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TSR Wiki > Applications > Personal Statement Library > Writing Your Personal Statement

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Contents 1 Writing your Personal Statement 2 Starting 3 Turning your notes into a Personal Statement 3.1 Things to consider 3.2 What should you include? 3.3 What’s the most important part? 3.4 Should I talk about what I want to do after university? 3.5 What sort of structure should I use? 3.6 Should I talk about my qualifications? 3.7 How do I write it for two different courses? 3.8 How do I prioritise my ideas? 4 Summary of Dos and Donts 5 After you've written it 6 All Personal Statement Articles

Writing your Personal Statement

The Personal Statement is a very important part of your UCAS form. Many universities do not interview, and the personal statement is often the deciding factor. The Personal Statement is your opportunity to demonstrate the thought and consideration that has gone into your choices and to give a flavour of who you are - personality, strengths, skills, hobbies and interests

As a starting point, it's probably worth pointing out that the PS is a Personal Statement - it's about you, and should show off your personality, your abilities, and your ambitions. This page does not contain hard-and-fast rules, just suggested tips - if you disagree, go ahead and ignore anything (and everything) on this page.

If you're completely new to the idea of writing a PS, you should check our FAQ first followed by this guidance from Reading University, and the information available on the UCAS website - section 3.7 of the Your Online Application guide covers PSs in particular.

Starting

This is arguably the most difficult part of anything, and a blank piece of paper or computer screen can be horribly intimidating. Most people won’t be able to just start writing the statement off the top of their head – so it’s a good idea to jot down a few notes first. The main things to think about are:

• what do I want to study? (if you can't answer this, you should probably concentrate on working this out, rather than writing a PS)
• why do I want to study it?
• what personal qualities, interests and experience do I have which show I am suited to this subject, and to study at university?
• what are my other interests and skills?

These are the main things to start with - if this still doesn’t help, you can look at a few more detailed starting points. Many people have trouble writing about themselves and their personal qualities, so if you’re having trouble with this step, pop down to a library or bookstore and get a book out on writing CVs which will go into this process in much more depth.

Something which helped me was to put these headings down on a piece of paper, in a rough table, and to carry that piece of paper around with me. Everytime I thought of something, I was able to write it down before I forgot about it.

Turning your notes into a Personal Statement

So, lets recap - by now, you've worked out what you want to study, and you've made some basic notes on what you want to include. Congratuations! (And yes, I do mean that - I've seen a 'lot' of people who had trouble with these first two steps). Hopefully, it should all be downhill from here, and get progressively easier.

Things to consider

• You've got 47 lines or 4000 characters (including spaces), whichever is shortest.

• Get your personal statement typed up on a word-processor, for example Microsoft Word. Then copy and paste it onto your form on the UCAS website - this allows you to run spell check easily. (Please note, though, that Word adds "curly" quotation marks and other characters that won't show up on your UCAS form, so do proofread it on UCAS before submitting it to ensure it is how you typed it.)

• Have a backup of the file containing your personal statement in a different place from your original statement file, for example on a disc.

• Check it over on the Electronic UCAS form - you won't have lost text but you may lose format depending on your WP package, and special characters such as é or ü will not work, or Microsoft Word's "curly" quotation marks.

• Don’t add in extra spaces (e.g. at the beginnings of paragraphs as indentation), since these are removed.

What should you include?

A basic list, which isn’t conclusive is:

• Interest in the course: Why do you want to do it.
• Relevant work experience
• Skills and qualities required
• Interest in your current studies
• Career Aspirations
• Enthusiasm for the subject
• How are your current studies related
• Any other interest/hobbies/experiences you wish to mention
• Plans for gap year if deferring entry.

What’s the most important part?

From my days of GCSE English, I would say either the beginning or the end. A good first sentence will get the reader interested and ensure they actually read your statement rather than skim it. A good ending will ensure the reader remembers your statement – it probably also helps to have a good middle as well(!). The first line is probably the thing to work on – most people put their reasons for studying the subject at the top, and this is generally regarded to be the most important bit of the statement.

Should I talk about what I want to do after university?

You could, but only if you have a good idea of what you want to do. If you sound sure about what you want to do after uni it gives the impression that you’ve thought carefully about your course and what you want to do with it. It's also a nice way to round off your statement, rather than finishing on less important stuff like extra curricular activities. If you don’t have any future plans, then leave them out – you don’t want to be asked about them at interviews.

What sort of structure should I use?

Most people write their personal statement in an essay style, starting off with the course, and why they want to do it, then talking about their relevant work experience and skills and finishing off with extra curricular activities – though you can use any style which fits you. As a guide, spend around 50% of the space talking about your course and how you’re suited to it, and 50% on your work experience and other activities. Exactly how you write your statement depends on your subject - generally people write more about work experience for vocational subjects like medicine and law than they would for subjects like maths or English where work experience is less important.

