Personal Statement Help Question Thread 2014-15

Is there any third party website you could recommend. Please this is very urgent

But why would the admissions tutor have told us it's fine if that's the case?

The builder talks you through writing it - notes and then paragraphs. It doesn't correct it but it does give you some tips at the end

So someone will comment it and give advise how u can improve your ps?

Not for free I'm afraid. There will be a paid for review service opening in the future

Hi I was considering to apply to both Aberdeen and St Andrews for economics and english and then apply to my remaining 3 universities for english only. The question I have is if my personal statement is mainly about english with a bit of information on economics would my statement be ok or should I include more about economics as well?

Not for free I'm afraid. There will be a paid for review service opening in the future

I'm reapplying this year and I was just wondering to what degree am I able to use content from the PS I applied to Unis with last year?

To any degree you think makes sense, though I'd be surprised if you couldn't improve it and didn't have new experience or insights to convey.

Indeed I'm going to do such things, I was merely concerned if there are rules against copying word for word paragraphs or sentences from before.

Will the service be up and running before October by any chance?

Sorry if this is rude, but could anyone with experience looking at English personal statements give some examples of authors or texts you find to be overused? I don't want to come off as too generic lol Like for example I was going to mention T.S. Eliot, but I feel like he might be a really common one?

Your aim is not to try and catch the admissions tutors out by naming the most obscure authors you can find, but to show that you are developing a personal taste and genuine enthusiasm for particular types of literature. If I tell you some obscure authors, then you won't have read them and will be faking that enthusiasm and interest. Be yourself. If you like TS Eliot, say so and don't be hipster about it.

Another English applicant here. The problem I'm facing with my personal statement is that, though the authors/texts I've put down remain favourites, I'm always finding, in the course of my extracurricular reading, new writers that I've fallen in love with, new boundaries of literature that I haven't discovered before but have become immediately entranced by etc. (for example, have just finished Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and am so overflowing with ideas about it, I can't bear to not even mention it in the PS!)

Question being: should I repeatedly change my personal statement to reflect the ever-changing discoveries I have made through my external reading? I may well be called up to have an interview at the universities I am applying to, and though I will still have a lot to say about the texts I've put down for the timebeing, I would love to have a way to discuss these other works I've been reading in the meantime.

Or would it be better to just, say, look through these new novels/authors/poems/poets that I've become enamoured with, arrange them into say a list, and then see how I can link them to the texts/authors/poets name-dropped in the personal statement?

Or would it be better to just, say, look through these new novels/authors/poems/poets that I've become enamoured with, arrange them into say a list, and then see how I can link them to the texts/authors/poets name-dropped in the personal statement?