We will use this space for announcements for the coming academic year.

You can find the latest news from the Graduate Admissions Office here.

To secure your offer, you will need to pay a non-refundable deposit of £4,400. Please read the following information carefully to ensure you are aware of the terms of this agreement. The size of the deposit is a proportionate reflection of the amount of resources the Department of Finance (“the Department”) uses during the admissions process and to prepare or your arrival in the Department.

For offers issued before June, the deposit will be due within 28 days of receiving your offer email from Graduate Admissions. For offers issued from June onwards, the deadlines will be as follows:

• June: within 21 days
• July: within 14 days
• August: within 7 days

Your personal deadline date will be specified in an email from the Department’s Senior Admissions Officer, Jasper Heeks. Your place is not secured until you have paid this non-refundable deposit, which is specific to your MSc Finance/Private Equity programme. You should not confuse the terms of it with any other deposit or payment arrangement required by the School.

Payment methods

You need to make this payment in your Student Payment Portal.

• Log in here: Student Payment Portal
• Locate "Deposit/Pre-Enrolment fee"
  • Select "Pay whole amount?" and proceed with payment
• Jasper Heeks will email you to confirm your place after your payment has been processed
  • Depending on the method, payments can take 2-7 working days to be processed
• Guidance on using the portal can be found here

The deposit is non-refundable and non-transferable. This arrangement means that subject to the circumstances set out below, the School will not refund our deposit if after you have accepted your place on the MSc Finance programme you decided to withdraw from it. Moreover, you will not be able to transfer the money to pay part or all of a deposit or tuition fees for another programme of study at the School.

The Department will consider the refunding of part or all of a deposit only under the following exceptional circumstances:

• If a student is unsuccessful in their visa application. In this instance, the student must provide a copy of an immigration refusal notice to the Department, along with evidence that they had started the visa application process in a timeframe, and made a reasonable effort to complete the process, to join the programme.
• If a student does not meet the academic offer condition/s set by the Department, and the Department does not waive the condition/s. The student must provide evidence to the Department to show that they have made a reasonable attempt to meet the condition/s. English language conditions are not considered academic conditions.

Contact:

Unlike your programme fees, the deposit fee is administrated by the Department of Finance, so please contact our Senior Admissions Officer, Jasper Heeks, if you have any questions about the deposit fee.

Email: J.Heeks@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7107 5048

You need to complete the Offer Reply Form to formally accept your offer. This is available in your Graduate Applicant Portal.

You can find further details here.

Please complete the Financial Undertaking Form to indicate how you expect to pay your fees, and the details of any organisation providing financial assistance. You should aim to submit this by 31 July at the latest.

This is available in your Graduate Applicant Portal.

We have a dedicated MSc Finance Offer Holders Facebook group which you can join before arrival. Please note that this group is not monitored by the Department or current students. To join, just click the link below (you need to be a member of Facebook first). Approvals may take a couple of days.

Join the Facebook group.

We have paired you with a member of the current class, who is happy to receive your questions about the programme, LSE, and London life from a student's point of view.

Please check your “MSc Finance Current Student Buddy & Facebook Group" email for details.

To become a fully registered student, you will be required to undertake a two-stage registration process: Online pre-enrolment and Campus Enrolment.

You will receive further information about the registration process in summer 2024.

Campus Enrolment is scheduled for Monday 2 September 2024. This takes place in person on the LSE campus and is where LSE will check your official documents.

You can find further details on what you will need to bring here.

The full-time pre-sessional programme will begin shortly after Campus Enrolment. You will receive more information about this by email in August. Your first four weeks will include:

• An essential pre-sessional course covering core quantitative and methodological material
• Careers guidance and advice to prepare you for the recruitment process - you must prepare a draft CV before arriving
• Networking skills, teamwork sessions and social events, including with alumni
• City Speaker Series – listen to and engage with senior, leading professionals working in a range of City career areas, exclusively addressing your programme

It is important to ensure you begin the visa application process as soon as possible from June onwards. All students who require a visa should review the material on the LSE Student Advice and Engagement Team visa advice webpage.

