Frequently Asked Questions

LSE’s campus and halls of residence will be open to welcome all of our new students for Welcome (Monday 21 September) with a range of enhanced safety measures in place to protect and support you. We expect students to register at LSE for the start of term as our campus will be open. However, if your enrolment is delayed by travel restrictions or problems obtaining your visa, support will be available for you from your programme teams and from central support services until you are able to join us later in Michaelmas Term. 

To ensure an excellent educational experience, we are taking a flexible approach to your teaching and learning throughout the Michaelmas Term. Here are some key elements that will shape your term: 

New students will be able to register for the academic year online, which will be followed with an on-campus enrolment event when you arrive in London. 

Small in-person classes, seminars, tutorial groups, as well as Harvard style teaching sessions, will run on campus where possible, all in socially distanced environments. These activities, as well as other student support, will also be accessible to students unable to access campus if there is a delay to you joining us in London. 

Lectures will be delivered online for Michaelmas Term 2020. All lectures will be recorded and made available for you to access off-campus. 

All programmes will continue to maximise students’ ability to work together, both online and on campus, and contribute safely to your learning community. A mix of interactive activities between classes will give you the opportunity to connect with our world-leading faculty, share ideas with fellow students and engage with LSE’s rich education and research culture.  

We know your experience at LSE is shaped outside of the classroom too, and we will offer you a range of exciting opportunities to develop skills and try new things. These include giving back through volunteering, developing your entrepreneurial ideas via LSE Generate, shaping your community through LSE Students’ Union activities and societies and our new online public lecture programme. All activity will start from Welcome 2020, which will be delivered digitally and in-person. You can also access thriving regional alumni groups too, which operate across the globe.

Across campus and halls of residences, we will introduce enhanced health and safety measures. Where appropriate it is likely that we will go beyond government guidance, based on scientific advice and the expertise of our academic faculty. Face coverings whilst indoors on campus in shared areas and in communal spaces in residences will be mandatory. A robust set of protocols will also be put in place that take a holistic view of how to keep our community safe and well. This includes enhanced cleaning and hygiene practices, recalibrating space, floor markings to ensure social distancing, controlled access to campus buildings and mechanisms to identify and assist individuals and our community more widely if people are unwell. We will also explore what contributions ‘test, trace and isolate’ processes and temperature checks at key points on campus can make to safety, amongst other measures such as hand sanitising stations, disinfectant wipes for classroom settings, one way circulation routes and reduced capacities in teaching and social learning spaces.

We are committed to working in partnership with you to enhance your experiences and Disability and Wellbeing Services, Careers, Student Advice and LSE LIFE will continue to be available to guide you through the next academic year and beyond through excellent online and in-person services where possible.  

We do recognise that it may be difficult for some students to travel internationally to London for the start of term and support will be put in place so that you can access online provision in Michaelmas Term if this is the case.  

LSE's Director, Minouche Shafik said:  

“I very much look forward to welcoming our new students to London for the 2020/2021 academic session in September. The wellbeing of our School community is paramount and our flexible approach to teaching and learning will ensure an excellent education and student experience continues safely for all. We are a global community at LSE, and we are committed to sustaining that openness as we shape the world in partnership with students, staff and friends of our School in the academic year ahead."

Your health and safety is paramount. To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, everyone on campus must adhere to the following requirements:

Universal Face Coverings: everyone must wear a face covering over the nose and mouth in School buildings, and in designated campus areas when others are present unless they are exempt from doing so for medical or disability related reasons.

Social Distancing: classrooms, study spaces and communal areas are being reconfigured to provide at least the government recommended distance between people, and while on campus, everyone is expected to maintain this recommended physical distance from others where possible.

Self-Monitoring: anyone coming to campus must self-monitor for symptoms and stay at home if they have potentially been exposed to COVID-19 or have had any symptoms over the past two weeks. Anyone with symptoms should self-isolate and get tested for Coronavirus. For further guidance on symptoms and related matters please see this NHS page.

