LSE Acceptance Rate 2025 – The Definitive Guide

Whether you're interested in Humanities, Social Science or Mathematics, the London School of Economics is one of the top universities in the UK for students. However, it's a highly competitive university, with over 25,000 applicants competing for fewer than 2,000 available places each year. Some courses are more competitive than others, though, so this guide explores the admissions statistics for every degree at LSE in 2025.

Last Updated: 4th June 2025

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As one of the top universities in the UK, the London School of Economics sees many applicants each year competing for a limited number of spaces. 

While over 40 undergraduate courses are taught at the university, spaces are very limited, meaning many applicants won’t get in. Even those who made it through the tough admissions process to get an offer only have a roughly 25% chance of actually being admitted, though these statistics vary from course to course. 

This guide will help you understand the LSE admissions report to determine how competitive each course at the university is, as well as some general statistics about the applicants, offer-holders and accepted students from 2024 and 2025. Let’s get started:

LSE Acceptances Rates - overall

Firstly, let’s understand the two key metrics we will be looking at in this guide. Firstly is the acceptance rate, which displays what percentage of applicants were given a place at LSE. This is calculated as: 

Number of admitted applicants/Total number of applicants

While acceptance rates matter, it’s also useful to look at a university’s offer rate – the percentage of applicants who are given an offer. This number is typically higher than the acceptance rate, since not all offer-holders end up enrolling; some decline their offer or fail to meet the required grades.

When it comes to applications for LSE, many argue that the offer rates are more important to consider, as getting an offer is generally the most difficult part of the application process. The data below will highlight this point, as it shows the overall success rates from the last four years of undergraduate admissions, including 2025. Keep in mind that the 2025 acceptance data is based on available places rather than actually admitted students, as exam results have not yet been released. This means this data could be subject to change. 

LSE Acceptance Rates (2022 - 2025)

2025

Applicants: 28,239

Offers: 4,612

Acceptances: 1,842

Offer Rate: 16.3%

Acceptance Rate: 6.5%

2024

Applicants: 26,446

Offers: 4,324

Acceptances: 1,773

Offer Rate: 16.4%

Acceptance Rate: 6.7%

2023

Applicants: 26,740

Offers: 4,594

Acceptances: 2,048

Offer Rate: 17.2%

Acceptance Rate: 7.7%

2022

Applicants: 26,041

Offers: 3,420

Acceptances: 1,740

Offer Rate: 13.1%

Acceptance Rate: 6.7%

As we can see, both the offer rates and acceptance rates at LSE have remained consistently low. With less than 2,000 admitted students in most new cohorts, LSE is much smaller than many other universities in the UK, partly due to its specialised (but limited) course selection. 

However, when comparing these admissions statistics to other Russell Group universities, which have notoriously high admissions standards, LSE may actually be the most competitive of them all. It has offer rates on par with (or slightly lower than) Oxford, but it also has far lower acceptance rates than either Oxford or Cambridge. Despite having more applications each year, LSE has far fewer available places, making it much harder to get a place there than Oxbridge. 

LSE vs Oxbridge - Acceptance Rates

To highlight this point, here are the most recent admissions statistics for both Oxford and Cambridge: 

Oxford Acceptance Rates 2023

Applicants: 23,211

Offers: 3,721

Acceptances: 3,219

Offer Rate: 16.0%

Acceptance Rate: 13.9%

Cambridge Acceptance Rates 2024

Applicants: 22,503

Offers: 4,813

Acceptances: 3,681

Offer Rate: 21.4%

Acceptance Rate: 16.4%

Due to the larger cohorts at Oxford and Cambridge, their acceptance rates end up being much higher than LSE’s, especially Cambridge’s. As well as this, both Oxbridge universities admit a much higher proportion of their offer holders than LSE. This isn’t down to entry requirements, as both Oxford and Cambridge have equally high standards as LSE. 

Instead, this likely comes down to the applicants’ preferences. Oxbridge will typically be an applicant’s first choice if they’ve applied there, and no applicant can apply for both Oxford and Cambridge together. This means there is no overlap between the 50,000+ Oxbridge applications. These applicants can apply to other universities, though, which means they may pick LSE (as well as other G5 and Russell Group universities) as a second choice. 

