Widening Participation

Visit the Widening Participation webpages for detailed information about the projects offered for schools and individual applicants.  

You may also find the Widening Participation FAQs helpful.  

Our Access and Participation Plan outlines how LSE will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups to access, succeed in and progress from higher education. 

Home UK students

Contextual information enables our admissions team to evaluate an applicant’s academic performance within a wider educational and social context.  

Contextual information can be used: 

• to make an applicant a standard offer where their academic record or personal statement may be marginally less competitive than the cohort overall.
• to make an applicant a standard offer where they are predicted marginally below the usual entry requirements.
• when making confirmation decisions for offer holders that have marginally failed to meet the entry criteria (usually this means one grade below the standard entry requirements). 

Eligible students (students flagged with a home postcode that is classified as POLAR4 Quintile 1 or IMD Quintile 1, as a care leaver, or a participant in a specified LSE WP programme or a Sutton Trust Pathways programme), may be considered for a contextual offer, where the contextual offer is one or two grades lower than the standard offer for the programme. Any mathematics requirement must still be met.

All academic departments are participating in the contextual offer scheme.

The contextual offer grades are listed alongside the standard offer A-level and IB entry requirements on the relevant programme pages.   

Further contextual admissions information. 

LSE offers around £4 million in scholarships and financial support awards every year, issued primarily on the basis of financial need.  

Our LSE Bursary (UK students) offers awards between £500 - £4,000 renewable for each year of study, based on household income. UK students do not need to apply separately for the LSE Bursary – we will access the information provided to the Student Finance when applying for the maintenance loan to determine their eligibility.  

An LSE Accommodation Bursary is available for UK nationals, designed to encourage students from lower-income households to apply for first year accommodation in halls. Bursary amounts typically range between £750 to £2,500.  

Discretionary Bursaries are also available for UK students who face exceptional financial need. 

LSE’s Uggla Family Scholars Programme awards 7 scholarships for new UK undergraduate students worth over £20,000 per year. For each academic year, Scholarships provide partial tuition fee awards and full financial support for the Scholars’ term-time accommodation and other term-time expenses, including food, household bills, travel, study books and social events. Awards are renewed for each subsequent year of study, subject to satisfactory academic progress.

The Care Experienced and Estranged Student Bursary has a value of £1,000 per year, for a maximum of 4 years of study.

When students complete the UCAS application form, they will have the opportunity to share with their chosen universities whether they have been in care or are estranged from their parents or carers. If they answer ‘Yes’ to either of these questions, the information will be shared with LSE and they will automatically receive the Care Experienced and Estranged Student Bursary when they enrol at LSE.  Students who are eligible for the Care Experienced and Estranged Student Bursary should also consider applying for other financial support offered by LSE.

Students and parents/carers can visit our Fees and Financial Support pages for more information about bursaries, scholarships, tuition fees and government loans.   

If you are a teacher at a non-selective state school and would like to find out more about our Widening Participation projects, please contact the team.