You can find out how to contact the Student Advice and Engagement Team here.

LSE accommodation

You can find out more about the different accommodation options on the LSE website. Both LSE-only halls and intercollegiate halls (shared with students from other universities) are available. You can also learn more about LSE residences by checking out this Halls at a Glance guide. It gives an overview of the halls of residence, including details about types of rooms, location, catering options and prices. More general guidance is also available from the LSE Accommodation Office. We encourage you to reserve your accommodation as early as possible.

The application system for LSE halls will open in March 2024.

Private accommodation

London is a wonderful city to live in and you may prefer to live in private housing. There are many great neighbourhoods in London, so finding private accommodation can seem daunting at first. The Accommodation Office can assist you with finding private housing and advise on student-friendly options.

You can find information on tuition fee payment deadlines on the LSE website. MSc Finance (full-time) is a classified as a “Standard Programme”.

You will also find instructions on how to make a payment via the website.

The indicative reading list is intended to give you an idea of the level and range of material covered in the various courses. These readings are not mandatory, but they may prove helpful to you in preparing for your arrival.

View indicative reading list.

You can find out more about the Careers opportunities offered by the Department of Finance and LSE Careers on our dedicated Careers page.

You may also be interested in our additional careers resources:

• LSE Careers CVs, cover letters and application forms
• CVs for experienced hires
• Video interviews
• Employment sector information: banking and investment

The programme also boasts an extensive community of alumni, with graduates going on to work across the financial sector. We run a programme of events each year to give students various opportunities to network with alumni, and to ensure that alumni can remain connected to the Department.

There are also several opportunities during the programme to get to know students on the other Master’s programmes run by the Department of Finance.

In addition to your MSc programme you will have opportunity to gain from what is called the 'LSE experience'. Read more about LSE's vibrant campus life and diverse student body here.

To find out more about life at LSE you may wish to visit the LSE Students' Union. The SU is host to a wide range of societies, from sporting, to cultural, to academic - including a number of finance-oriented societies such as:

• Alternative Investments
• Asset Wealth Management
• Green Finance
• Microfinance
• Venture Capital

LSE hosts a public lecture programme featuring over 200 events each year, where some of the most influential figures in the social sciences can be heard, including internationally recognised academics, heads of state and leading professionals. Upcoming events are all featured on the LSE events website.

Previous speakers include Christine Lagarde, Nelson Mandela, Angela Merkel, Robert J. Schiller and Muhammad Yunus.

Lectures and classes can take place any time between 09.00 - 22.00, Monday to Friday. The teaching format for the dedicated MSc Finance courses combines the lecture and class teaching into one three hour “Harvard style” session. This teaching format has been specifically designed to aid the teaching and learning experience of students as it allows a much freer scope for class discussion throughout the lecture.

The majority of the MSc Finance (Full-time) courses are taught in lecture theatres in the Marshall Building. You can view the LSE campus map here.

Your Autumn Term timetable will be finalised in late September. You will select your optional courses during the first few weeks of Autumn Term and will have the opportunity to change these before optional course teaching begins in Winter Term.

Summative coursework:

All dedicated Finance courses contain a coursework element which contributes to the final course grade. At LSE this type of coursework is called summative assessment. Different courses set different types of summative work, however students should expect 2 or more pieces of work to be submitted for each course over the 11 week term, as well as sitting in-class assignments. Some courses require weekly submission of problem sets or homework assignments which all make up a small percentage of the final grade. Class participation counts for a small percentage of the final grade in each course.

Formative work:

At LSE any work which is set but does not contribute towards the final course mark is known as formative work. Formative work is used to inform students how they doing on the course and if they are understanding the concepts taught in lectures. Some formative work is informal, via the setting of problems sets that the lecturer will work through in the next lecture, however most courses will also ask for a piece of work to be submitted and then graded. This is usually to prepare students for the summative assignments.

For students who are new to studying in the UK it is helpful to note the grading system used at LSE. At postgraduate level the following scale is used:

Students should note that marks above 70 are very good, and anything in the high 70s is exceptional. LSE does not mark on a curve and grades cannot be 'negotiated'.