Personal Statement Extra Reading Questions

Hi! For context, I'm planning on applying for E&M at Oxford, EFDS at Imperial and pure Economics at LSE, UCL and Warwick. I know a lot of people tend to mention books that they have read and I have mentioned 3 books in my personal statement, but is it ok to also refer to academic papers? I talk about a couple of essay competitions I entered in my personal statement and give my opinions about a couple of academic papers I looked at for those essay competitions. Is that ok? I've seen that a lot of people just refer to books, so I don't know if it's strange to mention research papers too.

Also do universities prefer if you mention books from their reading lists? I've only mentioned 1 book from Oxford's reading list and the rest are books I've just found on my own that aren't from any reading lists.

Reply 1

Puj1233

Original post by scar-the-queen

Hi! For context, I'm planning on applying for E&M at Oxford, EFDS at Imperial and pure Economics at LSE, UCL and Warwick. I know a lot of people tend to mention books that they have read and I have mentioned 3 books in my personal statement, but is it ok to also refer to academic papers? I talk about a couple of essay competitions I entered in my personal statement and give my opinions about a couple of academic papers I looked at for those essay competitions. Is that ok? I've seen that a lot of people just refer to books, so I don't know if it's strange to mention research papers too.
Also do universities prefer if you mention books from their reading lists? I've only mentioned 1 book from Oxford's reading list and the rest are books I've just found on my own that aren't from any reading lists.

Hey what are your stats if you don't mind sharing, I'm in a similar position, not sure if I want to add in a safety uni and not really sure how competititve EFDS at Imperial will be for 2025 entry.

Reply 2

scar-the-queen

Study Forum Helper

Original post by Puj1233

Hey what are your stats if you don't mind sharing, I'm in a similar position, not sure if I want to add in a safety uni and not really sure how competititve EFDS at Imperial will be for 2025 entry.

I've actually changed where I'm applying! I'm now thinking about econ at Cambridge, LSE, UCL, Warwick and Bath. I'm not sure if you're still interested but I've got 4 predicted A*s in maths, further maths, econ and computer science and I got 9999999887 at GCSE (the 8s were in RS and Drama and the 7 was in English Language) and I also got an A in FSMQ. I have extenuating circumstances for my GCSEs though so I'm hoping they won't look to deep into it! Good luck, hope you get into your top choice uni!!

Reply 3

Kevin huang

Original post by scar-the-queen

Hi! For context, I'm planning on applying for E&M at Oxford, EFDS at Imperial and pure Economics at LSE, UCL and Warwick. I know a lot of people tend to mention books that they have read and I have mentioned 3 books in my personal statement, but is it ok to also refer to academic papers? I talk about a couple of essay competitions I entered in my personal statement and give my opinions about a couple of academic papers I looked at for those essay competitions. Is that ok? I've seen that a lot of people just refer to books, so I don't know if it's strange to mention research papers too.
Also do universities prefer if you mention books from their reading lists? I've only mentioned 1 book from Oxford's reading list and the rest are books I've just found on my own that aren't from any reading lists.