Due to the comparable entry standards, an applicant who gets an offer from Oxford or Cambridge is likely qualified enough to get an offer from LSE. Therefore, if the majority of these applicants choose Oxbridge over LSE, the offer and acceptance rates at the latter will look very different. 

A similar trend can be seen with the other two G5 Universities – University College London and Imperial College London – though they both had much higher offer rates. Despite this, LSE is still a very popular choice for applicants, and there is clearly no shortage of applicants to fill the available places each year. 

You can learn more about the acceptance rates at Oxford and Cambridge in our dedicated guides: 

While it’s good to know that overall success rates at LSE, the most important statistics to be aware of are the success rates for the course you’re applying to. Each course at LSE has its admissions statistics recorded, so let’s review them all, starting with the top five most popular degrees. 

Less than 16% of LSE applicants were offered a place, but we got 59% of our students into the UK’s top universities.

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LSE Admissions Statistics - Top Five Subjects

Here are the five most popular courses at LSE based on the number of applications received in 2024: 

LSE Economics Acceptance Rate

Economics is by far LSE’s most popular degree, receiving nearly 800 more applications than the next course. Of course, it’s the subject that the university is named after, so it’s no surprise that so many people apply to study there. But how likely are they to earn their place? 

2025

Applicants: 3,731

Offers: 429

Acceptances: 225

Offer Rate: 11.5%

Acceptance Rate: 6.0%

2024

Applicants: 3,617

Offers: 372

Acceptances: 178

Offer Rate: 10.3%

Acceptance Rate: 4.9%

Despite admitting the most students at LSE each year, this course is extremely competitive, with just a fraction of the applicants having a chance to study it. Between 2024 and 2025, the success rates rose slightly despite the increase in applications, but this still remains one of the most competitive Economics degrees in the UK (and potentially the world)  

LSE Law Acceptance Rate

Law is another degree that is typically very popular in the UK, with LSE’s offering being one of the highest ranked. Entering a Law degree at a G5 university is often very tough, so how competitive is LSE’s degree?

2025

Applicants: 2,964

Offers: 440

Acceptances: 170

Offer Rate: 14.8%

Acceptance Rate: 5.7%

2024

Applicants: 2,653

Offers: 408

Acceptances: 160

Offer Rate: 10.3%

Acceptance Rate: 4.9%

The Law department sent out the most offers of any course in 2025, but the course still has a fairly low offer rate. However, the chances of getting an offer did see a significant increase this year compared to 2024, so this trend may continue if the cohort keeps growing. 

LSE Accounting and Finance Acceptance Rate

Accounting and Finance is a less common degree in the UK (it’s not taught by Oxford or Cambridge), but it’s a subject that fits in with LSE’s speciality for financial studies. 

2025

Applicants: 2,283

Offers: 300

Acceptances: 140

Offer Rate: 13.1%

Acceptance Rate: 6.1%

2024

Applicants: 1,929

Offers: 265

Acceptances: 115

Offer Rate: 13.7%

Acceptance Rate: 6.0%

The success rates for this course are fairly average for LSE, although we can see that acceptances increased by 25 places in 2025. Despite giving out 35 more offers, the offer rate actually went down in 2025. 

LSE Management Acceptance Rate

Management is a popular degree that is sometimes combined with Economics, though LSE’s course is stand-alone. Is it as competitive as the ones we’ve seen so far? 

2025

Applicants: 2,123

Offers: 303

Acceptances: 138

Offer Rate: 14.3%

Acceptance Rate: 6.5%

2024

Applicants: 1,994

Offers: 306

Acceptances: 157

Offer Rate: 15.3%

Acceptance Rate: 7.9%

Once again, these acceptance rates are fairly average, although it’s worth noting that this is the final degree of 2025 to admit more than 100 students.

LSE Finance Acceptance Rate

Lastly, we have Finance. Though it’s not as popular as Accounting and Finance, this is still a popular degree. Is it harder or easier to get into this course? 

