1、UCAS personal statement guide 1 Writing a personal statement is probably one of the most difficult parts of the UCAS form. Many students wont have done much creative writing since GCSE and even if you have, its still very hard to write about yourself Weve produced this short guide to try and help yo
2、u write a personal statement. Just read through it, follow the steps, and you should be ok. We suggest you have a pretty good idea of what course you want to study before continuing much further with your personal statement. Generally personal statements are quite specific so if you decide to change
3、 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. its about you, and there is no real right or wrong way to do it. What weve written below is just a guide, and should not be stuck to rigidly. You may fi
4、nd 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. UCAS advice In the advice for applicants book, UCAS give you a short overview of the personal statement. This doesnt really tell you much, but should te
5、ll you enough to get you started. You get a description of the personal statement, a list of bullet points of information you want to include and some information about printing it. You may also find you college or school gives you some additional information. If you think this information is enough
6、 to go on, and your statement is already forming in your mind then you can stop reading here and get on with your statement!Aims of the Personal statementMany universities dont interview applicants, so the only information they have about you is your UCAS form. Most of the UCAS form only contains yo
7、ur 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, even if your grades dont really reflect th
8、at image.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
9、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 fo
10、r? 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 t
11、heir 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 statemen
12、t. Unfortunately you cannot answer them directly, you need to provide evidence and make it sound believable.Ultimately, admissions tutors are human too, and may well have hundreds of personal statements to shift through, so even if you think youve answered all these questions really well you may sti
13、ll 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 sec
14、tion.Notes about yourselfNow you have some idea of why youre writing a personal statement you need to think about what youre going to write in it. You dont need to start thinking about the wording or structure yet, just get down some ideas of the things you think you could put down.The best way to d
15、o 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 en
16、joyed 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 leadExperiences that show you are a reliable and respo
17、nsible person Part-time job Business enterprise Community and charity work Sixth form committee Helping out at school events and open days Young Enterprise, World Challenge, Duke of Edinburgh award, Asdan Award Debating societies and what youve gained from these experiences.Your interests and skills
18、 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 interestsGap year Why youre taking a Gap year (if you are) Why you want to take
19、a gap year What you plan to do How this may relate to your courseIf youre not taking a gap year avoid this section. If you are it could still be left out, but you may be asked why youre taking it at an interview.You should now have lots of bullet points about yourself, all of which will be useful in
20、 preparing your personal statement. Dont worry too much if you dont seem to have done much off the list, just think about things youve 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 st
21、udy the course, it doesnt 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 youre choosing this course just
22、 because you cant think of anything better to do, thats not a good enough reason, and maybe you should consider looking for a course you enjoy more.Now youve got some ideas together, its time to think about turning them into a personal statement - almost.You and your subjectSaying why you want to ta
23、ke 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 arent committed to your course, you wont get a place.Hopefully the notes you have written for
24、the section above have already given you a good idea of what to write about why you want to take your course. If not then you should at least be sure you want to take that subject - writing a personal statement is a lot of work, and you dont really want to get to the end of it and decide you want to
25、 study a different subject, so before you go much further be sure you have chosen the right subject for you. Remember you dont 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 w
26、hy 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 com
27、mitted to it. Have a think about exactly why the subject appeals to you, and write down as much as you can about it. It doesnt 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 t
28、he subject. Write down as many as you can, if you have too many you can always just pick the best. Other than that I cant give you much more advice - only you know exactly why you want to take your chosen course, but bear in mind, if you cant think of any good reasons - should you really be taking t
29、hat subject?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 h
30、as 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
31、 other part of your joint degree. Alternatively you can just talk a bit about why you want to do both subjects, although the 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 stateme
32、nts 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,
33、and instead talk about the related work that youve already done and how youve 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 accept
34、ed. 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 wan
35、t 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
36、. Try and alter 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 tot
37、ally 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
