Personal statements are horrific.
That is the truth through and through. Nobody enjoys writing
them, I highly doubt anyone enjoys reading them, and more often than not, they
seem to be ignored. My personal statement took around 8 drafts, being sent back
and forth between my tutor, secondary school tutor, parents, and biology
mentor, as well as myself. Even after all of this, there are still whole
sections I’d love to change but I think that’s a common feeling about a piece.
I worked on it for MONTHS!
And yet, one of my universities gave me an offer within 18
hours… factoring in that this was over night and even admissions staff need to
sleep, I find it hard to believe that they actually looked through all of my
references, attendance and personal statement, rather than just predicted
grades and going on that.
However, I have heard it said that admissions tutors can
tell a lot from someone’s PS. If you’re applying for medicine but have a
biology based subject as a backup, but all through your PS you talk about your
love for medicine, helping people and interest of the human body, it’s not a
very subtle hint to the AT that their course isn't your top choice, and will
often be rejected simply due to your lack of interest for their subject. In the
long scheme of things, I see this as pretty justified, no teacher wants to
teach a classroom full of students who don’t want to be there!
One of the hardest bit of the PS is 4000 characters, and the
nightmare that is the inconsistency between how word processors count
characters, versus how the UCAS website counts characters. I can recommend
doing some background research googling the dos and don’ts of writing your PS.
The one major point I will emphasise here (so as not to just repeat everyone
else entirely) is that I find it hard to believe that you “have had a passion
for chemical engineering from a young age” or “as long as I can remember”. It’s
just not true, and we all know it!
Get your friends to help you, those who have known you for
several years or so are likely to be aware of what work experience you've done,
or what skills you have which make you perfect for the course which you simply
wouldn't think of! Don’t be scared to print it off now and then and annotate
it, absolutely pick it apart, rearrange it even, aim to get that page as
colourful as the revision that you would be doing, if you didn't have to do
this, would be.
Keep your head up, and try not to repeat the same word too
many times (I'm a sucker for doing that so sorry in advance!)
All the best,
Bea x
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