Writing your personal statement is hard. We know! If you’re struggling to write one you’re happy with, here’s 10 top tips from an admissions tutor’s perspective:
1. Simply saying that you are ‘passionate and enthusiastic’ about your subject doesn’t mean it’s true.
Your passion and enthusiasm should come out of what you’re writing – back your statements up with examples and your passion and enthusiasm should shine through.
2. You say you want to enter the Nursing profession, but you have no experience of it.
How do you know you want to do it if you have not had any work experience in a related area? Doing voluntary experience also shows your commitment to that profession/course. Get some experience before applying for Medicine, Nursing, Veterinary Surgery, Teaching, Law, Midwifery, Social Work, Fashion (plus many others), as you are unlikely to receive an offer without it. Work experience can benefit any application, regardless of your subject as it shows your initiative and shows you are committed to that subject. Get some work experience organised – the earlier you start the better and if you start it now, you can put it in your personal statement. I’m not interested in work experience you are planning – they want to know about the work experience you’re doing at the moment.
PS. You’re not an expert in teaching just because you’ve been taught at school and sixth form or college for 7 years – teaching is very different from the front of the classroom.
3. The majority of your statement wasn’t relevant to the course you are applying for.
If you’re applying for Music but you’ve talked in detail about Maths, it doesn’t support your application, it confuses it. I want to know you’re living and breathing Music. Keep information that’s unrelated to your course to a minimum-around 10% of your total statement.
4. You made a joke that wasn’t funny.
I don’t share your sense of humour, so avoid them.
5. You mentioned the University of Edinburgh in your statement. I’m not from the University of Edinburgh.
If you mention one university, you make it clear my University is not your favourite. Why would I offer you a place on my course when I know I’m not the university you really want to go to?
6. Your personal statement is short.
You haven’t explained why you want to do this course or told me enough about you. This is your chance to show me what’s great about you – don’t undersell yourself!
7. You’ve got spelling and grammatical errors in your statement.
This looks sloppy, rushed and unprepared. Use the spell checker on your computer and get someone to proof read it for you – spell checkers don’t pick up every mistake.
8. Your personal statement tells me nothing about you other than your A level subjects and predicted grades.
I already know your predicted grades. This is your only opportunity to tell me more about you, so don’t use up characters in your personal statement to repeat something I can see elsewhere in your application.
9. You copied large sections of your personal statement from a website.
UCAS scans all personal statements to check previous statements and those available online haven’t been copied. Your application was flagged up, so I was notified along with all of your other university choices. If your personal statement isn’t original, will your university work be?
10. You have applied to 5 completely different courses at our university.
Universities can only see the courses you have applied for at their university, so in this case I can see all of your course choices. This looks like you can’t make up your mind on which course to study, or are picking my university because of the University or city, rather than my course. Whilst we’re flattered that you really want to come here, you’re indecision has made it hard to include all your course options in one personal statement (it’s vague and unspecific), so I’m not going to offer you a place.
Considering University? 