Starting to write your UCAS personal statement can be very daunting. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by the idea and just not knowing where to begin. For me, the main challenge was trying to write something that fit the bill for all of the different programmes I was applying for at different universities. My choices ranged from maths and data science to international relations, so meeting the expectations of all of these seemed like an impossible task. But I received some very helpful tips and advice from my teachers which I hope you will find useful as well.

Tip number 1: Write about YOU

This one seems obvious, really. But it’s so easy to fall down the rabbit hole of just describing a university or programme in your personal statement, especially since you’ve likely been doing a lot of research and want to show the university that you’ve done that. However, you should try and write about what makes you different from all the other applicants; the advice I was given and eventually followed was to write about my journey to applying to university. Think about the key events that led you to apply – if you tell the truth, it’s very unlikely that your personal statement will be like anyone else’s.

Tip number 2: Your personal statement should be an academic essay

This one really took me a while to get my head around. The fact is that universities want to see that you have already pursued the interests that you claim to be so passionate about. If you just say something like, “I have always been interested in politics”, without giving evidence as to why the admissions team can believe this, they won’t. The most common way to show that you really are proactively passionate is to talk about reading that you’ve done around the subject area. You should also mention any relevant experience you’ve undertaken; include examples of times when you went out of your way to find out more. Most importantly though, for each book, podcast, article or experience you mention, tell the reader what you learned from it. For books, you could give an overall opinion or mention a specific idea from within the book and argue for/against it, for example. It’s also a good idea to describe how one thing led you to another – try to tell a story and keep it engaging.

Tip number 3: Don’t be afraid to focus your personal statement on something which isn’t directly relevant

For some, who have applied for the same subject everywhere, it might be appropriate to write about the programme you’re applying for and really delve into the specifics of why you chose that subject. However, for those like me, who applied for a wide range of programmes, it makes more sense to write about something else, rather than try to mention all of your choices or picking only one to write about. For example, as a student interested in politics, I chose to write about gender inequality. Try to think about the thing that you have really strong opinions about, the topic on which you can never resist a conversation/debate, and write about that. Remember to link it to the programme still; for me, I mentioned how my university studies would help me to make contributions to the goal of overcoming inequality. This is how I overcame my biggest challenge of tailoring my personal statement to my wide range of applications.

I hope that you find some of these tips useful and wish you good luck with your UCAS application!