Personal Statement Advice and Guidance NEW 2026 format - Ask your questions here!

PRSOM, thank you so much, that's really helpful! I'll definitely start off my statement that way then, and also not waste some of my character count on irrelevant stuff. It's honestly so nice to get advice from someone who really knows what they're talking about. I really appreciate it

No problem. It’s nice to speak to someone who wants to take it onboard rather than listening to a random student rep telling you to talk about your soft skills.

I got this from the UCAS personal statement section:
"How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?
This is your chance to shout about the relevant or transferable skills you’ve gained from your education and highlight your understanding of how they will help you succeed in this subject area."
Sorry if this is a silly question, but they don't really expect applicants to "shout about" skills, do they? To me, that makes it sound like I'm supposed to explicitly state the skills, but (most of) the advice I've seen on TSR says not to do this because the skills can be inferred from whatever experiences I mention? If I'm overthinking this whole thing, please go ahead and tell me

I got this from the UCAS personal statement section:

"How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?

This is your chance to shout about the relevant or transferable skills you’ve gained from your education and highlight your understanding of how they will help you succeed in this subject area."

Sorry if this is a silly question, but they don't really expect applicants to "shout about" skills, do they? To me, that makes it sound like I'm supposed to explicitly state the skills, but (most of) the advice I've seen on TSR says not to do this because the skills can be inferred from whatever experiences I mention? If I'm overthinking this whole thing, please go ahead and tell me

I wrote a big long reply to this and it disappeared.
Short answer - depends where you want to apply. Please quote this post and I shall elaborate tomorrow. Sleepy time for me now

Third time lucky writing this reply...
This is a very good question and a point of contention between different sources - as you have spotted.
I read a lot of personal statements to refer explicitly to vague soft skills like critical thinking, leadership, communication. It's never usually done well. Because so many other statements do this, by including that sort of content you are de-personalising your application. The better statements I read have a more academic focus, with the applicant spending more characters discussing the things they have read and the analysis they have of these - which itself demonstrates critical thinking very well (without saying so explicitly).
I think whether universities are looking for these soft skills in the PS varies. Universities at the more competitive end of the scale have previously advised us that this isn't something they wish to see. Universities with a different academic profile, which seem to be less competitive, might have advice on their website suggesting you jump on board the soft skills train.
I would hope that a very good, academic, personal statement that doesn't list out a pile of skills would still do very well in an application to these universities anyway. Which is why our advice remains to keep it personal and not generalise by jumping to teamwork and time management skills.

@clippy_61, a way of doing this with problem solving skills could be describing something you were working on / investigating (a good example is an EPQ) and reflecting on how you hit a road block, tried looking at it a different way and were able to figure that out and what you learnt from it. You have a very clear example of a problem being solved, by you, without you saying so crudely "this improved my problem solving skills".

Hi!
My question is for Q2 of the ps!
I'm aware that a levels don't have to be mentioned at all or can be briefly mentioned before delving into the supracurricular aspect of things. (If I'm not mistaken?)
I'm still stuck on it (even after recieving feedback), as it seems quite poorly written because I am just listing my experiences with descriptions that do not flow well at all. I have not much time left so I'm unsure whether I should try somehow link all my experiences so it sounds much better. Or scrap it and start all over again. My tutor was quite opposed to me adding supracurricular things in q2, so I have been afraid of adding that since I will need her to review it.
Thank you very much in advance!

Experience => description => reflection => excitement for further learning. That's the cycle to take it through. Reflect, share your thoughts and ideas about what you are studying / why it excites you and therefore why you want to learn more by applying to this course.
If you're worried about flow, read it out loud. It's the best way to just the flow really.
As for your tutor, she may certainly review it and give you further feedback but she has no buttons to make those changes herself and it is fundamentally your choice. Your tutor cannot force you into making a change. One of my pupils was given feedback on their PS repeatedly but decided to not take the advice they were given. That's up to them, it's their application - and yours is yours.

Im planning to apply for a deferred entry due to personal reasons and plan to use my gap year to better my application. My teacher said id need to include my plans for the gap year in my personal statement so which question would that fall under?

It wouldn't fit into #2, so that gives you 1 and 3. I would probably put it in 3, but there may be ways it fits better in 1.
Fundamentally, where that content goes doesn't affect whether you get an offer or not though.