2025

Applicants: 1,113

Offers: 108

Acceptances: 56

Offer Rate: 9.7%

Acceptance Rate: 5.0%

2024

Applicants: 1,058

Offers: 123

Acceptances: 65

Offer Rate: 11.6%

Acceptance Rate: 6.1%

We can see a major drop in applicant numbers in this course, with it getting over 1,000 fewer applications than the next most popular course in 2025. There were also nearly 200 fewer offers, leading to Finance having the lowest offer rate of the top five courses. The offer rate was more average in 2024, so the course was harder to get into this year – a trend that could continue in 2026.

As we can see, these are all fairly competitive courses, although there are more competitive ones within the university. It’s also worth noting that only two other courses received more than 1,000 applicants, with only four courses overall accepting more than 100 applicants. This shows that a fair amount of the student population at LSE is concentrated in a handful of popular courses. 

LSE Acceptance Rates - A-Z

Now it’s time to look at the remaining courses at LSE, so let’s review their admissions statistics for both 2024 and 2025 (all data is collected from LSE’s official admissions statistics Tableau). Keep in mind that the final acceptance rates for each course have not yet been finalised and could be subject to change:

LSE Actuarial Science Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 416

Offers: 109

Acceptances: 56

Offer Rate: 26.2%

Acceptance Rate: 13.5%

2024

Applicants: 348

Offers: 112

Acceptances: 53

Offer Rate: 32.2%

Acceptance Rate: 15.2%

LSE Actuarial Science (With Placement Year) Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 199

Offers: 28

Acceptances: 12

Offer Rate: 14.1%

Acceptance Rate: 6.0%

2024

Applicants: 134

Offers: 20

Acceptances: 12

Offer Rate: 14.9%

Acceptance Rate: 9.0%

Despite having significantly fewer applicants, the four-year variant of LSE’s Actuarial Science degree is a lot harder to get into, with a 12% drop in offer rate and 7.5% drop in acceptance rate in 2025. 

LSE Anthropology and Law Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 250

Offers: 30

Acceptances: 20

Offer Rate: 12.0%

Acceptance Rate: 8.0%

2024

Applicants: 302

Offers: 27

Acceptances: 19

Offer Rate: 8.9%

Acceptance Rate: 6.3%

LSE Data Science Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 633

Offers: 69

Acceptances: 32

Offer Rate: 10.9%

Acceptance Rate: 5.1%

2024

Applicants: 557

Offers: 68

Acceptances: 25

Offer Rate: 12.2%

Acceptance Rate: 4.5%

LSE Econometrics and Mathematical Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 301

Offers: 0

Acceptances: 0

Offer Rate: 0.0%

Acceptance Rate: 0.0%

2024

Applicants: 271

Offers: 0

Acceptances: 0

Offer Rate: 0%

Acceptance Rate: 0%

In LSE’s official admissions data Tableau, this course is reported to have had no offers or acceptances in both 2024 and 2025, despite receiving applications. This may be down to missing data, as it seems unlikely that the course actually accepted no students for two years in a row. The course is currently being promoted on the LSE website for 2026 entry, so it remains to be seen what has happened to this data. 

LSE Economic History Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 267

Offers: 64

Acceptances: 29

Offer Rate: 24.0%

Acceptance Rate: 10.9%

2024

Applicants: 379

Offers: 65

Acceptances: 39

Offer Rate: 17.2%

Acceptance Rate: 10.3%

LSE Economic History and Geography Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 175

Offers: 34

Acceptances: 6

Offer Rate: 19.4%

Acceptance Rate: 3.4%

2024

Applicants: 132

Offers: 19

Acceptances: 7

Offer Rate: 14.4%

Acceptance Rate: 5.3%

Despite having an above-average offer rate, Economic History and Geography is far more difficult to get into than its standard counterpart. In fact, it was one of the most competitive undergraduate courses at LSE in 2025.

