my personal statment is too long!

i hav written my personal statement but its about 1000 characters too long!!!
icant cut it down without taking big chunks out - tis very annoying! :confused:

Reply 1

RaulS1987

louise001

i hav written my personal statement but its about 1000 characters too long!!!
icant cut it down without taking big chunks out - tis very annoying! :confused:

I know where you're coming from mate. It took me ages to cut it down too. And now I have a version that fits, but wasn't satisfied with. SO i started the progress all over again.

I think the best thing to do is the include the things you REALLY need to say first. Whether itll end up at the end or middle doesn't matter. Then check how much more space you've got left to write. And decide what else you want too say. When you're still left with a lot of space. Ask people to read it and cut our parts they think are obsolete. It is hard for yourself to cut things out because its like cutting bits out of your life. Its all personal. Get a objective person to check it over =)

Reply 2

arguendo

14

may i suggest you use the ps helper service here? they're very good at this sort of thing. i was able to cut mine down a bit with their help. :smile:

Reply 3

*pitseleh*

20

I did that - 1300 characters too many. It took a while - but with a substantial amount of rewording, some fairly ruthless editing where I'd been too wordy, and the removal of things that were perhaps less important to talk about than others, I eventually managed to squish it down to 4000 characters.

It's not that hard: you've just got to realise that if your statement is 1000 characters too long, you've gone into too much detail / you're covering too many things (easier said than done, I know.. but they want you to make your points concisely! :smile:

)

If you don't want to wait for a response from the PS helper forum, you could always give an overview here of the general topics you've included, and I'm sure we could help you root out the topics which will be deemed less important by universities. :smile:

Reply 4

inabit

OP

no worries iv done it now lol :smile:

Reply 5

bex_26797

14

I am afraid I may hijack this but I am in the same boat, and need to cut back by 1200 characters (with spaces)

Are bullet points acceptable?
Is the talent of being succint what they are looking for in a prospective student?

No bullet points

Just work on how to say things. Most the time you dont have to cut things out, just re-word them, and you'll cut it down gradually. Dont use many connectives either, because you dont need them.

Reply 8

*pitseleh*

20

bex_26797

I am afraid I may hijack this but I am in the same boat, and need to cut back by 1200 characters (with spaces)

Are bullet points acceptable?
Is the talent of being succint what they are looking for in a prospective student?

I personally would avoid bullet points. And yes, I think in a way they are looking for succinctness.. I mean, if you can make point concisely I think it shows you have focus, and are able to avoid giving irrelevant information. I'm sure they know that many applicants could write twice that amount, and so I guess they're trying to force you to focus on only the most important aspects of your application.

I definitely recommend showing your PS to someone who is fairly good at English (so will have a broad vocabulary) and literally going through it, line by line, to find any places where you could rearrange your wording / use different words. You'd be amazed at how much you can get rid of with someone else nagging you to - it's hard to be ruthless by yourself, sometimes. :smile:

Reply 9

Luine

5

Get a teacher to look at it and cut it down. Thats it.

Reply 10

Rhys.

9

bex_26797

Are bullet points acceptable?

No

Is the talent of being succint what they are looking for in a prospective student?

Yeah, partly, as well as everything else.

If you're 1000-1200 characters over the limit then you've either got exceptional work experience or a lot of waffle. Either cut out the least important experiences, or the waffle.

Reply 11

Spudder

2

Wouldn't you rather have too many words than not enough though? I managed to get mine just right (actually finished it and had 4 characters left without checking :biggrin:

) But I know a lot of people are struggling to find 3000 characters :s-smilie:

my personal statment is too long!

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