The Student Room Group

2018 applicants: Please do not post your personal statement online

UCAS has a similarity flagging system.
Anything you post online is cached and if you submit your personal statement on here or any other site, people may copy it or your personal statement will then be picked up by the plagiarism software.

PLEASE DON'T POST IT ON HERE OR ANYWHERE ELSE.

As an applicant this year myself, it is actually heartbreaking seeing people post their personal statements on here as I know just how much work has probably gone into perfecting it, all for it to be deleted and restarted (to be done by 6pm tomorrow for early applicants!) :frown:

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thank you
Do you think my personal statement will have been cached on this site then? http://www.hemingwayapp.com
Original post by iStudent26
Do you think my personal statement will have been cached on this site then? http://www.hemingwayapp.com


you could search for a phrase from your statement on Google....
Original post by the bear
you could search for a phrase from your statement on Google....


Thank you, no results were found so that site should be okay to use. I was mainly worried because I told my friend to try it out earlier!
Original post by iStudent26
Do you think my personal statement will have been cached on this site then? http://www.hemingwayapp.com


That’s an online tool. It doesn’t store the content you paste there.
Original post by PQ
That’s an online tool. It doesn’t store the content you paste there.


stuff like grammarly or other plagarism checkers won't either since they don't store content, email won't either or private domains like that

Posting on TSR forums (the public ones) absolutely will or on public blogs
Reply 7
Original post by PQ
That’s an online tool. It doesn’t store the content you paste there.


What about google docs or google drive? I save my documents on there for easy access and I shared that link once but since then deleted the file and amended my ps? Will I be in trouble I pasted it here once but was deleted thankfully
Original post by wolto
What about google docs or google drive? I save my documents on there for easy access and I shared that link once but since then deleted the file and amended my ps? Will I be in trouble I pasted it here once but was deleted thankfully


This is a private domain so should again be fine, for example posting your statement in this thread would be an issue
Original post by wolto
What about google docs or google drive? I save my documents on there for easy access and I shared that link once but since then deleted the file and amended my ps? Will I be in trouble I pasted it here once but was deleted thankfully


If you posted it on here and it was cached my Google then I'm afraid it will be detected, even if it was deleted later. Google the first sentence and see what comes up
Original post by *Interrobang*
If you posted it on here and it was cached my Google then I'm afraid it will be detected, even if it was deleted later. Google the first sentence and see what comes up


What does cached mean? Like stored? So only public domains?
Reply 11
Original post by *Interrobang*
If you posted it on here and it was cached my Google then I'm afraid it will be detected, even if it was deleted later. Google the first sentence and see what comes up


If it doesn’t come up on google search will I be safe? Cause I changed few paragraphs and sentences when I was told about it?
Reply 12
Original post by Milky_Way
What does cached mean? Like stored? So only public domains?


I only posted a link to its google docs file so the actual long text wasn’t made public here but stored in google drive
Original post by wolto
If it doesn’t come up on google search will I be safe? Cause I changed few paragraphs and sentences when I was told about it?


No because UCAS checks your PS against other PSs submitted to them. If you have posted your PS, or a link to your PS, on a student orientated site like this one, then it or parts of it, may be manually copied by another applicant even it it was deleted before the Google bots found it, The balloon will go up when UCAS receives the second similar submission and both will be flagged for plagiarism.
Original post by wolto
If it doesn’t come up on google search will I be safe? Cause I changed few paragraphs and sentences when I was told about it?


No

Posted from TSR Mobile
Reply 15
Original post by nulli tertius
No because UCAS checks your PS against other PSs submitted to them. If you have posted your PS, or a link to your PS, on a student orientated site like this one, then it or parts of it, may be manually copied by another applicant even it it was deleted before the Google bots found it, The balloon will go up when UCAS receives the second similar submission and both will be flagged for plagiarism.


The link I shared was made read only and I know it can still be copied and pasted but it wasn’t here long and it was taken down by one of the authorities and moved to a secure part

I have since then changed the statement layout and changed few words as well, will that be fine? I can submit before anyone does I can’t really start over again
Reply 16


I never posted the actual text on here it was only a link which was read only and I’m sure no one got to it before it was taken down by someone here and I deleted and changed the structure of the personal statement
Reply 17
Original post by nulli tertius
No because UCAS checks your PS against other PSs submitted to them. If you have posted your PS, or a link to your PS, on a student orientated site like this one, then it or parts of it, may be manually copied by another applicant even it it was deleted before the Google bots found it, The balloon will go up when UCAS receives the second similar submission and both will be flagged for plagiarism.


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Original post by wolto
The link I shared was made read only and I know it can still be copied and pasted but it wasn’t here long and it was taken down by one of the authorities and moved to a secure part


Foreign applicants with weak English who have never been asked to write anything like a personal statement and with no school assistance will nick anything.


I have since then changed the statement layout and changed few words as well, will that be fine? I can submit before anyone does I can’t really start over again


The UCAS computer software will not spot the first posting (because it won't know about the second, third or twenty-eighth) but when the second one is posted a UCAS employee will review what the computer finds and manually flag the first posting as plagiarism as well (because UCAS won't know which of you or whether someone else first wrote it)
Reply 19
Original post by nulli tertius
The UCAS computer software will not spot the first posting (because it won't know about the second, third or twenty-eighth) but when the second one is posted a UCAS employee will review what the computer finds and manually flag the first posting as plagiarism as well (because UCAS won't know which of you or whether someone else first wrote it)


So I basically have to redo the whole statement? Even though it wasn’t online for a min, I can certainly change it with different words and different sentence and it wasn’t my completed ps I’m constantly updating it and changing how I kept words together