Track and Trace: we ask that you utilise any School track and trace system to enable the School to look after your health, safety and wellbeing, as well as that of other members of our community.

COVID-19 Reporting: If you test positive for COVID-19 you must self-isolate as per the NHS guidance and inform the School via its track and trace system as soon as possible.

Our International Student Visa Advice Team (ISVAT) have a dedicated FAQ page for Coronavirus (COVID-19) immigration advice for current and prospective students.

If your question is not answered in their FAQs, use their query form to contact the team for advice.

If you're looking to book LSE student accommodation, please visit this page on how to book, cancellations and changes, and how COVID-19 measures may affect your accommodation.

If you live in halls or have recently moved out, this page explains the support that's available, what fees you have to pay, what to do if you've moved out, how to collect your belongings and other things that may affect your stay in halls during the coronavirus pandemic.

The UK government has established travel corridors with a number of countries. The most up to date information on UK quarantine rules can be found online. If quarantine controls are in place for your home country at the time of your arrival in London, you will be able to quarantine in your LSE hall of residence if you have booked a place to stay in halls. Residences staff will provide you with support and guidance on how to do this safely in your hall.

If you're self-isolating in one of our LSE Halls of Residence we will provide you with the necessary advice and support to help you through the two-week period. We will also provide you with face coverings and cleaning products will be available for you to use in shared spaces.

You can book a place in halls from 1 September to allow you to self-isolate should you need to. This applies to students who have already booked LSE accommodation for the year and to students who have booked a place in private accommodation, subject to availability. You should contact vacations@lse.ac.uk for further information on how to make your booking.

If you are experiencing financial difficulties, and need help with the cost of your additional stay for your quarantine period, please contact accommodation@lse.ac.uk

Our Halls of Residence web pages provide more information on the health and safety measures we have put in place for COVID-19.

We are also looking at measures to support those who need to quarantine but have not booked a place in one of the LSE halls of residence. Further information about the measures we are putting in place in our Halls of Residence can be found on our Residences web pages.

New students will be able to register online for their LSE programme from August 2020. We will send you information about this shortly.

For students needing to re-register, you can find all the information here.

Welcome 2020 events will be running from 21 September, both online and on campus, and we hope that students will travel to London to take part in these activities.

For the majority of students, term begins on 28 September. We ask students to make every effort to come to campus for the start of term. This is because we are planning to run teaching and learning sessions, eg. seminars, tutorials and classes, on campus in a socially distanced environment. 

However, if your travel plans are impacted by COVID-19 we will put support in place for you to access your teaching and learning remotely in Michaelmas term. 

We expect students to join us on campus for the start of term. However, we know that some students may not be able to join us  for some or all of Michaelmas Term. 

If you are not able to make it to London for the start of Michaelmas Term due to travel restrictions, visa delays, health/medical–related issues, or other COVID-19 related circumstances outside of your control, you will be given access to online teaching until you are able to travel to campus.Online provision will only be made available for Michaelmas Term.

LSE has introduced a new online registration process for 2020/21, which means that you can be a fully registered student without being on campus.  During the registration process you will be asked if you need to study remotely (online only) for a fixed period because of the ongoing impact of COVID-19.  It is currently not expected that this fixed period of remote study will extend beyond the end of the Michaelmas Term.

When you register online you will be asked to tell us when you are likely to arrive (it is ok to give us an approximate date) and provide us with a little more information on the reason for your delay, so we can provide you with the right guidance and support. The information will then be sent to your academic department who will contact you with the information you need to access the teaching and learning for your programme online.  

Students studying online will also have access to support from a range of LSE services. While we will try to provide as much as we can to students studying remotely, there may be some activity which we cannot offer online. Examples of these are likely to include work and volunteering opportunities, as well as access to some on-campus events. 

The option to follow your programme remotely via online study is currently available for Michaelmas Term only. We expect all students who do not have January exams to arrive on campus for in-person teaching at the start of Lent Term (Monday 18 January 2021). We will provide an update on January exams shortly.

