The FINANCIAL — LSE has admitted its highest proportion of state school undergraduates for over ten years, according to official statistics released this week.
The latest data on widening participation in UK universities, released by the national Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), show that 71.4% of the School’s home undergraduates came from state schools in 2013. This is the highest proportion for LSE since widening participation records began, and well above the benchmark set by HESA.
The 2013 figures also show LSE beat its benchmarks for the proportion of its students from lower socio-economic backgrounds (17.9%) and from low participation neighbourhoods (4.2%). The latter group, in particular, has been difficult to reach for many universities, especially those in the Russell Group, according to LSE.
Director of Recruitment and Admissions, Catherine Baldwin, said that these figures are testament to LSE’s work to widen its pool of applicants:
“LSE works hard to ensure students from a wide variety of backgrounds are encouraged to apply to the School, as well as other universities in London and around the UK.
To help achieve this we undertake a range of outreach schemes for students from year 6 to year 13, such as summer schools, mentoring and access courses. All of these aim to raise the aspirations or attainment of students from non-traditional backgrounds or from groups under-represented in higher education.”
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