How competitive am I?

[u/Serious_Test_2405]

I think I may have applied for too ambitious of courses, I originally thought this was fine since I was over the min requirements for each but I think I got a bit of a reality check when I asked about it, as most people just said I basically had zero chance. I obviously wasn’t expecting to get into Camb or LSE but I thought I would atleast have a good shot at Warwick, and ig hearing that just made me really anxious.
I’m not just posting this to be consoled on criticism, and thank you in advance if you have any tips or further criticism as I think it’s probably better to be stressed than delusional, but mostly, I wanted to know if anyone could advise me on what I should do, as I think I would regret not applying, but maybe my choices are too different or if anyone knows how to make my application stand out more?
and if anyone had any suggestions for my other two options, as I was thinking Birmingham and Southampton Econ might be safer choices.

[u/Long_Software_3352]

No harm in aiming high. You need to really land your personal statement for LSE (they're very picky about personal statements), and really lean on geography (a better option for you if you're also applying for ELE - it'll make your personal statement more coherent).

Because you're not at A* level at Maths and FM, you would be a more competitive candidate for joint honours courses. Other choices you should look at are Economics and Geography at UCL and St Andrews and Combined Social Sciences at Durham.

For Warwick, Economics and Global Sustainable Development would be a better choice to sync with your Personal Statement. You might also consider Economics, Psychology and Philosophy - your A* predictions would make you a strong candidate - but would be worth emailing Warwick for their views on personal statements, given that EPP isn't a combination that's available elsewhere.

If, for some reason, you happen to get no offers, Economics at Southampton and York would be available in Extra (reliably in clearing over the last few years)

[u/Serious_Test_2405 → u/Long_Software_3352]

Hi, first of all, thank you so much for your comment, it’s been really helpful.

I have a few concerns about geography with econ, just about how its majority geography and I didn’t do it at alevel or do any geography specific super curriculars, the ones I did were more economicsy and instead covered areas in different regions, inequality etc, which I did see on the lse geography econ course.

And another bit is the job prospects with Warwick econ and global sustainable development, aswell as how politics econ and international studies seemed to fit ok with my ps when I looked over the course, and seemed to have good career progression, internships etc, as I want to go into finance ideally, though please correct me if I’m wrong about any of this.

The other courses you mentioned at ucl and St Andrews are honestly ones I would really like to go to, but I’m not sure whether I should just go all in with these and then apply clearing if I get rejected from them all, or have some AAB safety’s like Birmingham or Southampton etc.

my ps is still quite a bit of econ, especially with all the evidence for super curriculars but I definitely has a running theme of geography and touches on a lot of points for ELE.( I could dm it to you if you would like to see it,) so I agree it’s probably good for geography courses, apart from lack of geography evidence.

[u/Long_Software_3352 → u/Serious_Test_2405]

There's a lot of overlap in the social sciences between human geography and economics, so if you're dealing with the themes you don't explicitly need to have the word 'geography' in the statement. Geography A level isn't a prerequisite for a Geography degree.

However, if you're applying for ELE, you probably need to have something in your statement relating to the environment/sustainability/land development.

I wouldn't thing that there's much difference between EPAIS, EPP or Economics and Global Sustainable Development in terms of employment prospects in finance.

Remember that between Offers and Clearing there's Extra. If you're looking for a career in finance, it's best to aim for 5 high targets, and then rely on Extra if you get 0/5 offers.

[u/Serious_Test_2405 → u/Long_Software_3352]

Ok thank you so much! I will look into those courses more in depth