lse msc economic history personal statement

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March 22nd, 2024

4 tips to writing a stellar statement of academic purpose.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Once you’ve decided you’ll be applying to LSE, the real work starts. Applying to a university as competitive as LSE can be daunting. A significant part of your application will be your statement of academic purpose that details your motivations for the programme. 

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing some tips and tricks for writing a fantastic and authentic statement of academic purpose: 

Write something. Anything. But begin. It’s intimidating to stare at a blank screen and think of how to articulate so many connecting thoughts into a coherent essay. But for your first draft, just set a timer and let your mind wander. What questions in the discipline pique your interest? Maybe a newspaper article or a podcast made you think about a topic in depth. Think about what you studied in your undergraduate studies and how that relates to your postgraduate subject. What transferable skills did you acquire? What were your favourite courses? What did you write your thesis on? Get it all out on paper. 

Don’t worry about any structure here, but it’s important to get your voice and your most impressionable thoughts about the subject out on paper to be refined later. 

My second tip, and one that’s most commonly overlooked, would be that you should be thorough with LSE’s website . Prowl the website, watch the applicant recordings, read the FAQs , and make the job of the admissions specialist easy. Pay attention to what the school is asking for, because they’ll literally tell you! Reading this blog post is already a great first step! 

Pro tip: When I was researching about LSE and my programme, I read every single blog article from LSE on this Students@LSE blog , as well as on the Department of Management’s blog dating back to 2017… These offered me invaluable advice for my application.

For example, a lot of prospective students I speak to don’t know that the School has a specific format for the statement of academic purpose to be submitted in. Your programme name should be in the footer of your essay. Pay attention to details and get your hands on any — and all — official information from LSE. This includes from LSE website , Instagram , LinkedIn, YouTube channel  and any other social media platforms available to your disposal. 

Connect with LSE alumni  and ascertain whether LSE is the right fit for you and whether you’re the right fit for LSE. This is a step that can’t be substituted with anything else. Ask in-depth questions to ascertain whether you’d fit seamlessly into the school community. 

What societies do the LSESU have? What’s the cohort size? What other opportunities does the school offer apart from the department you’ll be affiliated with? What have past graduates gone on to do?

This step will offer you the most clarity about LSE and how you can be a great fit for the School.

The best way would be to reach out to LSE student ambassadors. I’m currently working as a Student Ambassador for my programme MSc Management and Strategy , and absolutely love interacting with prospective students. 

Once you have a first draft and have done an in-depth research about LSE, you’re ready. Now you just have to refine and refine further until your draft has structure and coherence. You should have a semblance of a legible draft ready on your own, which then can be passed onto others. I personally consulted LSE alumni, my family, friends, and past professors, as each would offer a new dimension to my statement. The alumni of the programme commented on my suitability for LSE, my friends and family made sure my values and who I am as a person were reflected on paper, and lastly, my professors commented on the academic details of my statement.

And voilà! You’re done! 

It’s as simple as Write, Watch, Speak and Refine. Make sure to pay attention to your statement, and only submit when you’re fully satisfied that it’s your best and your true self is accurately reflected on paper. 

About the author

Hi, everyone. I'm Gauri, 24, from Mumbai, India. I study MSc Management and Strategy, a specialist degree in Managerial Economics. I'm excited for this new chapter at LSE! I have an undergraduate degree in Economics from St Xavier’s, Mumbai and was also an ERASMUS Scholar at SOAS, University of London. After graduating, I worked in finance at a healthcare company as well as in social impact consulting. Academically, I'm interested in the application of theoretical economic models to business case studies. In my spare time, apart from stressing about all the things I should instead be doing, I enjoy reading and exploring bookshops.

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Example LSE Personal Statement in Economics

by Talha Omer, MBA, M.Eng., Harvard & Cornell Grad

In personal statements samples by university.

The following personal statement is written by an applicant who got accepted to Masters’s program in Local Economic Development at London School of Economics. Read this essay to understand what a top Personal Statement in economics should look like.

Sample Personal Statement for LSE

“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher.

As a child, my daily routine composed of attending school, helping with household chores, and learning embroidery. For all I knew, this was how girls lived in rural Balochistan. However, when I was 15, my family shifted to urban Karachi, where I saw a new world. The new moon of this unique place brought a lot of challenges with itself. I did not know how to converse with my privileged peers, and I had to study extra hours to compete with them. But the most shocking realization was that there was no trace of my previous lifestyle in this city, and girls had very different aspirations here compared to those in my village.