LSE Economics and Economic History Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 434

Offers: 53

Acceptances: 38

Offer Rate: 12.2%

Acceptance Rate: 8.8%

2024

Applicants: 407

Offers: 46

Acceptances: 23

Offer Rate: 11.3%

Acceptance Rate: 5.7%

LSE Environment and Sustainable Development Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 206

Offers: 37

Acceptances: 8

Offer Rate: 18.0%

Acceptance Rate: 3.9%

2024

Applicants: 276

Offers: 35

Acceptances: 16

Offer Rate: 12.7%

Acceptance Rate: 5.8%

2024 saw two versions of the course being offered, with one simply titled Environment and Development. However, only 11 applications were received for this course, and no students were ultimately admitted. Now, only Environment and Sustainable Development remains (though the other variant is still available for postgraduates), but demand for this course has also fallen in 2025. 

LSE Environment and Sustainable Development with Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 273

Offers: 34

Acceptances: 18

Offer Rate: 12.5%

Acceptance Rate: 6.6%

2024

Applicants: 259

Offers: 25

Acceptances: 11

Offer Rate: 9.7%

Acceptance Rate: 4.2%

Inversely to the standard course, Environment and Sustainable Development with Economics saw a slight increase in demand, though not enough to cover the loss of its counterpart. This version is also noticeably more competitive. 

LSE Financial Mathematics and Statistics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 494

Offers: 63

Acceptances: 29

Offer Rate: 12.8%

Acceptance Rate: 5.9%

2024

Applicants: 422

Offers: 66

Acceptances: 35

Offer Rate: 15.6%

Acceptance Rate: 8.3%

LSE Geography Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 377

Offers: 123

Acceptances: 38

Offer Rate: 32.6%

Acceptance Rate: 10.1%

2024

Applicants: 403

Offers: 114

Acceptances: 38

Offer Rate: 15.6%

Acceptance Rate: 8.3%

LSE Geography with Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 272

Offers: 59

Acceptances: 27

Offer Rate: 21.7%

Acceptance Rate: 9.9%

2024

Applicants: 279

Offers: 65

Acceptances: 27

Offer Rate: 23.3%

Acceptance Rate: 9.7%

LSE History Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 503

Offers: 214

Acceptances: 58

Offer Rate: 42.5%

Acceptance Rate: 11.5%

2024

Applicants: 532

Offers: 217

Acceptances: 62

Offer Rate: 40.8%

Acceptance Rate: 11.7%

LSE History consistently has one of the highest offer rates at LSE, despite having a fairly average acceptance rate.

LSE History and Politics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 412

Offers: 76

Acceptances: 25

Offer Rate: 18.4%

Acceptance Rate: 6.1%

2024

Applicants: 481

Offers: 88

Acceptances: 36

Offer Rate: 18.3%

Acceptance Rate: 7.5%

LSE International Relations Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 758

Offers: 168

Acceptances: 50

Offer Rate: 22.2%

Acceptance Rate: 6.6%

2024

Applicants: 767

Offers: 141

Acceptances: 43

Offer Rate: 18.4%

Acceptance Rate: 5.6%

LSE International Relations And Chinese Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 111

Offers: 35

Acceptances: 9

Offer Rate: 31.5%

Acceptance Rate: 8.1%

2024

Applicants: 112

Offers: 35

Acceptances: 13

Offer Rate: 31.3%

Acceptance Rate: 11.6%

LSE International Relations And History Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 260

Offers: 93

Acceptances: 31

Offer Rate: 35.8%

Acceptance Rate: 11.9%

2024

Applicants: 256

Offers: 84

Acceptances: 25

Offer Rate: 32.8%

Acceptance Rate: 9.8%

LSE International Social and Public Policy Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 253

Offers: 73

Acceptances: 23

Offer Rate: 28.9%

Acceptance Rate: 9.1%

2024

Applicants: 272

Offers: 79

Acceptances: 36

Offer Rate: 29.0%

Acceptance Rate: 13.2%

LSE International Social and Public Policy with Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 515

Offers: 53

Acceptances: 25

Offer Rate: 10.3%

Acceptance Rate: 4.9%

2024

Applicants: 444

Offers: 18

Acceptances: 8

Offer Rate: 4.1%

Acceptance Rate: 1.8%

In 2024, this course was the most competitive degree at LSE by a significant margin. However, while it still has a low acceptance rate in 2025, it has become more in line with the average rates of admission at the university. 

