Gold D of E on a Personal Statement?

Hey guys,
I am in the middle of writing my Personal Statement for University and I was just wondering what's the best way to write about my Gold D of E award?

I've looked on various websites and personal statement examples and everyone writes them differently. Some, make just a passing comment about it, others reflect about it in details, talking about the skills they acquired during the expedition etc. Some people place Gold D of E into their extra curricular activities and some elsewhere in their personal statements.

So my questions are;
1) Where should I place my Gold D of E Award in my Personal Statement i.e. which section?
2) How should I write about it in terms of how much reflection I should include?

To give a bit of background, I'm applying for a competitive Health Care Course and I actually have quite a lot to put on my personal statement.

Any Help would be gratefully appreciated. Thank You

Put barely anything. Your ps should be mainly about the subject you are applying for and the space would be much better spent talking about your work experience and its relevance to the course.

So, you wouldn't recommend I write about how the Gold D of E developed my leadership, team working and problem solving skills and then relate its relevance to the course?

How would you recommend I go about it then? Because I'm completely lost about this, I thought unis liked the Gold D of E? :/ And I thought it showed commitment and that I'm an all rounder?? Any help ???

Thanks for the help

So, you wouldn't recommend I write about how the Gold D of E developed my leadership, team working and problem solving skills and then relate its relevance to the course?

How would you recommend I go about it then? Because I'm completely lost about this, I thought unis liked the Gold D of E? :/ And I thought it showed commitment and that I'm an all rounder?? Any help ???

Thanks for the help

The gold dofe can go in the qualifications section of the UCAS form so unis will see it even if you don't mention it in your PS. Therefore there's no point in just putting a passing comment on it. So if you write about it, talk about it in a way that relates it to the course. However if you've done other extracurricular stuff more relevant to the course I'd write about that instead as it would be more interesting/original as lots of people do dofe.

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They have heard it all before. It won't make you stand out. You should focus on your interest in the course and what you have done to make yourself familiar with what it requires and how you feel you are suited to it. As it's a health course, you need to show you have put the time in to serve others and are aware of the strains involved, which is much better shown by long term volunteering and work experience. Spend a couple of sentences on it at most.

Whilst we're on the topic of putting D of E on the application part of the form, out of interest, does it go in the education section of the application? I've heard that putting D of E on the application section is pretty complicated and that the qualification is difficult to find from the drop down menu and you can only put your highest D of E qualification on there i.e. Gold D of E as opposed to putting all Bronze, Silver and Gold D of E. Also, thanks for the advice!



Well to be honest, the most I was going to write about it was a few lines, mostly to make up for my lack of extra curricular activities I have because I only have martial arts to put down on this section :/ Thanks for the help its been a great help.

Out of interest, how would you both recommend I go about writing my extra Curricular activities reflect and relate to the course or not? Because again, I've seen both being done before now

Whilst we're on the topic of putting D of E on the application part of the form, out of interest, does it go in the education section of the application? I've heard that putting D of E on the application section is pretty complicated and that the qualification is difficult to find from the drop down menu and you can only put your highest D of E qualification on there i.e. Gold D of E as opposed to putting all Bronze, Silver and Gold D of E. Also, thanks for the advice!



Well to be honest, the most I was going to write about it was a few lines, mostly to make up for my lack of extra curricular activities I have because I only have martial arts to put down on this section :/ Thanks for the help its been a great help.

Out of interest, how would you both recommend I go about writing my extra Curricular activities reflect and relate to the course or not? Because again, I've seen both being done before now

It goes under qualifications (with your GCSEs and A levels or equivalent etc.). DofE will be on the drop-down menu, then you fill in the details of gold and pass and date. It's no more difficult than adding any other qualification!! Your school/college will show you how to do it anyway if you're stuck.

For most things you only list the highest qualification. Like if you've got grade 8 trumpet no one's going to care that you've also done grade 1, and they'd assume you'd also be capable of passing grade 1, so UCAS only let's you list the highest! Most people who've done gold will have done bronze and silver to meet the prerequisites for doing gold, so doing bronze and silver too will be assumed, there's no need to list them as well.

