valuation methods that rely heavily on assumptions yet influence crucial decisions affecting large populations. 

This triggered my curiosity in game theory, given its practical applications in decision making. Following my Further Maths lessons covering zero-sum games, I delved into 'Game Theory and Economic Modelling', where Kreps considers how a stable Nash equilibrium can be achieved through a price war in repeated duopoly competition. I found it compelling to discover that outcompeting the rival firm could actually be the result of non-price competition like customer loyalty, conversely affecting profits as had been modelled. I believe it is important to remember the model's limitations while making strategic decisions that can have a societal impact. 

An early influence on my understanding of behavioural finance was Housel's 'The Psychology of Money'. It conveyed that accepting financial market volatility is the fee investors have to pay in the short term in order to achieve long term capital gains; a concept particularly interesting if extended to evaluating the effectiveness of risk forecasting models to mitigate market volatility for investors. This served as the basis for my EPQ, where I argued that machine learning models are most effective when used in conjunction with active investor decisions because autonomous investing by the model can lead to huge losses owing to its susceptibility to false signals, potentially jeopardising investors' life savings. 

Being fascinated with the practical appraisal of financial techniques, I completed Wharton's online courses teaching corporate finance and accounting where I learnt to apply DuPont analysis on balance sheets to assess whether a firm's return on equity is driven by its profitability, efficiency or leverage. Through analysing multiple balance sheets, I have come to realise that a key limitation of financial statements is their obscurity in presenting trends when a firm grows tremendously. I believe that by critically analysing individual trends, a more nuanced understanding of a company's business model can be obtained. Although the courses were challenging, they motivated me to work hard to identify implicit financial trends and be flexible when solving dynamic problems. 

My roles as a Financial Times Student Advocate and director of my school's first TEDxYouth event have honed my communication skills and taught me to work efficiently under pressure - attributes that will aid me to maximise my contributions at university. 

The world of finance is rapidly developing and I greatly look forward to broadening my perspectives by learning from leading professionals. I aspire to apply my knowledge to solve real world problems and help create a little positive change in the lives of people and within society.

Due to the competitive nature of the admissions, I wanted to bring in at least 3 domains of finance just to show the admissions officers I was quite passionate about studying finance.  I will explain this below: 

Paragraph breakdown of the personal statement:

1) Why I got interested in finance - I wanted to focus on solving real world problems(in order to differentiate from the usual reasons of liking finance) and showed this by mentioning an actual project that I was fortunate to be involved with.

2) Corporate Finance - I was sure the department would love finance-heavy content and was able to smoothly link this to a virtual work experience I did (it's always available to do on Forage x J.P. Morgan).

3) Game Theory - Finance is after all a subset of economics so I thought it might be wise to include a paragraph focused on economic theory.

4) Behavourial Finance - I could link both my Extended Project Qualification(This is not necessary in order to get in, but definitely helps if it is about a finance related subject) and The Psychology of Money(Books are always appreciated by admissions officers). The EPQ also allowed me to mention fintech(an area of finance which is growing in importance - I believe the relevancy makes it a valuable addition).

5) Accounting - Few UK universities offer a course just called "Finance". A lot of universities offer "Accounting&Finance". Hence, I ensured to include a paragraph on accounting to cater to them(namely, King's College London and Warwick). You might notice I end the paragraph by admitting that the courses were hard, but I found it a great learning experience. This strategy I noticed in another personal statement and thought it was very smart as it shows humility and a passion to persevere and learn. 

6) Extracurriculars - This paragraph is very short because LSE Finance, unlike many other universities, prefers a full academics-catered personal statement. I chose to include at least 3 lines in order to cater to the other 4 applications that I was making. Although, I had done many other extracurriculars, I chose these 2 due to the global recognition of these organizations. 

7) Conclusion - Ensure to end positively, and showing ambition for the future. I garnered from the LSE Finance department page that they really value the worth of their faculty, hence I ensured to include that as well. 

You may have noticed that every paragraph ends with a mention or desire to create a positive societal impact. This not only ensures a smooth flow of paragraphs but more importantly, shows that you have a deeper purpose to studying the subject rather than simply making money. The reason I included it in all paragraphs is because otherwise, it might come off as an attempt to simply boost one's own image. 

How I wrote the Personal Statement:

I started in the beginning of the summer holidays after Year 12(Grade 11) - July 2023. I submitted my UCAS application on October 20th 2023. In this 3.5 month time period, I would write or review at least one line every day. At the same time, I would be watching a lot of YouTube videos of students who made successful applications to LSE/Cambridge/Oxford in order to get a lot of mental input regarding writing and formatting style, which I hoped would eventually feed into my writing. I would especially recommend this channel which was extremely helpful to me: Dr. Shaene . I would also highly recommend connecting with any alumni who got into your target universities and asking their help. Spreading out the writing of one essay over three and a half months meant that so long as I was consistent, I had no stress with regards to it. My mindset from the start(due to the competitive nature of admissions for LSE Finance) was to write the best personal statement the UK had ever seen. Although, it obviously did not reach that standard, I believe it is only if one has high ambitions that they could at least produce something of winning quality. Also, I spent a lot of time looking at the list of modules for each year - my thinking being that if I mentioned some content taught in 2nd and 3rd year modules, it will show the depth of my financial knowledge, making my application stronger. 

Lastly, ensure you have no regrets with regards to the amount of effort you put into your application because the final outcome is 50% outside of your hands(with the admissions officers). Moreover, LSE Finance usually gives offers in April the following year, which was a 6 month wait for me. Therefore, do your best for the sake of the application and don't focus on the results if you want to greatly reduce stress during the 6 month wait. Do not be bogged down by the acceptance ratio because many students are applying to this course solely as their "dream" choice - they might not have even received the required predicted grades. The more effort you put in, the greater are your chances to be accepted. 

Thank you for reading and all the very best!!:)