LSE International Social and Public Policy with Politics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 238

Offers: 24

Acceptances: 9

Offer Rate: 10.1%

Acceptance Rate: 3.8%

2024

Applicants: 261

Offers: 40

Acceptances: 13

Offer Rate: 15.3%

Acceptance Rate: 5.0%

LSE Language, Culture and Society Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 213

Offers: 75

Acceptances: 15

Offer Rate: 35.2%

Acceptance Rate: 7.0%

2024

Applicants: 195

Offers: 74

Acceptances: 17

Offer Rate: 37.9%

Acceptance Rate: 8.7%

LSE Mathematics and Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 765

Offers: 97

Acceptances: 60

Offer Rate: 12.7%

Acceptance Rate: 7.8%

2024

Applicants: 707

Offers: 96

Acceptances: 50

Offer Rate: 13.6%

Acceptance Rate: 7.1%

LSE Mathematics with Data Science Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 482

Offers: 87

Acceptances: 60

Offer Rate: 18.0%

Acceptance Rate: 4.4%

2024

Applicants: 366

Offers: 59

Acceptances: 19

Offer Rate: 16.1%

Acceptance Rate: 5.2%

LSE Mathematics with Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 380

Offers: 78

Acceptances: 37

Offer Rate: 20.5%

Acceptance Rate: 9.7%

2024

Applicants: 311

Offers: 60

Acceptances: 34

Offer Rate: 19.3%

Acceptance Rate: 10.9%

LSE Mathematics, Statistics and Business Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 721

Offers: 81

Acceptances: 43

Offer Rate: 11.5%

Acceptance Rate: 6.0%

2024

Applicants: 521

Offers: 87

Acceptances: 52

Offer Rate: 16.7%

Acceptance Rate: 10.0%

LSE Philosophy and Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 334

Offers: 63

Acceptances: 38

Offer Rate: 18.9%

Acceptance Rate: 11.4%

2024

Applicants: 294

Offers: 55

Acceptances: 17

Offer Rate: 18.7%

Acceptance Rate: 5.8%

Although demand didn’t increase dramatically for Philosophy and Economics in 2025, the cohort size was nearly doubled, which caused a large boost in the acceptance rate for the course. 

LSE Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 179

Offers: 44

Acceptances: 11

Offer Rate: 24.6%

Acceptance Rate: 6.1%

2024

Applicants: 187

Offers: 42

Acceptances: 12

Offer Rate: 22.5%

Acceptance Rate: 6.4%

LSE PPE Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 1,094

Offers: 138

Acceptances: 39

Offer Rate: 12.6%

Acceptance Rate: 3.6%

2024

Applicants: 1,039

Offers: 140

Acceptances: 55

Offer Rate: 13.5%

Acceptance Rate: 5.3%

PPE stands for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, which is a popular course to study in the UK, particularly at the University of Oxford. LSE’s degree is also very popular, being the last course to receive over 1,000 applications in 2025. 

LSE Politics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 308

Offers: 78

Acceptances: 33

Offer Rate: 25.3%

Acceptance Rate: 10.7%

2024

Applicants: 306

Offers: 69

Acceptances: 24

Offer Rate: 22.5%

Acceptance Rate: 7.8%

LSE Politics and Data Science Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 91

Offers: 22

Acceptances: 7

Offer Rate: 24.2%

Acceptance Rate: 7.7%

2024

Applicants: 140

Offers: 47

Acceptances: 13

Offer Rate: 33.6%

Acceptance Rate: 9.3%

LSE Politics and Economics Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 898

Offers: 116

Acceptances: 59

Offer Rate: 12.9%

Acceptance Rate: 6.6%

2024

Applicants: 789

Offers: 113

Acceptances: 62

Offer Rate: 14.3%

Acceptance Rate: 7.9%

LSE Politics and International Relations Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 1,112

Offers: 91

Acceptances: 37

Offer Rate: 8.2%

Acceptance Rate: 3.3%

2024

Applicants: 982

Offers: 78

Acceptances: 24

Offer Rate: 7.9%

Acceptance Rate: 2.4%

In 2025, Politics and International Relations narrowly missed a spot on the top five most popular courses by just one applicant. However, it is one of the most competitive degree at the university as well. 

