Hey guys! So as now is the time that people are applying to university, I thought I’d make a post about personal statements; the requirements you have to meet and what you should include.
One of the things that can be difficult about writing a personal statement is UCAS's formatting rules. Your personal statement has to be under 4,000 characters, and no more than 47 lines. I would recommend writing your personal statement to the best of your ability first, putting in everything you think is important and relevent. Once you have written your personal statement, then you can go back and edit it to make sure it fits within the character and line limits.
It can be hard to decide what to put in your personal statement. Here are some things which should be included:
- why you want to go to university: talk about how studying at university will benefit you and why you chose uni instead of another option.
- why you want to do this course: why you enjoy the subject, why you're interested in it, any previous study or reading about the subject.
- your long term goals and ambitions: this will likely tie in with the previous two points. If you're not sure what you want to do as a career, you can say a general field you're interested in (for example I said I didn't have a specific career in mind but said I wanted to work in the publishing industry) or give other goals like gaining a full understanding of a subject or going on to further study.
- work experience: if your work experience is relevent to the course you want to do, definitely put it in and say what you learned and why it made you want to study what you're studying. If you don't have any relevent work experience, it may be a good idea to try and get some over the summer. However, work experience isn't necessary, though it is helpful. You can also find relevent parts of the work experience to talk about even if it doesn't really fit your course - for example, I did my work experience in a retirement home and then went on to study English. While this isn't directly relevent, I talked about how my favourite part of the experience was listening to all the stories the residents had to tell, which does relate to English. You can also talk about how your work experience made you realise you didn't want to work in that sector, and how you became interested in your current subject.
- Extra reading outside school: this shows that you are genuinely interested in the subject, and are willing you work during your personal time which shows dedication.
- Extra curricular activities: things like music, sport, volunteering, etc. Make sure that when you talk about these you expand on how they have given you important skills. For example, someone who says the play basketball has an edge over someone who doesn't play any sports, but someone who says they play basketball and this has made them a great team player and has taught them the value of communicating well with others looks even better. There are numerous skills to be learnt from extra-curricular activities. Learning a musical instrument takes independent study and self-motivation, learning a language shows you're a keen and quick learner, and so on.
- Conclusion: here you should try and summarise the main points of your statement (just as you would in an essay) and then finish off with a positive comment on why the uni should pick you.
Good luck!
