So it’s that dreaded time of year again where Year 12s up and down the country are tearing their hair out trying to finalise and send off their UCAS applications. And the worst bit of all? The DREADED personal statement!! But don’t panic, it’s really not that bad! Here are my 5 Top Tips to help you smash your statement and watch the University offers come flooding in!

 

1) Use good formal English language (no ‘text speak’) but be authentic! Don’t be like Joey in Friends, putting your own words through a Thesaurus until they no longer make any sense; ‘baby Kangaroo Tribbiani’ will get no offers this year!

 

2) Show your enthusiasm for further study of your subject. Explain why you want to dedicate more years of your life to studying the subject, why it matters to you, what you know already and what you want to learn more of. But don’t over egg it! If I had a £1 for every statement I’d read starting with ‘I am fascinated’ or ‘From an early age’ – I’d be a very rich woman! And FYI, at 17 you ARE still an ‘early age’ to those reading your statement!

 

3) Don’t just list the subjects you’re studying now (they can see this elsewhere on your application), but do talk about the benefits of them. Area you’ve enjoyed studying and why, what you want to learn more of, the skills you’ve picked up along the way and keep referring back to why this would be good for studying the degree.

 

4) Use quotes sparingly!! Don’t be a cliché. You’ve only got a limited number of characters to sell why you want to study this subject – they want to hear this on your own words, not someone else’s. If you really do want to include a quote, make it a short one and make it relevant.

 

5) Don’t keep procrastinating, just make a start! You’ll have to do many versions of this so get started – it won’t be perfect first time but once you have something on paper you can go back and tweak where necessary. Don’t get too hung up on word count either, you know it’ll be approx. 1 page long so keep within that and focus on the content before you worry about the specific word count – you can always tweak wording after to make it fit.

 

For more help and advice you can also look at the #UCAS website page abut personal statements: https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/how-write-ucas-undergraduate-personal-statement

 

And if you’re looking for a qualified opinion, contact me for advice on your personal statement with a guaranteed 24hr turnaround. I’ll give you tips and advice on what you have already and how to make it a winning statement, for the small investment of £50. Contact me at askthetalentcycle@outlook.com to book this in.

 

Here is what one happy customer had to say on how I helped: