Personal Statement Reviews

Anyone on here been/been to Oxbridge or the top class universities and have any advice on my personal statement in messages? it’s on law, and i don’t want to post it on here in case someone takes it haha. it’s a first draft and would love some criticism on it. it’s a lot different to ones i’ve seen floating around and different to the overall ones i see.

For Oxbridge

1) it’s all about demonstrating a love for the subject
2) this is best demonstrated by showing involvement in super curricular activities
3) they’re not really interested in hobbies - you may be the worlds best skier but how does that help you study law?
4) if you do want to mention a hobby, that’s OK, but you need to tie it to your subject
5) if you can tie something you’ve studied or done beyond the syllabus for A level to an improved level of understanding or realisation about the law, that helps massively

Do you believe your PS addresses these points?

There’s a free review service here on TSR.

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4237154

Don’t post it publicly and don’t take too much stock in advice from random people that have never scored a PS.

For Oxbridge

1) it’s all about demonstrating a love for the subject
2) this is best demonstrated by showing involvement in super curricular activities
3) they’re not really interested in hobbies - you may be the worlds best skier but how does that help you study law?
4) if you do want to mention a hobby, that’s OK, but you need to tie it to your subject
5) if you can tie something you’ve studied or done beyond the syllabus for A level to an improved level of understanding or realisation about the law, that helps massively

Do you believe your PS addresses these points?

i’ve just reread your tips and tbh my PS does all of the above, i’ve had quite a few work experiences, the paragraph im quite stressed out is the one where most discuss their reading, i went for a different stance and focused on the AH v JD trial rather than give them a 10 book long reading list, and idk if they’d prefer that? i figured they’d get quite bored of reading what other people have read if you get me?

Sounds good to me (I’m assuming that you mean the AH v JD libel trial in the UK?)

For maths everyone says “I’ve read formats last theorem” and you can’t help feeling it’s a waste of characters. My understanding is that they can prefer “I read this, saw this or attended this lecture where it makes the point that xyz and that got me thinking abc and from that I discovered that or learnt that 123”

ie a long reading list isn’t impressive so much as what you learnt from it.