UCAS considers scrapping personal statements for uni applications

From an applicant's POV I think this would be an easier, less stress-inducing process.

From an admissions POV it's a bad idea. With the PS being free format, it's a nice way to distinguish otherwise similar candidates. If they all answer the same 5 Q's then you're going to end up with a huge amount of identikit responses which don't add much value to anyone. We'd probably lean more towards achieved/predicted grades for decision making.

There was some (almost entirely negative) reaction on Twitter to the idea that UCAS might include an option for a video message as well – this didn't make it into the Telegraph story but I think it may have been in the Times. (I've linked the Telegraph one above because its website works better with paywall blockers. ) It'll be interesting to see if there's any more media pickup of this and what details emerge / are confirmed/denied.

It depends on how many lines they allow for each response. While writing my personal statement, the most stressful part for me was the cut. I spent so long trying to cut and re-adjust sentences to fit the character limit. I wouldn't have cared if it was broken down into three or ten questions. I just needed more characters .

Yeah, I know. The whole point was to ensure students didn't get carried away with their responses but a good percentage of us have a little extra to say that's still relevant. Also, the suggested approach feels clinical. It's easy to make an essay unique. It's a lot harder to make each response unique. So many students will end up looking like generic job applicants. This doesn't help at all.

A video message? This will make students even more stressed!

THIS

The questions they're proposing are likely to lead to some of the worst template-PS responses being exaggerated.

We'll likely just ignore answers to most of the 6 questions

"Preparedness for Course – How has your learning so far helped you to be ready to succeed on these courses?" - we know that already by looking at quals taken....it'll only be looked at if an applicant has non-standard quals
"Extenuating circumstances – Is there anything that the universities and colleges need to know about, to help them put your achievements and experiences so far into context?" - we don't want to hear about from applicants, it belongs in the reference or through the admissions policy official process
"Preparedness for study – What have you done to prepare yourself for student life?" Again this is something we can see for 95% of applicants by looking at their quals...my guess is that they've added this in so applicants can still tell us about their hobbies...**** knows
"Preferred Learning Styles – Which learning and assessment styles best suit you – how do your courses choices match that?" Is likely to lead to more applicants demonstrating that they haven't properly researched what our courses involves and lead to increased rejections based on the PS

It needs to be 2 questions: Motivation for the course and Preparedness for the course (of all types)
If they want to add the extenuating circs question then that needs to be passed to and approved by the referee and added to the reference information not bundled into the PS.

Exactly this. The free format of the PS at the moment at least allows a motivated applicant with a bit of gumption to be able to make the most of those 4k characters and sell themselves and their skills to an AT. Trying to force a generic template onto the vastly diverse cohort of university applicants is just going to end up very quickly with the same responses being regurgitated ad infinitum, which will mean ATs will take even less notice of the PS than they do already.

The Medical Schools Council have advised medical schools to ignore the PS for several years now as the support available to applicants is so variable. Bristol does not read them for any subject and, given the speed with which some universities make offers, I think that others (Birmingham, Newcastle?) may not use them either. If it plays a significant part in getting an offer, there is a massive advantage for people with good support.

As suggested above, the universities which want to use PS-style information could follow the example of vet and med schools and send out a questionnaire focusing on what the admissions tutor for a particular course is interested in. With the recent advances in technology it is also much more viable than it used to be for the more competitive universities to bring back interviews.

There is no really fair system, but interviews are fairer than PSs because at least the person doing the interview is the candidate! Or there is the French approach where everybody gets onto the course they want in the place they want, but many do not make it through to the second year as there is brutal pruning.

On a side note, have people seen the revelations about the consequences of the Edinburgh widening participation system which meant that NOT ONE non-contextual Scottish applicant got an offer for law in 2022 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-64247475

Came here to say this - we were saying the same thing in work. I support a lot of WP and non-standard entrants and prima facie, this'd bone them.

And introduce a huge measure of unconscious/ conscious bias

It would favour the outgoing/ very confident students- but what about more introverted applicants who are just as deserving? It’s almost like an extra interview, and heaven knows they are stressful enough.

We can all be doing without this modern mumbo jumbo stuff.

It would favour the outgoing/ very confident students- but what about more introverted applicants who are just as deserving? It’s almost like an extra interview, and heaven knows they are stressful enough.

We can all be doing without this modern mumbo jumbo stuff.

…University requires writing - coursework isn't submitted via video…

It would favour the outgoing/ very confident students- but what about more introverted applicants who are just as deserving? It’s almost like an extra interview, and heaven knows they are stressful enough.

We can all be doing without this modern mumbo jumbo stuff.

It would favour the outgoing/ very confident students- but what about more introverted applicants who are just as deserving? It’s almost like an extra interview, and heaven knows they are stressful enough.

We can all be doing without this modern mumbo jumbo stuff.

It would favour the outgoing/ very confident students- but what about more introverted applicants who are just as deserving? It’s almost like an extra interview, and heaven knows they are stressful enough.

We can all be doing without this modern mumbo jumbo stuff.

"Preparedness for Course – How has your learning so far helped you to be ready to succeed on these courses?"
The usual advice is to show "passion" and interest as well as experience and study, but that isn't strictly included in "preparation for success". Strictly speaking, does interest-based reading help you to succeed in a uni course (particularly if it's, for example, physics rather than MFL)? I don't see how this helps "level the playing field" either.
"Motivation for Course – Why do you want to study these courses?"
This should be combined with the first question.
"Preparation through other experiences – What else have you done to help you prepare, and why are these experiences useful?"
This seems to apply most to, for example, medicine. I'm not sure how this would apply to an English degree. I don't see the advantage of splitting these three questions into separate responses.
"Preparedness for study – What have you done to prepare yourself for student life?"
What exactly do they mean by this? "Preparation for student life" - it doesn't seem like supercurriculars or even extracurriculars belong here.
"Preferred Learning Styles – Which learning and assessment styles best suit you – how do your courses choices match that?"
Seems like a bit of an odd question to me. Presumably applicants read the course description and chose courses that suited them. This doesn't consider that someone might prefer more coursework but still prefer their chosen course based on its content, for instance. Also, would this factor into a uni's admission decision?

What's most striking about this to me is that fairly little space is devoted to talking about experience, supercurriculars, and other engagement with the course subject. That constituted basically my entire PS.

Since the responses here at least are overwhelmingly negative, I wonder whether UCAS will reconsider.

It would favour the outgoing/ very confident students- but what about more introverted applicants who are just as deserving? It’s almost like an extra interview, and heaven knows they are stressful enough.

We can all be doing without this modern mumbo jumbo stuff.