If you need to study remotely for some or all of Michaelmas Term, you should also check, and take responsibility for, any other arrangements that may be impacted by a period of online study.

These may include:

• Accommodation contracts
• Scholarships or loans
• Visa conditions for international and EU students (who, post-Brexit and under current rules, would need a visa if they do not take up residence in the UK before 31 December 2020). The coronavirus immigration FAQs have further information about this, and you can contact the International Student Visa Advice Team if you need further advice.

It is also your responsibility to ensure that you are able to study remotely in an appropriate environment.

The School does not alter the Conditions of Registration very often. We have set out in the updated Conditions some of the scenarios where it may be necessary to do this: in particular, we are mindful that government advice and guidance from regulatory bodies may change over time, as the pandemic evolves.

The health and wellbeing of our student community is our top priority and therefore it may be necessary to adjust the Conditions once again. We will always make every effort to keep changes to a minimum and to notify students in good time of any changes that are going to be made.

We will be providing much of our Welcome activity, videos and presentations online this year so you will be able to access them wherever you are and whenever you arrive on campus.

We will also be running some on-campus activity throughout the term to ensure that all our students are welcomed to LSE, regardless of when they arrive.

We will run classes, seminars and tutorial groups, as well as Harvard style teaching sessions, face-to-face on campus in a socially distanced environment, wherever possible. These classes will also be accessible by students unable to access campus in the early weeks of the term. 

Where departments are running synchronous classes/seminars, they will run at least twice so that students in different time zones can engage with them at the start of term.

As term progresses, we expect all students to take part in face-to-face classes, seminars and tutorial groups on the LSE campus. 

All lectures will be delivered online for the Michaelmas Term.

All lectures will be recorded and made available for you to access wherever you are.

All students will have the opportunity to work together between classes in Peer Study Groups on tasks or activities (academic and social).

We aim to timetable classes/seminars during regular hours on weekdays as far as possible. We will only schedule classes/seminars in the evenings and weekends when there is no other option. 

Where possible, we aim to ensure that the classes/seminars scheduled in the evenings and at weekends have alternative classes/seminars timetabled during weekday hours.

For undergraduate classes in which we can achieve this (keeping in mind that we will not be able to achieve this for all courses), you should be able to request a change to your allocated class via LSE for You. For graduate seminars, you should be able to select an appropriately timed group via LSE for You or via your department where possible.

Experts in our Eden Centre for Education Enhancement have guided the development of our flexible approach to teaching and learning to ensure that you benefit from LSE’s high standards in education in a safe environment.

Our flexible teaching approach will be subject to our stringent quality assurance processes, ensuring that there is no compromise on the rigour or standard of LSE degrees.

We will continue to apply our validation, monitoring and review mechanisms to assure the quality of our courses and programmes.

If you are not able to make it to London for the start of term due to travel restrictions, visa delays, health–related issues, or other COVID-19 related circumstances outside of your control, you will be given access to online teaching until you are able to travel to campus.  

Online provisions will vary across departments, but besides pre-recorded or synchronous online lectures, this may take the form of online tutorial sessions, Q and A with faculty, peer study groups for on-campus and online students or similar activity designed to build and strengthen our student community. While we will try to schedule teaching to accommodate students studying remotely, some synchronous teaching may not always be available within normal teaching hours in your location. 

For information about how inform us about your plans for Michaelmas Term, take a look at How do I let LSE know if I can’t arrive on campus for the start of term?FAQ above.

We have had to make significant changes to teaching and learning for Michaelmas Term, to accommodate new ways of teaching and learning in light of ongoing COVID-19 measures. This means that alongside putting in additional health and wellbeing measures on campus to keep our community safe, we have had to temporarily reduce the number of courses we can offer.

We have made these changes due to the following factors: 

• From the start of Michaelmas Term, we will be observing social distancing protocols, which reduces the maximum in-person class sizes
• To ensure equitable access to course for all students, we aim to run each seminar or class twice. This is to accommodate students who may not be able to access a class due to timezone differences, or for students who may have caring responsibilities.

