Does my personal statement need to be written in PEA format?

I've written out my personal statement, and people I've shown it to say its good, but one person said that they were taught it needs to be written in Point Evidence Analysis format like an essay, and with more that 3 paragraphs. I've structured it and written it so that it connects and flows together, but I don't think I can keep the essence the same while completely restructuring it in PEA/PEE. Is writing it in PEA necessary?

Reply 1

ALEreapp

No it’s not necessary at all, i would say it’s good for certain aspects of your personal statement to have elements of the structure eg talking about your interest in the subject and giving evidence of this and what you did from there to look further into it. However overall I don’t think the PEA structure for the entire personal statement is effective. Essentially you would then only cover 3 topics in your entire statement, you need to be concise and include a lot in a short frame of time. If you are happy with it, do not restructure based on one person’s opinion

Reply 2

Admit-One

Universities Forum Helper

As someone that's probably read a few thousand PS's at this point, I've never heard this advice or told people to use that format.

Reply 3

Clearing and Applications Advisor

as above - it seems a bit clunky

What might be useful (and what they might have been getting at but didn't understand it) is to add in more details. It's the specific details that make a PS personal. Just saying "I read this book", "I attended this lecture", "I did this work experience" doesn't demonstrate anything. Giving details about what you found interesting, what you found challenging or difficult, what topics you then went on to find out more about, what your specific duties where and how your performance of them improved with practice etc etc - THAT is what demonstrates that you actually did do those things and that you've reflected and learnt from those experiences.

Reply 4

amason1

I've tried to use 'show dont tell' when writing about why the subject interests me and what I've done to persue it till now, but I'm not sure if I should be using more explicit language to talk about the things I find most facinating. Eithet way, good to know PEA isnt completely necessary