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E-Sport Personal Statement

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Original post by EnglishMuon
I find it strange how some unis say "Oh wow, you hiked across a field for 2 days so have a place on our Chemistry course".


I'd be very surprised to learn that any have done that. I'd be quite surprised to learn that an admissions tutor ascribed any weight at all to learning the candidate did that.
Original post by Good bloke
I'd be very surprised to learn that any have done that. I'd be quite surprised to learn that an admissions tutor ascribed any weight at all to learning the candidate did that.


Ah yea ofcourse with good universities but some that maybe aren't as well known they seem to like people talking about something instead of nothing at all.
Original post by Nameless Ghoul
I guess you'd much rather people mentioned the horn as a hobby



Not at all. Hobbies are normally irrelevant. But if you are going to mention them then waste as little space as possible. Do not try to explain how sane it really is, despite the image, to collect jamjar labels and do not try to spin something positive out of it. It will only demonstrate negative attributes about you, despite your best (and very space-wasting) efforts. It will derail your pitch and probably leave the tutor with a feeling that your hobby is more important than your subject - and that is a serious sin.
Original post by Good bloke
Not at all. Hobbies are normally irrelevant. But if you are going to mention them then waste as little space as possible. Do not try to explain how sane it really is, despite the image, to collect jamjar labels and do not try to spin something positive out of it. It will only demonstrate negative attributes about you, despite your best (and very space-wasting) efforts. It will derail your pitch and probably leave the tutor with a feeling that your hobby is more important than your subject - and that is a serious sin.


So your issue is not so much with hobbies; it's with hobbies which take up a significant portion of a PS.

You should have clarified this earlier.
Original post by EnglishMuon
Ah yea ofcourse with good universities but some that maybe aren't as well known they seem to like people talking about something instead of nothing at all.


I am unconvinced they generally actually like that, but they are more prepared, in their quest to fill spaces, to overlook what doing it demonstrates about the candidate.
Original post by Nameless Ghoul
So your issue is not so much with hobbies; it's with hobbies which take up a significant portion of a PS.

You should have clarified this earlier.


In post 13 I said:

Hobbies are rarely relevant to a university application, and even more rarely make a positive contribution. Space devoted to them is, therefore, wasted.

I think that conveys my message very clearly. If they are relevant (such as building engines for an engineering applicant) then, obviously, the space is not wasted.
Original post by Good bloke
In post 13 I said:

Hobbies are rarely relevant to a university application, and even more rarely make a positive contribution. Space devoted to them is, therefore, wasted.

I think that conveys my message very clearly. If they are relevant (such as building engines for an engineering applicant) then, obviously, the space is not wasted.


It does convey your overall message quite well. But I am talking to you in back-to-back replies; the overall spirit of your posts in this thread is not relevant.

In our back-to-back conversation, you started out by explaining that creating a lasting memory is useful as long as is not one which makes you look like an "idiot". In successive replies, you have stepped away from this comment and instead you have focussed exclusively on the wastefulness of words. Hence my "not so much hobbies" comment.
I'm with Good Bloke on this.

Extra curriculars (including hobbies) only belong in a PS *in any form* in one of two situations:

- they're DIRECTLY relevant to the subject/course applied to (either in content or in skills - for example a dentistry applicant mentioning a hobby which demonstrates manual dexterity)
- they're such a huge fundamental part of your life that not mentioning them is to misrepresent yourself (eg you're an olympic/national athlete, you dedicate 90% of your free time to volunteering/running a charity, you're a published writer etc)

A PS should contain a substantial amount of information about your interests beyond your sixth form formal education - but that should be demonstrating your interests and motivation to study your subject of choice (ie super-curriculars not extra-curriculars).
Original post by Nameless Ghoul

In our back-to-back conversation, you started out by explaining that creating a lasting memory is useful as long as is not one which makes you look like an "idiot". In successive replies, you have stepped away from this


I haven't really. As I explained in another post, wasting a lot of space on irrelevant hobbies conveys a number of negative attributes to the reader which, taken together, detract from your application (and, maybe, spark a discussion on the lines of the one I described).
Original post by Good bloke
I haven't really. As I explained in another post, wasting a lot of space on irrelevant hobbies conveys a number of negative attributes to the reader which, taken together, detract from your application (and, maybe, spark a discussion on the lines of the one I described).


