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personal statement format

yvonnay

When adding my personal statement to ucas is there allowed to be spaces?? :confused:

Reply 1

dans

Spaces?

How'd you mean spaces? As in between paragraphs? If so, then they were allowed when I applied last year.

Reply 2

yvonnay

ye thats what I meant, spaces in between paragraphs. i just wasn't sure because I've heard that it's not allowed.

Reply 3

aerix

yes but they will take up some of your 4000 characters you are allowed to use.

if you have added spaces and they dont show up when you select "show all" . don't worry as this is only a problem with firefox and the unis will see it as you have seen it in the preview function of the personal statment. Alternatively just use IE when on the ucas website.

Reply 4

</gibberish>

Yes, its allowed, and imo makes it much more pleasant to read!

I didn't use them.

you are allowed but you can only use 47 lines on your application.
xxx

Reply 7

Good bloke

city_chic

I didn't use them.

Oh dear!

Reply 8

davidjones90

What I did was have a whole bunch of text with no line between them but put three full stops as a sort of indentation so it looks better to read...

"...I want to study chemistry because its bla
bla bla. I love praticals bla bla
bla bla. I make a great chemist bla bla
...During the past year I worked in a chemist bla bla
bla bla I learnt bla bla. It made me appeciate bla bla
bla

you get me?

Reply 9

arguendo

you're allowed to put a line in between paragraphs if you like; equally, you can choose not to if you'd prefer. :smile:

Reply 10

city_chic

Good bloke

Oh dear!

Reply 11

Good bloke

You can choose to write the whole thing backwards if you like. The thing to do is to make sure the admissions tutor has a good read.

Reply 12

markdr

There's nothing wrong with not leaving a blank line between each paragraph.
IMO, I'd rather spend those extra lines and characters packing in extra content about how I love my course so and why I would be the perfect student :biggrin:

Reply 13

bright star

i'm a ps helper and i've read so so many of the damned things recently. it is so so so much easier to read with gaps in between the paragraphs. and woe betide ye who doesn't use paragraphs at all!!! that said, i didn't space mine out when i applied, and i got into 3 med schools.... also it's not the character limit that's the problem, it's the lines that gets you every time!!!

Reply 14

dans

I'd always put spaces in between paragraphs. It just makes it easier to read and whatnot and the admissions tutor is more likely to favour your application that way as they can read it easier. Wrong I know, but sadly true.

Reply 15

markdr

I see what people are saying, but I got to the point where I had a full 47 line personal statement and decided that the extra content that I'd otherwise have to remove would be more valuable than a few blank lines, even if it made it slightly harder to read.

Reply 16

bright star

when it comes down to it, the admissions tutor is gonna have to read it anyways whether it's easier or not with/without lines. so i don't think you lose out really.