Guy from my school: "Universities don't care about your personal statement"

"It's all about your grades. I don't think they will even look at your personal statement. You would still probably be fine even if you left your personal statement blank, even though you probably don't want to do so"

This said guy is also no academic lightweight. He's widely considered the smartest person at my school across several years. He got an offer from Trinity College Cambridge to do maths, scored top 50 in the country for the BMO2 math olympiad, and scored top 50 in the country for numerous other competitions such as the Cambridge Chemistry challenge. Although he only took 5 AS levels (Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology), he got 97%+ UMS in all of them.

How true is what he said?

Reply 1

Chlorophile

Original post by CancerousProblem

Totally depends on the university. For Cambridge, there's some truth in it. I think it's pretty unlikely that they wouldn't look at it, but it's definitely not a big part of the application. Cambridge are definitely much more interested in your grades and your interview. The same kind of thing goes for most top universities. Personal Statements can only tell you that much - for universities at the top, grades, admissions tests and interviews are better indicators of ability. There are certain high ranking universities that do apparently put a greater emphasis on it though. However, I think personal statements are generally more important for universities that don't dominate the league tables.

Also I'm not entirely sure why you wrote about all of his stats; it doesn't make what he's saying any more or less true!

Reply 2

_Fergo

Depends on the university and course.

I really doubt that Cambridge considers (or even reads for that matter) the PS when it comes to making a decision, especially for something like maths.

I have seen people, however, being rejected on the basis of their PS from unis like LSE and UCL.

No matter what, you should do your best to make a good PS, regardless of what the uni will do thereafter.

Reply 3

Juno

It depends on the uni. Some don't care - but most will.

Most applicants will write an adequate personal statement. If yours is terrible it will stand out and look extra bad.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 4

Interrobang

also unis that interview may base some of the questions on your PS

Reply 5

SlowlorisIncognito

Original post by CancerousProblem

To be fair to him, for maths, a lot of universities are much more interested in the STEP and your academic results than in your personal statement. However, I don't think they'd be impressed if you left it blank, wrote in poor English or wrote about another subject entirely. So long as your PS is "ok" it won't be scrutinised in any great depth.

This is definitely not true for other courses and universities. LSE, for example, has a lot of advice on their website about what they want to see in a PS and I'm sure whoever wrote it wouldn't have bothered if it's not important.

The PS is probably less important than your teachers are making out. In my opinion, it's far more likely a bad PS will lose you a place compared to a really good one helping you get a place you wouldn't have otherwise got (although this can happen sometimes for really borderline candidates). For that reason, I do think it's worth putting effort into the PS, but it's not worth angst-ing over the perfect opening sentence as some people might do.

It's worth bearing in mind that someone being clever and good at maths does not give them any special insight into the admissions process.

Reply 6

Jessica.Whelan97

To be honest many universities do actually look at your personal statement. If you applied to any university whether it's your local university or a top of the range one they do look at your personal statement. If the university is very prestigious it's true that they look at your grades but they look at your statement too. When you apply there will be so many competitors wanting the same place as you and if there's someone with the same grades (which is highly likely) they'll look at your statement and decide between the two. My advice is to put effort into your statement because I wouldn't want to take the chance of being turned down because of a rubbish statement

Reply 7

returnmigrant

Yes, in some subjects and at some Unis they dont read Personal Statements. Offers are made on your Academic Profile (scoring A level predictions and yuor GSCEs together). This can be because they are desperate to recruit for that subject or because they dont have time to read 3,000 applications for 70 places.

BUT you dont know which these are, and even if you did, they change from year to year. And even if they dont 'read' at that Uni for your subject/course this year, the other Unis you've applied to might/will.

And btw, even for subjects/courses where PSs are not read, all admissions staff give the PS and reference a skim read. If you are applying for Law and your PS is clearly about English Lit or Maths, you will still be given lower priority even though your PS wasnt officially 'read'.

So ...... stop trying to second guess the process folks. It isnt worth it.
Write the best PS you can - because in many/most of your choices it WILL be the deciding factor in an Offer or not.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 8

ParadoxSocks

Depends on the university, the course and the person looking at your application. If all grades are identical between two applicants but one has a well written personal statement and the other doesn't then they're clearly going to go for the person with the good statement.

Reply 9

Muttley79

If you miss your offer they will look again at your PS as part of the decision on whether to still take you.

You do need a good PS as it can make a difference.

Reply 10

Klix88

Agree with the above in that the PS is of much less importance than your grades overall unless you're going for a course which interviews (where the PS can form the basis of interview questions). For some unis/courses they may not be read at all.

However, in the event that the uni has to decide between you and another applicant with the same grades, the PS will be crucial. You won't be able to predict that.

Always write your PS as though your uni place depends on it. Most of the time it won't. But if you get into the position where it will, you'll know that you're in the best possible position.

Reply 11

jakeel1

My grades are crap and i've got offers from RG universities so some weight must be attached to the ps.

Reply 12

Clearing and Applications Advisor

A lot of applicants don't understand when a PS might really make a difference.

It's uncommon that a PS plays a big role in deciding which applicants will get an offer or not (with some notable exceptions - any course that uses formal interviews as part of the admissions process is likely to use any and all information available to them to reduce the number of interviews - that's why the PS is such a big deal for a lot of vocational courses).

However if your predicted grades are borderline for the courses you're applying to then your PS (and more importantly your reference) comes into play.

Likewise when it comes to results week - if you miss your offer grades and spaces are limited then a good PS can make a real difference in terms of which 5 of the 40 applicants who missed by 1 grade will be admitted.

Lastly - as a few people have pointed out a BAD PS will often lead to an automatic rejection. If your PS makes it clear that you're applying for the wrong course ie if you apply to an academic film studies course with a practical film production PS, or you apply for nursing with a biology PS then your application is highly likely to be rejected. Similarly if you're applying for English and your PS is full of typos and grammar mistakes then you might find yourself rejected. Lastly if you're a non native English speaker and your PS is demonstrating a very poor standard of written English then you may struggle to get an offer (although in this case at least IELTS results and similar might reduce the risk).

Oh and in terms of priorities - a PS is usually much LESS important than a good reference. Putting time and effort into getting along with your referee and making sure they understand your strengths and hopes for university is time well spent.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 13

toiletroll

both this year and last year i wrote and sent my personal statement in the last few hours on the deadline day, even though I've only had one offer so far this year, and got all of them last year there may be a slight bit of truth to it seeing as I find it hard to believe some people spend months writing their personal statement

Reply 14

Tian1Sky

I don't think you need to spend ages writing it, but it does matter. I was asked specific questions about parts of my statement during my interviews at Cambridge. Since I was applying to a course that starts from scratch and doesn't include a test, the statement was probably more important then for a science subject. It is really just a way of getting information about yourself across and introducing yourself to the interviewers and decision makers.

Reply 15

NotJustAName

I think if two people have similar grades and it's between those two people, then a university is then going to really look at the personal statements, and the personal statements can be the deciding factor. Someone reading your personal statement may really like what you wrote and want you at the uni. Obviously if someone writes the best personal statement in the world, but they have no GCSEs and they applied for Oxford, I don't think Oxford is going to take their personal statement in to consideration. When people say things like, "personal statements don't matter" maybe they are trying to illustrate things like that.