personal statement

Hey, im writing my personal statement now and wasn't aware of the word count. is it a strict limit? im currently at 1300 with much more to write and will struggle to cut it down. any advice is really appreciated!!

Reply 1

MosesSHTAR

From my experience, the word count is a strict limit that shouldn't/cannot be exceeded.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

Emmmaaaa...

Original post by macchapman

Yes it is a strict limit. Ucas won't let you type anymore than the box allowed
And it's a character count, not a word count.
4000 characters and 41? lines

Reply 3

fec1864

You will just have to cut it down a lot, I'm afraid. Stick to the necessities and don't go on a tangent - it is not a story. Depending on the course, talk about your academics/supercurriculars and if you want to (unless it is something like medicine) you can include *relevant* extracurriculars/work experience and how this pertains to your chosen course, but you don't have to. Again, it all depends on your course. I applied for law, and so my PS was pretty much 80/90% academics/supercurriculars.

Also, are you applying in the next round? A little early, no? I'd focus on getting good grades, and write it over the summer.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 4

macchapman

yeah a little early lmao but I j wanted to get ahead, not have the stress of it all. im looking at studying law and talking about work experience, books and lectures has taken up 4000 characters on its own with no room to talk about anything else

Original post by fec1864

You will just have to cut it down a lot, I'm afraid. Stick to the necessities and don't go on a tangent - it is not a story. Depending on the course, talk about your academics/supercurriculars and if you want to (unless it is something like medicine) you can include *relevant* extracurriculars/work experience and how this pertains to your chosen course, but you don't have to.

Also, are you applying in the next round? A little early, no?

Reply 5

fec1864

Original post by macchapman

Oh, perfect! A good choice, I'd say. :wink:

In that case then, work experience and extracurriculars are not important unless you really want to include it (because it is an academic course), but even then it has to relate back to law. You want to focus on your academics and supercurriculars and reflecting on those, which you are already doing, so good job! I'd suggest looking up some good law personal statements to maybe help you get an idea of structure and help you see more what kind of things to keep, and which things to delete (of course, do not plagarise!). Doing so helped me write mine.

I would show you mine, but I'm unsure about whether I can because I'm currently still in the getting offers phase (??), though I do think mine was very strong (my teachers said so, at least). I really only talked about 3 books/supercurriculars in depth in my PS, a little about how I got interested in the first place with law (highly personal), and a TINY paragraph about how my circumstances and characteristics/skills would make me a good law student. With each book, along with my commentary/analysis on each, I also constantly kept relating it back to why that made me want to study law. I currently have 3/3 offers from Bristol, Durham, and Exeter, just to maybe give my advice some credence. Good luck!