How to ace the new Personal Statement!

What you need to know

The format of the Personal Statement has changed - you now have to answer three questions which will help you to structure your statement.

However, advice from UCAS and the universities is that although the format has changed, the content of the Personal Statement needs to remain the same - evidence, evidence, evidence!

Aim for 80% evidence and no more than 20% on your skills, good qualities and outside interests.

The character limit is also the same - you have a total of 4000 characters-including-spaces, and you must use a minimum of 350 characters-including-spaces in each section.

So, the focus still needs to be on evidence of your interest in your chosen course. Please note: you can choose what you write in answer to each question but the 80/20 balance needs to be there!

Question 1: Why have you chosen this course or subject (and what have you done to prove it?)? 

You can use up to 3300 characters including spaces for this section. It's not just about saying that you are applying because it is interesting. Full stop. This is why we add 'and what have you done to prove it?', so you can see that evidence is key! 

Please see the links to useful resources page to help you collect evidence for your Personal Statement.

Question 2: How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?

This is a short section about your useful transferable skills (minimum 350 characters including spaces). Think about the skills and qualities that will be helpful on your degree and then briefly explain how you developed them.

For instance, for engineering, you will need teamwork, problem-solving, and excellent communication skills. Problem-solving might have come from maths or physics lessons, but your teamwork and communication may be from playing sport. Therefore, you could put these two skills in section 3.

Question 3: What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?This is also a short section about your outside interests, possibly with a concluding sentence if you have space (minimum 350 characters including spaces). It's always a good idea to include something you enjoy doing purely for fun so that Admissions Tutors can see you will fit in well at university. As mentioned above, you can use this as an opportunity to include relevant skills, but it isn't essential.

How to collect and include evidence in your Personal Statement

• Visit the 'Useful links' page to get you started

• Create an Evidence Table and make a note of everything you do, watch, read, or listen to which relates to your chosen course.

• For each example, briefly mention what you learned. Did it motivate you to do further research? If so, what did you do next? What did you learn........ and so on.

• When you run out of links, start a new paragraph - this is how to build up an effective Personal Statement.