Four tiers, every certificate hand-signed
From the Overall Champion down to High Distinction (top 5% globally), every Essay Competition certificate is signed by the LSESU EconSoc President — and certificates in the three premier tiers add the signature of the LSE Economics Department professor who set the prompt. No participation certificate is issued; the four tiers below are reserved for genuine distinction.
From High Distinction to Overall Champion
The Essay Competition does not award participation certificates. Distinction-only awarding is a deliberate design choice — every certificate the Society issues is meaningful because the recipient cleared a real threshold against a published rubric.
The four tiers below are listed top-down — most selective first. The Overall Champion is the single best essay across all five questions; Question Winners are the best essay for each of the five prompts; Top 3 names the next two strongest essayists per question; High Distinction recognises the top 5% of the global submission pool on the 100-point rubric regardless of question chosen.
Note on overlap: the Overall Champion is, by definition, also a Question Winner. The published prize values aggregate (so the Champion’s prize includes the £100 award; a Question Winner who is not the overall Champion receives £50). The Top 3 and High Distinction certificates are independent — a Top 3 awardee on Question 4 may simultaneously fall in the High Distinction percentile band.
For context on cohort size: a typical season since 2017 has drawn submissions in the low thousands across the five questions combined, with the most popular questions in macro and labour economics each attracting several hundred entries. Top 3 within a question therefore represents a genuine percentile of the writing pool for that prompt, not a small-N convenience cut. The Society does not publish exact entry numbers per season — the four-tier structure is calibrated to keep certificate signal high regardless of cohort growth or contraction year on year.
- Entrant name · in English, as submitted
- Tier awarded · plus the question answered (where applicable)
- Season identifier · “2026 LSESU Economics Society Essay Competition”
- LSESU EconSoc President’s signature · on every awarded certificate
- Prompt-setting professor’s signature · on Top 3, Question Winner, Overall Champion certificates
- Department Head’s signature · on the Overall Champion certificate only
Hand-signed by the prompt-setting professor
A core element of the Essay Competition is the certificate’s signature line. Every awarded certificate carries the personal signature of the LSESU EconSoc President. From the Top 3 tier upward, certificates additionally carry the signature of the LSE Economics Department professor who set the prompt the candidate answered — including, for Question 1 essayists, the signature of a serving Nobel laureate.
This is the part of the certificate that travels with the candidate onto a university application: admissions officers reading a Top 3 certificate signed by a named LSE professor know that the essay was assessed and signed by the academic who set the question, not by a generic competition administrator. The signal value comes from the named provenance, not the seal alone.
High Distinction earns eligibility for a Cambridge economics programme
Candidates awarded High Distinction (the top 5% of the global pool) receive eligibility for an economics programme hosted at the University of Cambridge. The exact programme name, dates, and any participant requirements are confirmed to High Distinction awardees after results release.
Cambridge programmes at this level are typically intensive, tutorial-based, and centred on the supervision system — small-group teaching where students defend arguments under live questioning by senior economists. For a high-school student, a week inside that environment is the closest pre-application preview of what reading economics at Cambridge actually feels like.
- Academic place granted by the High Distinction tier; programme details sent to awardees on WhatsApp
- Travel, visa, accommodation arranged separately by the candidate; not bundled into the eligibility
- Programme fees may apply; published by the Cambridge host independently of the Society
- Cannot transfer the eligibility to another candidate; declining it does not affect the High Distinction certificate
A note on relationship. The University of Cambridge is an independent institution; the Society’s relationship with the Cambridge host is a programme partnership for the Essay Competition prize, not a degree-admissions pathway. Winning the Essay Competition does not constitute, and should not be represented as, an application to or admission decision by the University of Cambridge.
Blind double-marking against the 100-point rubric
First pass · independent marking
Each essay is marked independently by two senior assessors against the published six-criterion rubric. Marking is blind — the assessor sees the essay text and the question number but not the candidate’s name, school, or country. Marks are recorded on a 100-point scale.
Reconciliation
Where the two marks differ by more than 10 points, a third assessor reads the essay and the marks are reconciled in conference. The final mark is the agreed score, not a simple average.
Top-tier moderation
Essays scoring in the High Distinction band are read additionally by the Society’s editorial committee. The prompt-setting professor reads the top candidates for their own question to confirm the Top 3 ordering and to choose the Question Winner.
Overall Champion selection
The five Question Winners are read by the editorial committee together. The Overall Champion is selected by deliberation, weighing originality of argument, depth of evidence, and rhetorical craft — not by raw score alone.
From submission to certificate
Submission window closes
1 September 2026, 23:59 GMT+1. Late submissions are not assessed; the window closes precisely at the published deadline.
Marking & moderation
September through early October: blind double-marking by two assessors per essay, reconciliation where needed, and committee moderation of top-tier essays.
Results released
Anticipated October 2026. Award tiers are published by the Society and confirmed to placed entrants on WhatsApp. The close of the season is announced on the same channel.
Certificate & prize
Co-signed certificates are sent within the week after results. Amazon Gift Card codes are sent separately to Champion and Question Winners. High Distinction Cambridge eligibility detail follows on WhatsApp.
Five questions about awards
For paper format see rules; for entry steps see How to Enter; for the master catalogue see the FAQ page.
Why is there no participation certificate?
Can I list the certificate on the CommonApp or UCAS?
If I’m High Distinction but can’t attend the Cambridge programme, what happens?
How do admissions officers verify the certificate?
Can I appeal my mark or my tier?
Aiming for a Top 3 or higher?
Start with the academic syllabus and writing guidance on the resources page. If you want structured feedback on your draft before the deadline, the optional coaching programme is designed for that case. The support team can help you choose between self-study and coaching on a 15-minute call.
