what makes a good personal statement for classics?

i intent to study classics at uni and wanted some advice on what people have put in their own personal statements for classics? any advice on extra things i should do?

Reply 1

cinmnsoul

For classics, your personal statement mostly consists of reading to show the areas you are interested in since classical antiquity is such a broad subject. Mostly I was recommended to read some more niche classical texts (not just the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid which many people do at A-level). I had read Suetonius' Twelve Caesars, which is relatively mainstream, but related it to Pliny's Panegyricus.

Rather than just listing texts I also was recommended to write a sort of mini essay introduction for the texts, picking out some key ideas and saying what I thought about them. To use my earlier example of Twelve Caesars, I briefly talked about the presentation of women.

For extracurriculars I had been to a classics summer school and i also ran a classics society at my school, so I talked about that.