These changes mean that we have fewer available teaching spaces and greater timetabling pressures, which is why are reducing the number of courses available to students this year.  

This has not been an easy decision to make, and we know that students appreciate the variety of courses that LSE offers. Departments have considered carefully which course to continue offering, and which ones to suspend. Departments have kept the course offering as varied as possible, to allow you to select courses to create a pathway through your degree programme that suits you.

We are recording lectures and classes, some of which will be recorded ‘live’ at the point of delivery, so that all students can access them online at the most appropriate time for them.

Online lectures form a key part of our flexible teaching approach next term and their availability is a useful learning resource for all students.

The Library will be open for all students and staff at the beginning of Michaelmas Term. You will be able to access study spaces and the LSE collections, all in a socially distanced environment. We have also worked hard to make core books and texts available online for you to access remotely, and we will continue to add to these collections through the academic year.

On top of our current online provisions, including one-to-one support and increased e-book access, the team are also developing further services to support you, details of which will be shared when finalised.

For further information on what is currently accessible and the latest updates, check the LSE Library webpages.

In the meantime, all staff and students can search for and access online material remotely at any time.

The Students’ Union is working with students and its clubs and societies to provide a programme of events and activities for the 2020-21 academic session.

More information will be available on their website over the summer. 

We know your experience at LSE is shaped outside of the classroom too, and we will offer you a range of exciting opportunities to develop skills and try new things. 

These include giving back through volunteering, developing your entrepreneurial ideas via LSE Generate, shaping your community through LSE Students’ Union activities and societies and our new online public lecture programme. All activity will start from Welcome 2020, which will be delivered digitally and in-person. You can also access thriving regional alumni groups too, which operate across the globe.

We are committed to working in partnership with you to enhance your experiences and Disability and Wellbeing Services, Careers, Student Advice and LSE LIFE will continue to be available to guide you through the next academic year and beyond through excellent online and in-person services where possible.

 Across campus and halls of residences, we will introduce enhanced health and safety measures. Where appropriate it is likely that we will go beyond government guidance, based on scientific advice and the expertise of our academic faculty. 

Face coverings whilst indoors on campus in shared areas and in communal spaces in residences will be mandatory. A robust set of protocols will also be put in place that take a holistic view of how to keep our community safe and well. This includes enhanced cleaning and hygiene practices, recalibrating space, floor markings to ensure social distancing, controlled access to campus buildings and mechanisms to identify and assist individuals and our community more widely if people are unwell. 

We will also explore what contributions ‘test, trace and isolate’ processes and temperature checks at key points on campus can make to safety, amongst other measures such as hand sanitising stations, disinfectant wipes for classroom settings, one way circulation routes and reduced capacities in teaching and social learning spaces.

Students who are ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ or are living with someone who is ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ 
 
The School is working hard to keep our community safe, well and supported as we begin the new academic year on campus. We are putting in place a range of measures to help make LSE COVID-secure. 
 
However, it is important that students who are ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ and students who live with someone who is ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ read and follow the advice available on the NHS website. 
 
LSE is making all teaching and learning available online for Michaelmas Term so students who wish to study online for safety reasons can do so until the start of Lent Term. We expect all students to be on campus for teaching and learning from the start of Lent Term. 

If you are ‘clinically vulnerable’, or live with someone who is clinically vulnerable, you should also read and follow the advice available on the NHS website.
 
If you would like to speak to a member of staff about your wellbeing on campus please contact the Disability and Wellbeing Service by emailing disabilitydyslexia@lse.ac.uk.

LSE has undertaken extensive and rigorous risk assessments and health and safety assessments on all rooms and communal areas of the LSE campus. 

The measures we are putting in place are designed to keep our community as safe as possible. We are unapologetic about the fact that we will sometimes go beyond UK government guidance on social distancing or the use of face coverings to ensure our campus is safe. 

If you're exempt from wearing a face mask, then you'll need to register as exempt with the Student Wellbeing Service and display an identifying sticker on your LSE ID card. Find out more about registering and collecting your sticker on the student mask exemptions webpage.