'Personal statements don't matter'

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I'd say it's true in a lot of cases. The fact that people sometimes get offers 24-72 hours after sending their application away, sometimes from top universities, shows that in a lot of cases the admissions process is a mechanical process based on grades, rather than a rigorous assessment of each candidate. Personally if I was an admissions tutor, I'd have a look at the PS, see if they seem interested in the course and put it down and look at grades. I wouldn't care about extra curricula's or anything like that. If I was something like an engineering or business management admissions tutor I probably wouldn't even do that- most applicants apply for those degrees because they want to make money, not because they have a huge level of enthusiasm and pre-existing knowledge.

Reply 21

Like_A_G6

Personal Statements shouldn't matter any more as I believe universities no longer have a maximum number of students to take on per subject. Our uni now has a policy (for engineering) of if you are predicted AAB or higher, you'll receive an offer of A*AA.

Reply 22

Origami Bullets

Different unis have different approaches. Whilst RHUL may not care, others do.

Ultimately, a good PS will never harm an application, and it would be silly to throw away an offer from one of your other choices because you couldn't be bothered to put some effort into your PS.

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Reply 23

Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Piledriver

So today at Royal Holloway open day I went to a talk by an admissions officer who told us personal statements don't matter and we shouldn't spend more than an hour and a half on them. Apparently all they really care about is good predicted grades. It was quite interesting to hearing something the complete opposite of what college have been telling us for the past two months.
I was wondering if maybe they just have this approach as its a less competitive uni :confused:

So I was thinking, how long did you spend on your statement and how much do you think they actually matter?

Unless you're ONLY planning on applying to RH for THAT subject then I'd recommend putting more than a couple of hours into putting your PS together.

Reply 24

BobbieShamrock

All the unis I went to said they place a lot of emphasis on the ps, but I'm applying for history so I suppose writing style is important.

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