How applying for a Level 8 diploma works

Apply directly

Open the programme page for the diploma you want and use Apply on the LSPM website there (LSPM's portal is course-specific, not a general landing page). Upload your documents and wait for LSPM's admissions team to arrange the interview. Nothing about this route involves us. If you already know which diploma you want and that you meet the entry point, it is the shorter path.

Enquire here first

Send the enquiry form, have a thirty-minute call with our adviser, and decide afterwards. If you go ahead, we hand you to LSPM's admissions team with a note of what was discussed, and you apply on the same LSPM page. You pay the same fees either way; LSPM pays us a fee if you enrol, and that is disclosed on every page here.

Whichever door you use, the decision to admit you is LSPM's alone. We do not sit on the interview, see your documents unless you send them to us, or have any say in the outcome.

Most of the people we have introduced to LSPM at Level 8 began with the enquiry form rather than the application page, and we prefer it that way. The form asks for your current role and your highest qualification because those two facts settle most of the questions an application would raise. Education adviser, LearnLoom Consultants reads every form and answers within one working day; there is no automated sequence of follow-up emails, and nobody rings you unless you ask.

The reply will usually do one of three things. It will suggest a time for a call, if the fit looks plausible. It will ask a clarifying question, if something in the form is ambiguous. Or it will say frankly that this is the wrong level for you at the moment and name a better one, which is less a rejection than an attempt to save you a year.

Whichever diploma you apply for, LSPM's application page will ask you to upload the following. Preparing them before the advice call is not required, but having thought about the personal statement makes the call more useful.

Curriculum vitae

Complete and current, with dates. At Level 8 an admissions tutor reads it for the scope of your responsibility, not the length of the list.

Personal statement

Around a page. Why this level, why now, and, if you have one, the problem in your organisation you would want to research. Plain prose is better than ambition.

Two referees

Names and contact details. OTHM asks that one should ideally be academic; where that is not possible, a professional referee who has seen your analytical writing is generally acceptable, and LSPM will confirm. Qualifi does not stipulate the type.

Certificates

Your master's degree or Level 7 diploma, and a transcript if you have one. Overseas awards are welcome; LSPM may ask for a statement of comparability.

English language evidence

Only where English is not your first language and your previous degree was not taught in it. The specifications list the accepted tests and scores.

Identity

Passport or national identity document, which the awarding body requires for registration.

Fee information is not requested at application. Nothing is payable until you hold an offer from LSPM and have chosen to accept it; the fees page explains how that works.

You speak to our adviser, Education adviser, LearnLoom Consultants, for roughly half an hour. We are not part of LSPM's admissions team and this is not the selection interview; it is where you and the adviser settle whether doctoral-level study makes sense for you now, and which of the two diplomas fits. You will be asked about the problem you would like to investigate, what you have already read on it, and the weekly hours you can honestly protect. If our view is that a master's-level diploma, applying straight to a DBA, or simply a year of reading would serve you better, we will say so.

Bring your questions. The ones we hear most are about progression to a doctorate, which we answer carefully because the decision is a university's and not ours or LSPM's; about the difference between the OTHM and Qualifi diplomas, which turns on how much research you want; and about fees and payment plans, which we will ask LSPM to set out for you in writing rather than quote from memory.

Once your application and documents are with LSPM, its admissions team arranges an interview, normally online. A centre interview is part of OTHM's selection process for its diploma. Qualifi leaves it to the centre, and applicants we have introduced report that LSPM interviews for both diplomas; confirm the current arrangement with LSPM when you apply.

The subject is the research you intend to carry out. Expect questions on the problem itself, on the literature you have met so far, and on whether the time is genuinely there. OTHM applicants are also asked to show that they have real access to the organisation and people they mean to study, which is what the specification means by links to practice. LSPM confirms its decision in writing; ask the admissions team how long that normally takes for the intake you want.

These steps are LSPM's. We describe them so you know the shape of what follows; the offer letter and learner agreement you receive from LSPM are the documents that govern.

1. Offer letter from LSPM

   States the diploma, the intake, the duration you have chosen, the study mode, the fee and the payment options. Nothing in it is binding on you until you accept.

2. Acceptance

   You confirm to LSPM in writing, choose a payment plan and pay the first instalment to LSPM. The cooling-off period and refund terms are in LSPM's offer and on the fees page.

3. Registration with the awarding body

   Before teaching starts LSPM registers you as a learner with OTHM or Qualifi, which is the organisation that will eventually issue your certificate.

4. Induction

   You meet your LSPM tutor to settle an initial reading list and a working schedule; OTHM learners also take a first look at the optional units.