LSE politics and Philosophy Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 319

Offers: 95

Acceptances: 33

Offer Rate: 29.8%

Acceptance Rate: 10.3%

2024

Applicants: 324

Offers: 94

Acceptances: 38

Offer Rate: 29.0%

Acceptance Rate: 11.7%

LSE PBS Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 917

Offers: 214

Acceptances: 51

Offer Rate: 23.3%

Acceptance Rate: 5.6%

2024

Applicants: 762

Offers: 189

Acceptances: 54

Offer Rate: 24.8%

Acceptance Rate: 7.1%

LSE Social Anthropology (BA) Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 232

Offers: 137

Acceptances: 30

Offer Rate: 59.1%

Acceptance Rate: 12.9%

2024

Applicants: 248

Offers: 115

Acceptances: 31

Offer Rate: 46.4%

Acceptance Rate: 12.5%

LSE Social Anthropology (BSc) Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 105

Offers: 64

Acceptances: 20

Offer Rate: 61.0%

Acceptance Rate: 19.0%

2024

Applicants: 122

Offers: 66

Acceptances: 18

Offer Rate: 54.1%

Acceptance Rate: 14.8%

At LSE, Social Anthropology has both a BA and BSc variant, which is somewhat unusual for UK degrees. However, both versions are two of the least competitive courses at the university.

LSE Sociology Acceptance Rate

2025

Applicants: 528

Offers: 113

Acceptances: 36

Offer Rate: 21.4%

Acceptance Rate: 6.8%

2024

Applicants: 597

Offers: 98

Acceptances: 37

Offer Rate: 16.4%

Acceptance Rate: 6.2%

Sociology is the final standard undergraduate course at LSE. General courses are also taught, but these are closer to foundation years than full degrees. In 2025, 400 out of 441 applicants received offers, with 338 being admitted. This would make them the least competitive courses at LSE. 

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LSE Admissions Statistics - What Can We Learn?

Now that we’ve seen the admissions statistics for all of LSE’s undergraduate courses, it’s time to break this data down and answer some important questions. Let’s get into it!

LSE's Most Competitive & Least Competitive Courses

The first question that may be on your mind is “Which courses are the most difficult to get into?”. It’s a good question to ask, as well as wondering if your chosen course is easier to get a place on. 

Thankfully, the offer and success rates for each course can provide a good indication of which ones were the easiest and hardest to get into, so let’s look at the top five most and least competitive courses at LSE:

Hardest LSE Courses To Get Into

Firstly, let’s look at the courses with lowest offer and acceptance rates:

Lowest Offer Rates At LSE 2025

CourseApplicantsOffersOffer Rate
Politics and International Relations1,112918.2%
Finance1,1131089.7%
International Social and Public Policy with Politics2382410.1%
International Social and Public Policy with Economics5155310.3%
Data Science6336910.9%

Lowest Acceptance Rates At LSE 2025

CourseApplicantsAcceptancesAcceptance Rate
Politics and International Relations1,112373.3%
Economics History and Geography17563.4%
PPE1,094393.6%
International Social and Public Policy with Politics23893.8%
Environment and Sustainable Development20683.9%

As we can see, it’s not the most popular courses that are the most competitive. While PPE and Politics & International Relations have high applicant numbers, the other entries in these lists are far less popular, especially those with the lowest acceptance rates. 

A common trend seen here is that the most competitive degrees tend to relate to politics and international studies. These are both very lucrative fields to enter and are subjects that LSE excels in, so it makes sense that spaces for these courses would be in high demand. 

The most popular degrees, like Economics and Law, have more average success rates, typically around an 11% – 14% offer rate and 5.5% – 6% acceptance rate, which as still fairly low compared to other universities. 