If you can relate your ECs to the course, definitely do that - it shows you can learn from them and see wider applications of your course, and your ECs become more than just a list.
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70 -75% of the ps should be about the course. They really don't care about extra curricular activities much, and, for academic courses, not at all. Having none at all on a ps won't do you any harm. Contrary to popular belief, universities don't want well rounded students, they want students who will be good on their course. For vocational courses, they want work experience, not being captain of the netball team. You will find examples in the personal statement bank.

However, with the Gold D of E I had to do a residential section which involved caring for others as part of a residential, would this be worth mentioning or not? Sorry, this personal Statement writing has be a bit confuzzled O.O

Have you done any volunteering or similar as part of the D of E? If so, you could mention it in your personal statement in a way that lets the uni know you did the D of E, but without spending too much time for it. Something similar to "For my gold d of E, I volunteered at X. During my time there, I learnt Y, which makes me a great candidate for this course"

D of E is a surrogate EC that only really has any relevance for people that have otherwise boring lives.

Think about it if you play any sport, have any hobbies and have ever done a good deed then the expedition aside your own interests should far surpass the DoE.

If you must, go on about your understanding of responsibility and welfare and relate it to your DoE

Good, that's the kind of thing they want to see. Play up the learning from it, not the fact that it was D of E. Simply doing it doesn't tell them anything. Many, many people do the D of E. What did this experience give you and how does it fit into the course you are applying for?

So, do you think EC's are actually worth putting in? I really don't want to mess my Personal Statement up; I want to include everything that I can tbh :// So you think I should say something along the lines of (Using D of E as an example, may not use it now but its the only thing I can think of off the top of my head) "The Gold DofE developed my teamworking skills as I had to work as a team to overcome problems and barriers during the expedition; this is an important skill to have for an Occupational Therapist when working in a multi-disciplinary team" Obviously, written a lot better than that of course. Would this sort of thing be OK? So taking on a Point-Skill- Relate approach? Thank You so much for the help

Yes ECs will be expected to be included maybe towards the end of a personal statement, but when writing about them you should ideally try to relate them to the course, and yes that is the sort of thing you should write.

"The Gold DofE developed my teamworking skills as I had to work as a team to overcome problems and barriers during the expedition; this is an important skill to have for an Occupational Therapist when working in a multi-disciplinary team"

OK "The Gold DofE developed my teamworking skills" is a complete waste of characters. Doing something does NOT develop your skills it allows you to DEMONSTRATE those skills.

" this is an important skill to have for an Occupational Therapist when working in a multi-disciplinary team" is lecturing a qualified OT on their own job.

If you feel like you have to write about skills then
a) start off by demonstrating that you know the skill is important for a profession (eg "During my shadowing/WE I realised that it is important for an OT to be able to work well in a team")
b) then give a detailed personal example of a time when you have DEMONSTRATED or USED that skill (eg "My Gold DofE expedition gave me a chance to use my teamworking skills when our team had to overcome problems and barriers, my role within the team was x and I contributed y")

Saying "I worked in a team" doesn't prove anything to a reader - every single applicant can say exactly that. Giving a detailed specific example of a task you tackled *within* a team - maybe the team was made up of people you'd never met or the team struggled to find solutions and you were able to contribute leadership or problem solving or organisational abilities to the team. In fact if you have those sorts of stories in your PS you can scrap the statement in a) and the mention of which skills you're displaying because it will be obvious.

If you want to stand out then your PS has to be PERSONAL - that means using detailed PERSONAL examples of things you've done. Not ticking off a list or stating you have skills but giving UNIQUE examples of times that you have done or shown something. That makes it both PERSONAL and compelling to read.

So, just to clarify, you think that instead of talking about D of E in general I should talk about any particular event or incidences that happened during D of E that can be related to part of my course and demonstrates my skills. If there is no particular event that I can use would you advice me to simply use a passing reference, as stated by the poster above such as "For my Gold D of E I volunteered..." What would you recommend?

Thanks so much for the help

OK thank you all. Great help Any other advice, when applying to competitive Health Care Courses would be gratefully appreciated Just out of curiosity, in terms of D of E does it give any advantage when applying for University or not? :/ Really dont want it to go to waste. Do universities look at it and consider it at all :/ Thank You