Harsh realities of chronic poverty, income inequality, and persistent unemployment are widespread in Pakistan, but the situation is even worse in my native Balochistan. Despite being rich in natural resources, nearly all Balochis live below the poverty line. As one of the few educated Balochis who has experienced hunger, I have always considered it a personal responsibility to play an active role in resolving the economic challenges of this province.

With this ardent desire, I joined Chief Minister’s Policy Reform Unit (CMPRU) as an economist research officer in Balochistan. My experience at the CMPRU, which provides policy support to Balochistan Chief Minister’s office, has been invaluable. Working directly with the Government’s economic advisors has enlightened me about the practical implications of economic theories. I have played a lead role in preparing a concept note called “Proposed Balochistan Development Vision and Strategy” for the development of primary sectors using the ‘Big Push’ and ‘Unbalanced’ growth theories. I used demographics and economic variables for identifying Rural and Urban Growth Nodes, i.e., selected areas where the development effort will be concentrated. District-wise data was used to build the primary economy of the province, which in turn would trigger growth in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.

At CMPRU, I also conducted in-depth research on the ‘State of School Education in Balochistan’ and proposed actionable recommendations to improve school education. The output variables (student performance of grades five to ten) were correlated with input variables (school facilities) to analyze the data on education. The findings convinced the education department to opt for multi-room, multi-teacher schools instead of one-room, one-teacher schools, which were strengthened using distance learning techniques. The results of my work were also published in “The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press”.

I particularly enjoyed this research work because it was an extension of a cause I previously worked passionately for – the ‘Strengthening Poverty Reduction Strategy Monitoring Project’ (SPRSM). At SPRSM, I was engaged in a pro-poor and gender analysis of the provincial budget of the Government of Balochistan. My work revealed how the provincial budget is being used as a powerful tool to favour the males over the females and how the poor choices of government spending enhanced gender inequity. For example, constructing more boys’ schools was creating education inequality. The Planning & Development Department and key Ministries brought my work to light as a landmark study, and its findings were incorporated into the forthcoming budget.

Balochistan remains stagnant in the pre-industrial era and the grip of a robust military insurgency. Unfortunately, the people of Balochistan have never been taken on board while deciding their province’s fate; consequently, an armed struggle in the region continues to date. Currently, the Federal Government has agreed to give control of the Gwadar Port to a Chinese company on 43 years lease, and similar sentiments are surfacing in local stakeholders as they feel distanced from important decisions. When bottom-up economic policies are used to initiate the decision-making process, we will be able to see better results.

My experiences have convinced me of the importance of Economics in the socioeconomic development of a society. Consequently, I have decided to pursue an MSc in Local Economic Development at LSE, where I wish to seek and explore the contextualized definition of development from the point of view of indigenous people in Balochistan. Balochistan, being in the nascent stage of economic development, requires a unique development model to reap the benefits. The particular focus of LSE’s program on policy frameworks for local economies will enable me to devise the right policy interventions to spur economic growth in the province.

Working directly with the Chief Minister Balochistan Office and having the mandate to advise the Government on its policymaking, I have identified specific areas where I wish to make a significant impact after completing my LSE degree. For example, NGOs in Balochistan conduct pre-budget consultations every year to force provincial governments to make citizen-friendly budgets and increase the size of the Annual Development Plan. However, such efforts are not bringing any change. I regard this failure as a lack of technical expertise of the NGOs and the absence of their initial formal economic analysis of past government spending behaviours.

Following this rigorous and insightful MSc program, I feel I would be better equipped to trace the gaps and inefficiencies in budget-making and suggest ways to eliminate their inefficiencies. Furthermore, connections made with alumni, students and teachers at LSE will help me learn more about solutions others have implemented in other countries and then adapt them to Balochistan. I will also be able to use this platform to pique people working in Balochistan and forge partnerships with local NGOs and government institutions in other countries.

LSE will allow me to live in a multicultural setting and learn from other cultures. Moreover, it will let me tell people about life in Balochistan. Through this degree, I aim to complement my experience with a broad-based economic education and analytical tools that not only provide me with an academic foundation but also enable me to tackle real-world economic problems. I firmly believe that our economic policies should protect our wealth and resources and promote open markets and economic growth. 

