London School of Economics

[Jorgeezy]

It's so competitive and I've seen far stronger applicants than myself rejected from LSE (and of course, some long shots get offers)

I can only wait and see, for now I am just concentrating on my Further Maths

Do you think a degree in Maths puts you in at least an equal position with someone with a degree in Economics for want of a job in the financial sector?

 

[legorogel]



It's so competitive and I've seen far stronger applicants than myself rejected from LSE (and of course, some long shots get offers)

I can only wait and see, for now I am just concentrating on my Further Maths

Do you think a degree in Maths puts you in at least an equal position with someone with a degree in Economics for want of a job in the financial sector?

It depends, many people (especially the LSE quant econ) think that economics is smth like applied mathematics. There are jobs you will have an advantage in, like most analyst position and others for which you might need a more qualitative background.

 

[lasbar]



It's so competitive and I've seen far stronger applicants than myself rejected from LSE (and of course, some long shots get offers)

I can only wait and see, for now I am just concentrating on my Further Maths

Do you think a degree in Maths puts you in at least an equal position with someone with a degree in Economics for want of a job in the financial sector?

I have friends working in the City with math degrees..

 

[Sir Humphrey Appleby]



Only in the Senior Mathematical Challenge where I achieved Gold, but my score for the Gold wasn't high enough to get invited to the Olympiad (Around the top 800)

I was referencing it because being chair of the Olympiad shows his ability and all Mathematics undergrads at Bath will be taught by him

Is he a good teacher? If all undergrads are taught by him it means its first or second year stuff, which means I might have just as much knowledge of the course as him. You should focus on how good a teacher he is not how good is research is.

It's so competitive and I've seen far stronger applicants than myself rejected from LSE (and of course, some long shots get offers)

I can only wait and see, for now I am just concentrating on my Further Maths

Do you think a degree in Maths puts you in at least an equal position with someone with a degree in Economics for want of a job in the financial sector?

If this is aimed at me I don't know, but large companies tend to want to see a 2:1 (amongst other things but a 2:1 seems pretty much necessary), which IMO is easier to get in economics. FWIW I only know of three people that work in finance, one has a maths degree, a masters in physics, several languages and good connections, one has a first in economics, two languages and no connections, the other did an apprenticeship after leaving school at 16.

 

[MattR]



It's so competitive and I've seen far stronger applicants than myself rejected from LSE (and of course, some long shots get offers)

I can only wait and see, for now I am just concentrating on my Further Maths

Do you think a degree in Maths puts you in at least an equal position with someone with a degree in Economics for want of a job in the financial sector?

I have friends here in the US doing theoretical math and physics at some of the larger universities, and they get offers to go into large New York financial firms a lot. Maybe there's something unique about them personally, but I know the offers are consistently there.

 

[Jorgeezy]

Hmm, I guess GCSE French and German won't cut it.

I think you can take extra voluntary modules for languages at uni (including Chinese I believe) which could be a good thing to take up

I would really like to do a masters in the US afterwards just for the experience and contacts of a year there

 

[Sir Humphrey Appleby]



Hmm, I guess GCSE French and German won't cut it.

I think you can take extra voluntary modules for languages at uni (including Chinese I believe) which could be a good thing to take up

I would really like to do a masters in the US afterwards just for the experience and contacts of a year there

I wanted to do a voluntary language module but it clashed horribly with my maths modules (I'd have had one maths lesson where I wouldn't be missing a Russian one). The problem with Chinese is that they will expect the same language ability at the end of the year but you have to learn the characters as well. Stick to an alphabet based language if you're going to do it, it takes up enough time (one third of your credits and it needs more work than your maths ones) as it is.

 

[Jorgeezy]

Where did you study? And how long have you been working?

I can't express how excited I am about starting my maths degree, everyone thinks I'm weird aha!

 

[Sir Humphrey Appleby]



Where did you study? And how long have you been working?

I can't express how excited I am about starting my maths degree, everyone thinks I'm weird aha!

Sheffield. And Like I said, the big firms want a 2:1 minimum and anything less than that they ignore you completely. I'm looking at teaching English which I'd rather not do or applying for the army a few years ahead of when I would prefer to.

I do wish I'd done maths and something which requires essays, I used to be quite good at writing and very good at reading (very) quickly and accurately when I was at school but I've lost that to a large extent. Just bear in mind you won't write anything longer than a line until the second term of second year and you won't be reading any decent amounts of text except in a couple of exams. People have said that university essays make them improve their grammar a lot compared to school. Maths degrees are very focussed.

 

[Jorgeezy]

Thanks for all the info. I don't see why I shouldn't get a 2:1 (or a 1st)

 

[NeopreneJeans]

I'm applying to LSE too, fingers crossed

 

[Jorgeezy]

How have your other applications gone?

Best of luck with LSE, what course?

 

[NeopreneJeans]

I'm an international student applying for 2nd year transfer lol, so I'm not holding my breath that much. Worth a shot though. Applied to LSE, Nottingham, UCL and Bristol IIRC.

Going for pure econs. What about you?

 

[Jorgeezy]

Math with Econ (Math dominated course rather than the 50/50 Math and Econ) at LSE and pure Math everywhere else.

Good choices man.

We have the same except I chose Bath over Bristol but it was a close call but I loved the Bath campus (they are like 10 minutes away on a bus for your interest)

What grades are you applying with? and have you heard from any? I would have thought Nottingham might have given you an offer at least if you have strong grades

 

[onix]



Math with Econ (Math dominated course rather than the 50/50 Math and Econ) at LSE and pure Math everywhere else.

Good choices man.

We have the same except I chose Bath over Bristol but it was a close call but I loved the Bath campus (they are like 10 minutes away on a bus for your interest)

What grades are you applying with? and have you heard from any? I would have thought Nottingham might have given you an offer at least if you have strong grades

Whatever you do, don't do pure math, unless you think you're the next Terence Tao, or your love to math is comparable to that of Grigori Perelman. Well, it's a bit exaggerating, but think really hard before going into pure math.