The personal statement is the only part of the ucas application form which gives you a chance to say something about yourself, and at the same time make a positive impression. It is vital to get it right and this guide explains how to put a good ucas personal statement together. As our advice article six top tips for an outstanding ucas form explains, your personal statement may well be the deciding factor in whether you get an offer. Over the years the space for the personal statement has grown from a few lines to a whole page, emphasising how important it is to universities. The most important thing is to explain why you are applying for your particular courses.

The ucas personal statement should also include details of your achievements in and outside school/college, your experience of work, travel, responsibility and helping others and what you enjoy doing in your spare time. Quite a writing challenge, but if you follow the guidelines below you should find you end up with something really effective. Getting started can be tough, but if you approach the task as a series of steps, you will find it easier. You'll probably find that you need to come back to the task over several sessions. Starting before the summer holidays is ideal: it gives you time to do all the necessary thinking and to beef up your cv if you need to. don't leave the personal statement to the last minute! you'll fill in your ucas form online, but when you start writing, work off line so that you don't feel under time pressure and can cut and paste as much as you want.

The very first thing to do is to check out what the university website says about the courses you are applying for, and look at the course entry profiles you'll find on the ucas website. what you say on the form about your reasons for choosing the course and about your interests, skills and experience, must match up to the qualities admissions tutors are looking for. so, where to start? here is a step by step guide to getting it right. Be prepared to write several more drafts! each step is described in more detail below. Step 1: list everything that might go in the statement start off by making a list of everything you might include, under two headings: my reasons for choosing the course my interests, achievements and experience don't worry about order, length, detail, duplication, quality of expression: you'll sort those out later. Just write down as many ideas as you can under each heading, in whatever order the ideas come to you.

reasons for choosing the course:

you need to explain why you have chosen the course you are applying for. Even if it follows directly from one of your a levels you should explain why you want to spend three more years studying that subject. Nb it is not enough to say 'i like economics, therefore i'm applying for an economics degree'. If you have a career in mind you should describe why you are attracted to that career. experience: include any relevant experience via family and friends, work experience or shadowing, etc. This is essential for medicine related courses and valuable for any other career oriented course. Have you any other experiences such as part time job which help reinforce your commitment to your chosen degree? relevant skills: check the course entry profiles again.

Do they mention any specific skills? it might be that there's something you've done outside the classroom which can show you've got what they want. don't forget that your statement is seen by all your choices so it's not a good idea to mention a specific university by name, or to pitch your entire statement at one place, even if it is your favourite. One is to emphasise the subject which is most competitive, while at the same time making the point that you have a real interest in the safety net subject too. The second is to find reasons which are applicable to both courses but beware of vague generalities.

interests, achievements and experience:

work through the checklist below to write down a list of things you might include. Don't worry about the order at this stage: responsibilities: in school, as a member of a club, in the community voluntary work: for example, with children, old people, the disabled sport: sport you play in or out of college. You are not expected to be an expert in everything you include here, so don't shy away from mentioning minor interests. On the other hand, the ucas personal statement is a major source of discussion at interview, and your referee will read it before finalising your reference, so don't make stuff up. Step 2: decide what to include in your personal statement now that you have a list of possible things to say, you need to think about how to use the ideas. Don't worry yet about the exact words or order of sentences, but think about how the things you have listed might fill the available space when you write about them. Your reasons for choice of course should take up a third or more of the personal statement.

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Achievements, experience and interests will occupy most of the rest, leaving a final line or two for a conclusion. You can enter up to 4,0 characters including spaces or 47 lines of text including blank lines between paragraphs , whichever comes first. With any luck you will find that your points just about fit the space you don't have to fill every line, but a half filled page looks thin.

If you have too much material, drop the points which are old / trivial / repetitive, and thin out points which emphasise the same area of achievement eg lists of awards. You can save can save a surprising amount of space by getting rid of 'nothing words' as one student puts it like 'particularly' and 'really' and 'very' and 'relatively', and your statement will have more impact too. Did you leave out something because you felt it wasn't important? you don't have to be an expert to be able to include an interest you just need to be able to say a little bit about it if you go for interview. But….it is better to be concise than to fill lots of space with generalisations quality is more important than quantity.

If you are asking for 'deferred entry' you have decided you want to have a gap year you must include a brief comment on your plans for the year off. Step 3: sort out the order for your points try to connect your points so that there is a flow of ideas, but don't waste space on long connecting sentences which do not themselves convey information. Start with your reasons for choosing the course, particularly if you have good supporting information e.g. Putting the rest of the personal statement in order may be more awkward, but the following example shows how to tackle it. Suppose you have these points to fit in:

you could start with 2 leading to 6 both school based and responsible , on to 7 and 8 same sort of things, and 6, 7 might have counted towards the award. 1 first still linked to school , then 4 personal leisure , which might lead to 5 places where you dived?. This leaves 3, which doesn't follow on quite so naturally, but is linked, just about, through it being a leisure activity. Each person is different, has different points to make, different details to add, but the principle of finding links to make the ideas flow into each other is the same for all. finding a good way to start and finish your ucas personal statement needs thought. the first sentence should ease the reader into what follows.

Ideally it should say something which makes him or her think that's interesting, i'm looking forward to reading the rest. Like the conclusion to an essay, you need to finish in a way that rounds the writing off. There's no best approach to this, but a good option is go back to your reasons for choosing that degree, or for going to university generally, especially if you can refer to something relevant that you will do between now and when the course begins.

Help Writing a Good Personal Statement Text

reasons for choosing the course:

interests, achievements and experience:

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