Again, "wasting a lot of space" is operative. If space is not wasted, under your logic, they don't come under scrutiny. Thus the mnemonic is forged without risking ridicule. Beautiful.
Original post by Good bloke
I haven't really. As I explained in another post, wasting a lot of space on irrelevant hobbies conveys a number of negative attributes to the reader which, taken together, detract from your application (and, maybe, spark a discussion on the lines of the one I described).


Nobody was supporting the idea of wasting a lot of space or being irrelevant.
It would help if we knew what course and how he intended to mention it. Pretty easy to see whether it detracted or enhanced his PS from that.
Original post by 999tigger
Nobody was supporting the idea of wasting a lot of space or being irrelevant.
It would help if we knew what course and how he intended to mention it. Pretty easy to see whether it detracted or enhanced his PS from that.


Those who claimed it could be spun positively were intrinsically advocating the wasting of significant space. If you think the subject is relevant, perhaps you can name those where a digression about playing (as opposed to programming, selling, managing or implementing) e-sports would make a positive contribution?
Original post by Nameless Ghoul
Again, "wasting a lot of space" is operative. If space is not wasted, under your logic, they don't come under scrutiny. Thus the mnemonic is forged without risking ridicule. Beautiful.


I'm unclear of the message you are trying to convey. In this context, a candidate risks negative reactions by using space wastefully (which is memorable if gross) or where they seek to spin preposterous positives out of something insignificant. These supposed positives can be irrelevant, like leadership, or simply spun out of nothing, like decision-making from playing games. What ensures the memorability is that all the effort and space is wasted while simultaneously demonstrating very clearly a number of negative relevant aspects of the candidate, as I described earlier. The PS can then be a bit of an oxymoron, saying one thing but showing something very different.
Original post by Good bloke
Those who claimed it could be spun positively were intrinsically advocating the wasting of significant space. If you think the subject is relevant, perhaps you can name those where a digression about playing (as opposed to programming, selling, managing or implementing) e-sports would make a positive contribution?


I didnt mention any space at all. How would I know how relevant or irrelevant it might be without knowing the course he was applying for?
Original post by 999tigger
I didnt mention any space at all.


But you did advocate spinning it positively, which automatically wastes space.
Original post by Good bloke
But you did advocate spinning it positively, which automatically wastes space.


I'd need to know the course and what was in the rest of the statement before deciding whether to include it , where and how I might present it. The OP didnt state a course. I wouldnt rule it out just because it was E sport., but i'd wait and see.
Original post by 999tigger
I'd need to know the course and what was in the rest of the statement before deciding whether to include it , where and how I might present it. The OP didnt state a course. I wouldnt rule it out just because it was E sport., but i'd wait and see.


Now you are wriggling. That is not quite what you said in post 10 of this thread, and you have not mentioned which subjects you think it useful for.
Original post by Good bloke
Now you are wriggling. That is not quite what you said in post 10 of this thread, and you have not mentioned which subjects you think it useful for.


Not at all. I would be ok for putting it in if I thought it was relevant and not be ashamed of it. Not for me to second guess the OP but it could be relevant to a lot of degrees to do with the games industry, but you would need to compare that with the course and exactly what his experience was.
Original post by Good bloke
But you did advocate spinning it positively, which automatically wastes space.


PS writing is BS writing. It's all spin.
Contrary to what several people have said, I think there is a place for extra curricula activities in a personal statement. Our advice at http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/how_to_apply/personal_statement.html says

It's extremely unlikely that having this on your CV would make the difference between you gaining a place or not. However, if you are achieving excellent grades in relevant subjects, and you have the time to excel in something else on the side, we will notice your ability to balance your time between studies and other activities.

Having said this, your UCAS form is read by all the Universities that you apply to, and some of them will put considerably more emphasis on your extra-curricular activities that we do, and we will be aware of that when we read your form.

I think using about 20% of your PS for extra curriculas is about right.

Gavin

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