Writing a personal statement

Writing a personal statement is probably one of the most difficult parts of the UCAS form.

You need a  good idea of what course you want to study before continuing. Generally personal statements are quite specific so if you decide to change the course you are applying for you would need to rewrite your personal statement.

Before you start remember this is a "personal" statement - i.e. it's about you, and there is no real right or wrong way to do it. What is written below is just a guide, and should not be stuck to rigidly. You may find by choosing your own structure, and writing what you want to write about, gives a better picture of yourself to the reader than anyone else can.

Aims of the Personal statement

Many universities don't interview applicants, so the only information they have about you is your UCAS form. Most of the UCAS form only contains your details, the bits the universities are interested in is your grades, your references and your personal statement. The personal statement is the only bit you really have control over, so this is your chance to present a good image to the admissions tutor.

If you are applying to an oversubscribed university course, and everyone applying is likely to have good grades, the personal statement is the only thing that tells you apart from other applicants, so you want to try and make yours as good as possible.

When the admissions and subject tutors look at your personal statement, they are likely to be asking two main questions:

1. Do we want this student on this course?
2. Do we want this student at this university?

These can be broken down into a number of easier to answer questions:

Is the student suited to the course that they are applying for?
Does the student have the necessary qualifications and qualities for the course?
Is the student conscientious, hardworking and unlikely to drop out?
Will the student do their best and cope with the demands of the course?
Can the student work under pressure?
Will the student be able to adjust to their new environment at university?
What are their communication skills like?
Are they dedicated to this course and have researched it well?
Do they have a genuine interest in the subject and a desire to learn more about it?

These are the sort of questions you need to answer in your personal statement. You cannot answer them directly, you need to provide evidence and make it sound believable.

Admissions tutors may well have hundreds of personal statements to shift through, so even if you think you've answered all these questions really well you may still be unlucky. There are other techniques you can use to make your statement stand out and appeal to admissions tutors, but remember they are all different and may have different ideas about what they look for in a prospective student. Some of these techniques are discussed in the personal goals section.

1. Notes about yourself

Now you have some idea of why you're writing a personal statement you need to think about what you're going to write in it.  The best way to do this is to use a set of headings and write bullet points about how you relate to these headings. Here are some headings to think about.

What you want to study at university and why
Specific aspects of the courses that interest you
Examples of coursework you have completed
Practical work you have enjoyed
Things you have read related to the subject area
Work experience or voluntary work in this area
Conferences you have attended
Personal experiences which lead to the decision to take this subject
Where you hope a degree in this subject will lead.

Experiences which show you are a reliable and responsible person
Part-time job
Business enterprise
Community and charity work
Sixth form committee
Helping out at school events and open days.

Your interests and skills
What you like to do in your free time
Sport and leisure activities
Subjects you study which are not examined
Musical instrument which you play
Languages which you speak
Prizes you have won or positions achieved in your interests

You should now have lots of bullet points about yourself, all of which will be useful in preparing your personal statement. Don't worry too much if you don't seem to have done much off the list, just think about things you've done which show all your good qualities, or could be written as to show your good qualities.

The important thing is that you have a good reason for why you want to study the course, it doesn't matter if the reason sounds stupid at the moment - you can work on the language later. All admissions tutors will be looking for people who are enthusiastic and passionate about the subjects they want to study, so make sure you really are. If you're choosing this course just because you can't think of anything better to do, that's not a good enough reason, and maybe you should consider looking for a course you enjoy more.

2. You and your subject

Saying why you want to take your course is possibly the most important part of your personal statement. You can have perfect grades, great extra curricular activities and be a really great person, but if admissions tutors feel you aren't committed to your course, you won't get a place.

Writing a personal statement is a lot of work, and you don't really want to get to the end of it and decide you want to study a different subject, so before you go much further be sure you have chosen the right subject for you. Remember you don't actually have to choose the course you want to take yet, just have a rough idea of the subject area or areas you might be interested in.

Now you need to think about exactly why you want to take this subject. Even if you are 100% sure that this is the course for you, you still need to get this idea across to the admissions tutors. If they accept you, you are going to be studying this course for at least the next three years, and you need to convince them that you are committed to it. Have a think about exactly why the subject appeals to you, and write down as much as you can about it. It doesn't matter if you only scribble a few notes, you can modify them before you write the statement, the important thing is you can be sure of the key reasons why you want to take the subject. Write down as many as you can.

What if I want to do a joint degree?

There are two options you can use to tailor your personal statement to joint degrees (ones where you take two subjects e.g. economics and politics). You can talk about just one subject which you feel is most important, and not mention the other. This has the advantage that you can apply for two different joint degrees and only talk about the common element e.g. for economics and politics and politics and law, you would only talk about law. If you decide to do this make sure you talk about the qualities you have which show you are suitable for the other part of your joint degree. Alternatively you can just talk a bit about why you want to do both subjects, which approach you choose will probably depend on how closely related your subjects are.

What if I want to apply for different subjects?

There is no easy way to write personal statements for two unrelated subjects. If the subjects are similar such as maths and statistics or accounting and business studies you may find you can write a general personal statement which applies equally to both courses. If this is the case you many not want to mention either of the subjects by name, and instead talk about the related work that you've already done and how you've enjoyed it.

If your subjects are totally unrelated there is no way you wan write a personal statement which will cover all of them. Instead you need to come up with a statement that gives you the best chance of being accepted. For example if you are applying for one subject at four of your choices and another subject at the other two, you may just want to write a statement related to the subject you chose to study at four universities and either forget about, or change the course at your other two choices.

