Personal statement hell, all advice welcome!

[cathyandclaire]

DD is wailing,gnashing her teeth and tearing her hair out writing her personal statement to apply for English and Drama. It is loooooooong at the moment and large chunks are going to have to be cut out.
In the qualifications section there's space to put vocational stuff... singing exams, dance, LAMDA etc. With an English/Drama degree it is sort of relevant but there simply isn't room for everything.
So... the question is...do they even glance at the extra qualifications section or does she need to shoehorn diplomas, medals and the like into the main bit?

My older 3 children did them themselves. I think their schools gave a bit of help. I kept out of it although I might have glanced at one. What I would say is all three found something different and relevant (eg one won a top prize in a competition aged 9 of a cruise down the Nile (this is true!) and loved ancient history (her subject) after that and that was on the statement. Put lots about your subject and less about your hobbies (unless the hobbies are relevant). Really really make sure there are no typos. I have read so many documents this week which are littered with commas, for full stops, with capital letters where none are needed etc. It gives a very bad impression.

Roisin link, if needed, is www.dur.ac.uk/undergraduate/apply/personalstatement/substitute/

Canoeing, is vastly better than sailing. It's cold and wet, but not as scary as leaning over at a precarious angle in a dingy.

Canoes are designed to capsize, the sort of boat my DDad sailed wasn't.

I'm a bit confused about the PS.
DS will put his Law with French Law as 1st choice but his insurance will be Philosophy.
I presume the PS should focus on both?

Thanks mums, this whole thing is a steep learning curve for me. In my day you talked about being a school prefect and netball

My older 3 all applied for identical subjects so the PS could in their case mostly be about that topic (ancient history or whatever). If you are applying for two different ones that must be hard because you don't get much space and you are supposed to be showing you are passionate over everything about studying say law which in fact if you don't do so well you might be just as keen to do something else. Schools should be able to help.

Certainly some of the PS was about their hobbies too.

Advice please - PS nearly done, but a couple of questions, as we have contradictory responses.....

First question - If your dc mentions a book they have read, in how much detail should they talk about it? One person has said she should talk about the books she has read (related to History) in detail and another person has said to cut this very short.

Second question - she was only going to talk about History, but one person has said to reference ALL her other A Level subjects in the PS & to try to tie them into History eg Historical Geography (we have put the non relevant ones such as Maths on the UCAS form instead). Another person has said to stick to History.

Or doesn't it really matter?

Yep. My eldest dd only talked about languages last year.

littleham sneaking a peak at what DS1 submitted last year (for history):

Q1 He mentioned 4 specific books woven through his PS, using approx. 1700 characters including spaces, with a focus on different perspectives etc that he had taken from these, links from past to present (eg history repeating itself at a sort of thematic level).

Q2 He mentioned one other subject but that did have a very strong link with History, his third not referenced at all.

And all done rather more eloquently than me.

Thanks boys3. That is exactly what she has done & it as been approved by all but one of the teachers who has checked it. I'll get her to go back to her personal tutor again.

Her other subjects are Geography, Maths and Biology, so she can't think of many ways to weave those into the PS. Do you reckon she should leave them out & just list them on UCAS with the grades?

Littleham, please sign disclaimer for any liability with the one exception that is what DS1 did. Bit out of left field but any links for Maths, Biology with great strides, technology vs traditional views, Galilieo vs Spanish Inquisition sort of thing?

Thanks boys3 - disclaimer noted! Just when we thought she was nearly there.

Will see what the majority opinion is at school. If there are any friendly admissions people / academics out there that have personal likes and dislikes, we would appreciate hearing about them. Don't mind how way out or left of field they are....funny stories happily received.

I have been told that the word 'passion' is hated!

