UCAS - How to write the dreaded Personal Statement
- Jacqueline Bond
- Sep 11, 2024
- 1 min read
Personal Statements can be 4000 characters too many, for others, far too few.
Somewhere between an essay and a cover letter, personal statements are the most dreaded element of the UCAS application process (the UK’s university application service to access almost all undergraduate courses in the country).
There are ways to consider personal statements as a series of manageable steps.
We write about them here.
1) Consider your assets - you’ve been learning at school, you’ve done other things outside of school. You have interests and skills. Write them all down, no matter how random and disjointed they appear. You don’t want to miss something essential.
2) Once they are somewhere you can start seeing which ones would put you in the best light for the course you want to do. With each one, assess whether they demonstrate your interest or skills for your chosen course.
3) Try to think of something you find particularly interesting about the subject you might be studying, or have an ambition you want to achieve after the course. This will make you stand out as a special candidate.
If you can put this into words, then you will have the core of your personal statement down. And then you can begin the process of putting it altogether.
It’s not an easy process, and will take many edits. Keep considering what you enjoy and what you have done, and remember to justify this in relevance to why they should pick you for the course.
If you would like more sustained and personalised guidance, we provide UCAS help for recommending courses and supporting the personal statement process.
This is such a helpful breakdown — the tip about writing down all your assets first, no matter how random they seem, really resonates! So many students freeze up trying to write something "perfect" from the start, when really it's about gathering raw material first and then shaping it. The part about finding something genuinely interesting about your subject is often the piece students struggle with most, especially when they're juggling A-levels and extracurriculars all at once. It's also worth noting that the support doesn't have to stop once you get into university — many students who found the personal statement process tough also benefit from online help with university assignments once they arrive, since the jump to degree-level writing…
I read the UCAS personal statement post and found the tips on how to start, stay honest, and show what makes you unique really useful and clear for students. I remember struggling with a tricky coding deadline and using Python assignment services to help me understand the parts I couldn’t figure out on my own. That time taught me that getting support can make hard tasks feel a lot more manageable.