Easiest LSE Courses To Get Into

Next, we’ll look at the courses with the highest offer and acceptance rates:

Highest Offer Rates At LSE 2025

CourseApplicantsOffersOffer Rate
Social Anthropology (BSc)1056461.0%
Social Anthropology (BA)23213759.1%
History50321442.5%
International Relations & History2609335.8%
Language, Culture & Society2137535.2%

Highest Acceptance Rates At LSE 2024

CourseApplicantsAcceptancesAcceptance Rate
Social Anthropology (BSc)1052019.0%
Actuarial Science4165613.5%
Social Anthropology (BA)2323012.9%
International Relations & History2603111.9%
History5035811.5%

Looking at the least competitive courses, we can see that they are mostly less popular degrees with lower applicant rates. Of these degrees, History is the only one that stands out as being a somewhat popular subject, with 500+ applicants being a typical rate for a standard degree (especially when considering the variants linked to more popular subjects like Politics and Economics).  

Social Anthropology is the clear winner in terms of which course is the least competitive, with both variants ranked as the two easiest subjects to get an offer for.

However, when looking at these statistics, one thing becomes very clear: there is a large divide between the offer and acceptance rates of a lot of courses. While we’ve already explored the reasoning for this, it’s also worth looking at which courses have the biggest gap between the two success rates. 

Offer and Acceptance Divide

Below are the courses that have the largest difference in offer and acceptance rate:

CoursesApplicationsOffersOffer RateAcceptancesAcceptance Rate% Divide
Social Anthropology (BA)23213759.1%3012.9%46.1%
Social Anthropology (BSc)1056461.0%2019.0%41.9%
History50321442.5%5811.5%31.0%
Language, Culture and Society2137535.2%157.0%28.2%
International Relations and History2609335.8%3111.9%23.8%

As we can see, the courses with the highest success rate divides are the ones with the highest offer rates. This is typical for universities, as some courses will send out far more offers than they have spaces for. 

However, it’s important to note that these divides are smaller than some other universities, such as UCL. However, that university houses far more courses in a wider range of fields, many of which cross over with Oxford and Cambridge. 

All of this information should be useful when planning your application, but there is one more key piece of data that you should be aware of if you are applying from outside the UK…

LSE Application Statistics: International Applications

Universities are becoming more and more welcoming of international students, especially at prestigious universities such as LSE. As such, the rates of UK vs international students are changing each year, though UK students are typically still the majority of admitted students.

However, it can be helpful to know how likely you are to get a place as an international student. Thankfully, LSE has published data that reveals this information, so let’s review. (Be aware that data has been suppressed for countries where applicants/offers/acceptances are fewer than 5):

LSE International Applications 2025

Applicants: 16,390

% of Total Applicants: 58.0%

Offers: 2,058

% of Total Offers: 44.6%

Offer Rate: 12.6%

Acceptances: 847

% of Total Acceptances: 46.0%

Acceptance Rate: 5.2%

As we can see here, international applicants actually outnumbered UK applicants in 2025, and made up a fairly proportional amount of the offers and acceptances. 

The offer and success rates are also fairly reasonable, although these are only against the international applications. The success rates against the whole cohort were just 7.3% and 3.0%. However, it’s still clear that international applicants have a better chance of success and make up a much larger proportion of the student population when compared to Oxbridge, which admits 25% international applicants out of the cohort. 

Interestingly, within the UK, the vast majority of students appear to come from England, with very few applications or acceptances from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland: 

EnglandScotlandWalesNorthern Ireland
Applications11,41413622390
% of Applications40.4%0.5%0.7%0.3%
Offers2,420154514
% of Offers52.5%0.3%0.9%0.3%
Offer Rate21.2%11.0%20.2%15.6%
Acceptances9325197
% of Acceptances50.6%0.3%1.0%0.4%
Acceptance Rate8.2%3.7%8.5%7.8%

English students make up over half of the overall cohort, which makes sense given that the university is located in London. However, other English universities have been able to attract students from elsewhere in the UK, so it’s surprising to see such little representation here. We can also see that Scottish applicants have the worst chances of success by far, while Wales and Northern Ireland are relatively similar to England.