DD only talking about subjects she is studying and interests that tie in with that. I think referencing the biology and maths would use up a lot if valuable characters, they'll know she does them from her school reference and they could show that she has an analytical brain/good at problem solving etc.
Are your DC talking about sport, music and the like? DD has one sentence about netball and singing which seems a little random and hard to fit in eloquently with the rest if the text.
< off to check for any uses of the word passion>
I heard one admissions tutor say their pet hate is opening with a quote.

LapsedPacifist. I would honestly say it is a really bad policy to apply for 5 different courses. The PS will never convince anyone that your DC is right for their course because there are so few words to prove that the tutors must choose you. The PS should be tailored to the course and what the DC has done to support the application. How can this be done 5 times with so few words? Make it easy - go for one course at 5 universities. The more subjects you have, the more the PS is watered down and the applicant looks unfocused. Surely the schools have experienced 6th form tutors that deal with wordy PS's and advice on what to apply for? For example, why suddenly add Politics into the mix with History? Why not all 5 as History and Politics?

I never saw either of my DD's PS's. Thank God. I do think that everything in it should be their own words, include relevant experiences and showcase their academic interests. It should contain what they have actually achieved, so you don't put you often go to the theatre, you put thst you have read plays and acted. You write about where your interests lie and what you have done to further these interests. So it can be unhelpful to read about Politics when the reader is selecting for a single honours History course. People who write about History only may be able to make a stronger case.

The tutors also want to know what type of person you are so music, sport, drama and other hobbies do have a relevance, especially if they define your personality. For what its worth, my more academic DD did about 60% academics, 20% work/ out of school experiences relevant to the degree and 20% extra curricular and responsibilities at school. Don't expect to be interviewed. Most universities don't bother much these days for most courses. However, never lie.

Arghh.... ds1's draft PS has been seen by me, dh, his subject teacher and his tutor. All more-or-less happy/impressed/delighted with it, suggested a few minor tweaks.

Now the final stage, a member of SMT with specific Oxbridge experience. And he's given some brutal feedback (nicely phrased) :-o ds1 has taken this on board and seems to agree with it, so now wants to start again practically from scratch writing his PS. And he's away on a Biology field trip for the whole of next week!

Here is an article talking about the dislike of the word 'passion'. May be of interest to anyone applying for History as well. No quotes in her PS, so she is safe there!

www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/18/writing-a-personal-statement-for-history

Luckily, my dd2 is applying to all five for History (she has written it herself & we have just proof read). I don't really understand why she should add in Maths / Biology etc. She has decided not to follow those subjects to degree level.

Ditto Roisin - my dd2 leaves for a field trip on Friday. I hope she doesn't start hers again from scratch.

Cathyandclaire - she has a very small section near the end on her music, but most of it is on the subject and her voluntary job.

When people apply to me for jobs and use the word passion I cringe. I assume they don't read the Financial Times columnist's articles about awful management-speak. Never use passion (unless you are writing to a lover about last night).

Completely agree about the word 'passion' - cringeworthy and cheesy.

Do you think anyone has actually written a PS in Old English?

How about using Egyptian hieroglyphs? Or Elvish for English Lit, or Clingon for Film Studies. Just as well I have no input really.....

Do you think anyone has actually written a PS in Old English?

Too much input in counter productive - we really ought to trust our DC.
Have been sifting through papers to de-clutter and come across old essays by the DC which were vastly better than I could have written.
The poor buggers admissions tutors who have the read them would surely prefer something written by the actual applicant rather than their editorial team?

Very true but it's so easy to miss something, DD, DH, her form tutor, the head of English, the UCAS coordinator and I all failed to notice a missing apostrophe in a book title. I read of one boy who put ENGISH instead of engLish in his eng lit application despite checking gazillion times
It's so easy to make a mistake so plenty of proof readers and I think an editing eye is useful too. Which is hugely different from writing it for them

Yes, agree about the proofreading - I am a very sloppy proof reader, DH is excellent. When he is not around and I have to check my own a couple of strategies that help are to read aloud, and to read backwards...