How to apply

Who you are dealing with, and two doors

Before the steps, a word about who is on the other side of each of them, because at Level 8 the answer is not obvious from the outside. The two diplomas are delivered by London School of Planning and Management (LSPM), the approved centre for OTHM and Qualifi. LSPM admits you, teaches you, marks your work, registers you with the awarding body and issues your offer. LearnLoom Consultants, a consultancy based in Hong Kong, publishes this site and answers its enquiries as LSPM's independent recruitment agent: we advise, and if you decide to go ahead we introduce you to LSPM's admissions team. LSPM pays us a fee when someone we introduce enrols. You pay LSPM's published fee whichever way you arrive.

That gives you two ways to start: the enquiry form on this site, and LSPM's own application page. Both are open and either is acceptable. We recommend the enquiry form for almost everyone, and this chapter explains why, then walks through every step from there to the first seminar so that nothing about the process should surprise you.

The short version: an enquiry costs you five minutes and gets you a conversation with our adviser before you spend an afternoon assembling documents. An application costs you the afternoon and gets you LSPM's interview. If you have already read this guide and know which diploma you want, go straight to LSPM. If you have any doubt about the level, the diploma or the timing, enquire first.

Step one: the enquiry

The enquiry form asks for your name and email, and optionally your telephone number and country. It then asks two questions that other enquiry forms do not: your current role, and your highest qualification. We ask because those two facts settle most of what a first conversation about Level 8 needs to establish. A finance director with an MBA and a head of department with a bachelor's degree are both welcome to enquire, but the conversation with each will be different, and knowing which one is about to happen lets the reply be specific.

You can preselect the diploma you are asking about, or tell us you are undecided. There is space for a message, and the most useful thing you can put in it is a sentence about the problem you would like to research, if you have one.

The form comes to us and to nobody else, and is read by the adviser named in this chapter's byline, who replies within one working day. There is no automated sequence of emails, nobody telephones you unless you have asked for a call, and nothing is passed to LSPM at this stage. The reply will usually offer a time to talk, ask a clarifying question, or tell you plainly that Level 8 is not the right next step and say what is.

Step two: the advice call

The call lasts about thirty minutes and is with our adviser, the author of this guide, not with LSPM's admissions staff. It is not the selection interview and nothing is decided on it; we have no power to admit anyone and we do not pretend otherwise. Its purpose is to work out, together, whether a Level 8 diploma is worth your time, and if so which one.

Expect to be asked what you want to research, what you have read about it, how many hours a week you can protect, and what you hope to hold at the end. Expect to be told frankly if we think a Level 7 diploma, a direct DBA application, or simply a year's reading would serve you better. We are paid only when someone enrols and completes their fees, which is an incentive to introduce people who will finish, not people who will start. Bring your own questions: the ones we hear most concern progression to a doctorate, the difference between the two diplomas, and fees, and we would rather answer them now than after you have applied.

After the call you receive a written note of what was discussed and, if you want it, the link to LSPM's application page. Fees and payment options come from LSPM in writing, not from us; we will ask LSPM's admissions team to send them. If you tell us you want to proceed, we let LSPM know to expect you and pass on a short summary of the conversation, so that you do not have to begin again. There is no follow-up from us unless you make one.

Step three: the documents

LSPM's application page will ask you to upload the following. You need not prepare them before the advice call, but thinking about the personal statement beforehand makes the call more useful.

A full, current CV with dates. At Level 8 an admissions tutor reads it for the scope and duration of your strategic responsibility rather than for the length of the list.

A personal statement of around a page. Why this level, why now, and what you would want to research. Plain prose serves you better than ambition; the reader is looking for someone who can frame a question, not someone who can describe a vision.

Two referees with contact details. OTHM asks that one should ideally be academic; where your master's is distant and you have lost touch, a professional referee who has seen your analytical writing has been accepted for applicants we have introduced, and two professional references have not been a bar. Confirm with LSPM if you are unsure. Qualifi does not stipulate the type.

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

Evidence of English language proficiency, 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: a passport or national identity document, which the awarding body requires for registration.

Step four: LSPM's interview

Once your documents are in, LSPM's admissions team arranges an interview, normally online. OTHM requires a centre interview as part of its selection process. Qualifi does not; applicants we have introduced report that LSPM interviews for both diplomas, on the reasoning that a stated entry threshold speaks to your past study and not to your present circumstances. Confirm the current arrangement with LSPM when you apply.

The interview is a conversation about the work you propose to do. Expect LSPM's interviewer to probe your research problem if you have one, ask about your reading, and talk frankly about time and access. For the OTHM diploma the interviewer is also assessing what the specification calls your links to the practice your research concerns: in plain terms, whether you genuinely have access to the organisation and the people you intend to study. Where an applicant lacks a master's, this is where the case for exceptional admission is made or not. The decision is LSPM's alone and comes in writing; ask the admissions team how long that normally takes.

Step five: offer and enrolment

LSPM's offer letter states the diploma, the intake, the duration and study mode you have chosen, the fee and the payment options. Nothing in it binds you until you accept in writing. On acceptance you choose a payment plan and pay the first instalment to LSPM, with the fourteen-day cooling-off period that consumer law gives you for a contract made at a distance. Read the refund terms in the offer before you accept; they are LSPM's, and the fees page lists the questions to ask.

LSPM then registers you with OTHM or Qualifi before the first seminar. Your certificate at the end is issued by the awarding body, not by LSPM and certainly not by us, and your record sits with the awarding body. Induction is a first meeting with your LSPM tutor to agree a reading list and a rough schedule; OTHM learners also take an initial view of the optional units, which are settled a few weeks in once the research problem has begun to take shape.

Choosing between the two diplomas

If you arrive undecided, this is how we help you decide on the call, and you can apply the same test yourself.

Choose the OTHM diploma if research is your main reason for studying, if you may go on to a doctorate, or if you want to shape the programme through optional units. Sixty of its 180 credits are research, and its structure most closely resembles the first phase of a professional doctorate.

Choose the Qualifi diploma if your interest is strategy in international organisations, if you prefer a fixed programme that a cohort completes together, or if you want a doctoral-level qualification that stands on its own with research as one component rather than the spine.

Choose neither yet if you do not hold a Level 7 qualification or a master's and cannot make an exceptional case, if you cannot protect around twenty hours a week, or if what you actually want is the title of doctor. In each case we will tell you what we think the right next step is, and it will not always be something LSPM offers.

What to do now

If you have read this far you have done more preparation than most applicants. The enquiry form takes five minutes and comes to us. The apply page has the link to LSPM's application page and a summary of this chapter for reference. The programme pages for the OTHM diploma and the Qualifi diploma set out the units, entry criteria and assessment for each. Whichever door you use, the decision at the end of it is LSPM's, and the same admissions team makes it.