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Lse - Economics

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To me, Economics is the intertwining of science and art. The models, theories and flow of thought in Economics concepts I learn in school is similar to that of science ...

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My parents have instilled a sense of inquisitiveness in me, alongside a willingness to share ideas through daily conversations, ranging from contemporary issues to their business plans. Seeing an advertising ...

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Last summer, I visited my country of origin, Cameroon, for the first time since I was a child. Although I expected big differences from the UK, the scale of the ...

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My strong desire to study Economics at university is founded upon my growing understanding of the development of the subject in the past century. In part, my fascination is with ...

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Ah, Economics. This is one subject that highlights my love of learning and overcoming academic challenges. The all-pervasive and consequence oriented nature of Economics appeals to me the most and ...

Please note UCAS will detect any form of plagiarism. PSE and its contributors do not take any responsibility for the way in which personal statements are used.

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Economic history personal statement example.

My study of India’s Dalits enabled me to consider history in a socioeconomic context. I was shocked that “Untouchability” still pervading Indian society has such detrimental economic effects like discrimination in the markets and diminished education opportunities.

This harmful mix contributes to high poverty rates and inequality; According to Multidimensional Poverty Index, around two-thirds of Dalits are destitute - I realised how prejudice is a crucial factor in stifling economic development of some groups. I desire to develop an independent think tank to tackle these issues, and studying at an undergraduate level will begin to give me the necessary skills and understanding that are vital for developing socioeconomic solutions.

Watching the movie The Help, which portrayed 1960s African Americans locked significantly below living wages and facing underdevelopment due to segregationist policies, strengthened my agreement with Muhammad Yunus’ interesting perspective that “wealth acts like a magnet”. The struggle of minorities who have no magnets, and the negative effects of bias in societies troubles me.

In particular, Becker’s work on labour market discrimination strongly supports my opinion that prejudice is harmful to equality development. If minorities were disfavoured and unemployed due to preferential employment, they would be unable to break the poverty cycle and would be vulnerable to the exploitative practice of paying minorities at a lower wage, disadvantaging those who are in employment due to wage differentials. Both scenarios lead to a divergent pattern in incomes.

Whilst I agree with Milton Friedman that capitalism acts as a “solvent” for discrimination, holding Yunus’ opinion that certain groups have more magnets than others brings me to the conclusion that a capitalist system with unequal wealth distribution accentuates the problem. Due to this, I found Baradaran’s research on lack of capital resources in US “black banks” (developed from historically segregated black capitalism) fascinating as it has led to a long-term perpetuating wealth gap. I firmly believe magnets of society should be equally distributed to achieve an egalitarian outcome and I am keen to explore how best that can be achieved.

Personally, I think inequality can never be avoided but it can be reduced with positive discrimination such as scheduled caste reservation in education and labour market, allowing Dalits to break through into the private sector. However, because of the skewed role of political power, I realised government initiatives were largely unsuccessful in bridging equality gap as Muslim and Christian Dalits are excluded from affirmative action constitutionally. Reading Acemoglu-Robinson’s argument about the role of bad institutions exacerbating economic quandaries broadened my perspective on how inclusivity in systems is crucial for positive feedback loops for growth, which is pivotal for all Dalits to prosper.

My experience in Model United Nations gave precious insight to these countries’ individual systems, enabling me to evaluate critical political problems such as conflict traps. My participation in other debating platforms such as Oxbridge Debating Forum and World Scholar’s Cup heightened my evaluative judgement skills by assessing different perspectives. Despite my fear of heights, Wall Climbing taught me the necessary lessons of taking risks to overcome the “impossible” for the top. Such risks, I think, are crucial for policymakers - precise but bold steps are key for persistent problems. I appreciate lessons of teamwork, from conceding in debate sessions to reliance on friends during climbing, which will certainly be useful in university life.

I look forward to studying the complexity of social history and its political context in relation to economic development, so I may develop knowledge and skills to undertake research on inequality and develop practical solutions and policies.

Profile info

There is no profile associated with this personal statement, as the writer has requested to remain anonymous.

Author's Comments

LSE - Economic History KCL - History and Political Economy Durham - Combined Honours in Social Sciences Glasgow - Economic and Social History (Soc/Sci) Manchester - Modern History with Economics

I wrote this in a span of five days.. Please don’t attempt this. I was accepted to all universities I had applied to.

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