However, while LSE isn’t that popular for some UK applicants, there are several countries that send a lot of applicants to LSE. But how successful are these countries? Let’s find out:

Top 10 Countries For International LSE Admissions

CountiresApplicationsOffersAcceptances% of Applications
China3,82255421513.5%
India1,562133525.5%
Singapore1,3042261014.6%
USA89544123.2%
Hong Kong781157662.8%
France70690372.5%
Malaysia667119772.4%
Germany42152191.5%
United Arab Emirates (UAE)40162331.4%
Spain34458231.2%

Of the countries seen here, there are no major surprises, as the data follows recent trends in UK education seen at many universities. Chinese students have been applying to G5 Universities in large quantities in recent years (the same can be seen at Oxford and Cambridge), while European students still see an appeal in the UK despite the implementation of Brexit.

However, the countries with the most applicants aren’t necessarily the ones that are the most successful. While more students will likely be admitted if more applications are sent, they may have lower success rates than those who sent fewer applications. Let’s look at the ten most successful countries based on their offer and acceptance rates:

Top 10 Most Successful Countries For International LSE Admissions

CountiresApplicationsOffersOffer RateAcceptancesAcceptance Rate
Japan1062826.4%1614.8%
Thailand1313224.4%1713.0%
Malaysia66711917.8%7711.5%
Wales2234520.2%198.5%
Hong Kong78115720.1%668.5%
United Arab Emirates (UAE)4016215.5%338.2%
Northern Ireland901415,6%77.8%
Singapore1,30422617.3%1017.7%
Switzerland1953216.4%147.2%
Spain3445816.8%236.7%

The most successful countries (based on acceptance rate) were actually ones that sent fewer applications. These acceptance rates are based on the number of applicants from each country, so it’s logical that ones with fewer applicants would be more successful. However, these statistics indicate that applicants from Japan had the best chances of success against competitors from their own country, even more so than English applicants. 

In cases like this, it seems that while the country submitted fewer applications overall, there was a higher proportion of qualified students amongst this cohort. We can see that international superpowers like China and the USA saw much smaller acceptance rates despite receiving more offers (5.6% and 1.3% respectively).

It’s important to note that this data only covers reported figures, as any data under 5 is suppressed for the safety of the students. While we can’t see the exact figures, we can see that some countries with very low applicant counts saw at least one admission. Domiciles like Colombia, Nepal, Tanzania, Peru, Zimbabwe, the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man saw at least one acceptance from fewer than 20 applications, which could potentially make them all eligible for the top ten. 

In two specific cases, Bahrain and Sierra Leone, fewer than 5 applications were received, but up to four acceptances were achieved. This could potentially give these two countries a 100% acceptance rate, with the absolute minimum being 25%, higher than almost every other country. However, as the sample size is so small and we do not have the exact figures, these have been excluded from the list. 

Now that you have a clearer understanding of the success rates at LSE, you can use this information to inform your application strategy. While it can be useful when selecting a course, it’s ultimately more important to choose a subject you’re genuinely passionate about—your enthusiasm and interest will naturally strengthen your application.

Regardless of whether the acceptance rate for your chosen course is high or low, it’s crucial to put maximum effort into your application. Admission to any LSE course remains highly competitive, and even the least competitive programmes have offer rates below 20%. Your application must meet LSE’s rigorous standards, no matter the course. Also, keep in mind that LSE is a part of the Russell Group, whose members have extremely varied acceptance rates. 

If you want to learn more about the admissions processes at LSE, Oxford, Cambridge and more, be sure to explore our huge selection of guides that cover everything from college selection to interviews. If you want to go even further, explore our Full-Blue Programmes to learn how you can enrol and receive the most comprehensive and effective application support around. We’ve achieved a 59% success rate, meaning we can more than triple your chances of success. Either way, we wish you the best of luck with your application!

Less than 16% of LSE applicants were offered a place, but we got 59% of our students into the UK’s top universities.

If you want the best chance of getting into Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and more, enrol on a Full-Blue Programme to receive industry-leading support for your application. Each of our students has access to comprehensive resources, expert one-to-one tuition sessions, intensive courses and much more, all designed to give them the best possible chance of success. 

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UniAdmissions students placed at Oxford And Cambridge

To maximize our students’ chances of getting their offer, through our Scholar Limit we have reduced the number of students per programme to provide a higher standard of teaching and support.

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