You also want to consider your predicted grades in relation to the universities you are applying to. Universities which normally make lower offers are less likely to be concerned about a badly targeted personal statement, whereas for universities which make high offers, the statement will be much more important. Try to write your statement so it is more specific to the universities which ask for higher grades, as this will give you the best chance of being offered places at all your choices.

There will probably be some cases where there is nothing you can do, for example, if you are applying for three totally unrelated subjects each at two different universities. There is no advice which will help in a situation like this, except just to consider whether this is really what you want to do. Even if you do apply for three different courses, you will only be able to study one of them, so if you can try to limit your choices to similar subjects.

3. Personal goals of your statement

 Give yourself a set of guidelines to follow when writing your statement.

For example:

Not sound arrogant and pretentious.
Try not to start any sentences with I
Try to have an interesting phrase to start and finish on
Try not to quote books, magazines or publications and make it sound like you had only read them so you could put them on the statement
Do not lie outright and stay as close to the truth as possible
Don't try to be funny or make jokes in your statement
Don't include your hobbies and interests unless they are relevant
Don't use vocabulary you don't normally use and just looked up in a dictionary
 Don't repeat things already on your UCAS form
Don't write a list of all your hobbies and interests without explaining them
Don't say you are going to do something before you come to university
Don't include boring phrases or hobbies which everyone does
Don't take any political viewpoints

4. Language of the statement

From looking at example personal statements you have probably found some language which you like or think works well. The first thing to remember is don't directly copy any of it - not even a single sentence! The reason is, copying statements is plagiarism, and if an admissions tutor sees a statement they recognise they will probably reject you instantly. You should also not copy single sentences for the same reason, sentences which stick out in your mind, may stick out in the examiners also. It is ok to find a sentence or paragraph which is saying what you want to say and adapt it to fit yourself though.

You need to use language which makes you sound enthusiastic about your courses and an interesting person. If you're still wondering what sort of language to use look at existing personal statements, prospectuses and on the web to find sentences which you think fit your views.

University prospectuses are a good place to look, find your course, see how it is described and see if you can work anything similar into your personal statement. Write down a list of words or sentences you would like to use like this:

5. Structure of the statement

Most statements are written in an essay format, but you don't have to do yours like this. Writing it as one large block of text is not recommended. It makes difficult reading. You could  use headings rather than write in an essay style.

A starting guideline is to spend half the statement talking about the course and why you want to take it, and spend the other half writing about yourself and your own abilities. Another approach is to split up your notes into a few categories and write a paragraph on each category. For example:

Paragraph 1: Introduction to my subject, the parts I'm interested in and why
Paragraph 2: What I had done related to my subject which wasn't on the UCAS form
Paragraphs 3 and 4: work experience and things I had done in school
Paragraph 5: My interests outside of school (also contained my responsibilities)
Paragraph 6: My goal of going to university and closing comment

This is only a guideline, and depending on yourself and your course you may want to change things.

Spend most of your time on the start and finish of the personal statement. A good start will interest the reader and cause them to read the statement properly rather than just scanning it. A good ending will mean the reader remembers what you wrote, and hopefully will recommend you. It's a good idea to start with why you want to take your subject, and finish with why you want to go to university or what you want to do next.

6. Writing the statement

Remember the aims of a personal statement. You need to show the admissions tutor why you should be accepted on your chosen course at your chosen university. In addition to what you say in your statement, the language you use and the way it is laid out will be judged as well.

You only have a limited amount of space. It’s better to write a long personal statement that can easily be trimmed down than trying to increase a short personal statement. There is no requirement that you fill the entire space, its better to have a short and well written statement than a long and irrelevant one.

Be positive and interesting, if there is something you are unhappy about, try to portray it in an attractive light.  Before you start, have a look at the websites and prospectuses of universities you are applying for, and see if they say anything about writing personal statements. This information would probably be written by the admissions tutors, and would give you a much better idea of what sort of things to put down.

Now you're ready to go. You want to write in a way that is informative, interesting and useful. Along with writing about what you've done, try and explain why you did it, or what you think you learned from it. For example:

I currently have a part time job and this has taught me much about teamwork, responsibility and time management in the workplace.

Ok from this point you’re on your own, move on to the next section when you've got a complete (draft) statement.

7. After writing the statement

By now you should have a pretty much complete first draft of your statement. Don't worry if it sounds disjointed, you've missed bits out or it's too long or too short, you can correct things like this later.

First read through what you've written slowly and try to read it from someone else's point of view. Make sure it's easy to read and not confusing, make sure you've said everything you want to say and not under or oversold yourself - if you are confused by reading your own personal statement, it is likely anyone else reading it will be too.

Next get other people to read it, mainly your family, friends, teachers and anyone else who you think will be able to give you a good opinion. As well as checking for spelling and grammar mistakes, they will be able to tell you if they think there is anything you've missed out.

 Hopefully by looking at your statement again and showing to other people you should have a whole bunch of changes to make to your original statement. Before making these changes, save a copy of your original statement so you can go back to it if you need too. Keep making changes, showing people your statement, and making more changes - it's not unusual for people to have done 10-20 drafts (though many do much less) before they are happy with their statement.

Once you've got a statement which reads well, and you are happy with it, it's time to look at the size of it.

The personal statement section has 23 lines on which to write your statement, not including the top line for your name, and the very bottom line, but these could be used if you were very short of space. This will give you somewhere between 300 and 500 words depending on the size of your handwriting/font, spacing, and word length.

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