Should I talk about my qualifications?

Yes and No.

There’s already a section on the UCAS form for this, so don’t waste the space on your personal statement listing your A level topics or UMS scores. If you have something important which doesn’t go in the qualifications section, ask your referee to put it down in your reference – it will sound better if it comes from them than from you. This goes for module marks as well.

If, however, you've done a major piece of coursework on something relevent to your degree subject, you're currently studying the subject at A level that you hope to take at university or have studied topics related to your proposed degree subject then do mention these things. Explain in detail which part of your current studies you enjoy, what you've learnt, how it has sparked your interest in the subject.

How do I write it for two different courses?

There’s no easy way to write a personal statement for two totally unrelated courses. If the courses are similar (i.e. business studies and economics) you may find you can write a statement relevant to both, without mentioning either subject by name. If the courses are completely unrelated, it may be impossible to write for both subjects without your personal statement sounding vague and unfocused. Instead you will need to concentrate on just one subject and ignore the other – it sometimes works!

How do I prioritise my ideas?

A simplistic approach is to include anything about the course towards the beginning of the statement, and anything that’s less relevant towards the end.

A very simple structure might be:

• Introduction: Why do you want to do the course, how did you make your decision, show your enthusiasm for the subject.

• Relevant work experience [for vocational degrees only - for non vocational courses relevant work experience isn't necessary so can be left out of a PS if you haven't done any] and subject relevant extra curriculars : Anything that you’ve done which is relevant to the subject can go here. Also mention career aspirations.

• Enthusiasm for current studies, and how they help with the degree.

• Skills and qualities: What skills and qualities do you have, and that will you need to do this course. Don't just list skills though, give examples of circumstances when you've demonstrated skills.

• Anything else: This paragraph usually contains hobbies/interests/sports/music/voluntary work. Try to link it with the course or at the least link it to how you manage to stay sane while studying. If you're deferring entry, an explanation of your gap year plans can go here.

• Conclusion: Sum up why the university should take you, and what an offer would mean to you.

Summary of Dos and Donts

DO

DON'T

Discuss your personal statement with your tutor and other teachers. Only put in things you are prepared to talk about at interview (if you have one). Show your personal statement to as many people as possible. Ask them what you've left out, what you could've put in a better light, and what you've over done. Give convincing reasons for why you want to study the course - more than just "enjoying the subject" (this should be a given). For very competitive courses, find out as much as you can about the nature of the course and try to make your personal statement relevant to this. If the course shows a 'C' on UCAS.com the information given there will be especially useful. If you have (realistic) long term career plans, make a link between these and the course you've chosen to study. Mention positions of responsibility with some examples of duties and skills you learnt carrying them out. Talk briefly about what you do outside school. Be reflective. If you make a point like 'I like reading', 'I travelled aboard', say what you got from it. Keep paragraphs concise.

Just list what you're doing now. You should pull out the skills and experiences that are relevant to the courses for which you're applying. Show how your hobbies and interests contributed to your generic skills or personality in a way what supports success on a Higher Education course. Mention skills and activities without giving examples of when they have been demonstrated or what you learnt from them. Anyone can write "I have great leadership skills" in a PS, actually using a sentence to explain when you demonstrated good leadership skills is much rarer and more valuable. Refer to experiences that took place before your GCSEs (or equivalent) except as anecdotes or if absolutely necessary. Mention interests without being more specific - for reading mention authors or genres, likewise with music or art - mention particular artists. Exaggerate or lie!! Apply for too many different courses, making it difficult to write a convincing personal statement which supports the application. Write a statement specific to just 1 institution, unless you're only applying to that one choice. Copy and paste the statement from somewhere else!

After you've written it

• Check it.

• Get someone else to check it - why not use our free PS Helper service?

• Check it once more yourself.

I cannot emphasise the importance of checking your PS, especially when it comes to Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar. No matter how good the content of your PS, if it reads like it was written by a 10-year old, it won't reflect very well on your ability to cope with a degree.

It's also important to check the balance of your personal statement. A common mistake is to write too much about your extra curricular activities - while these are important, I feel that it's generally more worthwhile to write about your reasons for applying - what drives you to want to give up the next 3/4 years of your life to studying this subject?

Compare what you've produced against your notes and/or plan (you did do these, didn't you?). If it's deviated significantly, is this for the better, or has it made your statement worse than it could have been? Did you miss anything out that you wanted to include?

If you can't find a willing victim to proofread your statement, don't forget that TSR offers the Ask a PS Helper forum where you can post your statement for confidential checking and advice.

Good luck!

All Personal Statement Articles

• Writing Your Personal Statement
• Personal Statement FAQ
• Personal statement help from The University of Reading
• Personal Statement Library
  • Personal Statements by Subject
  • Personal Statements by University
  • Add your PS to the library