Personal statements - nothing to write

[Claybury]

DS has abondonned all hobbies and extra curricular over his teens in order on 'focus on studying '. Well this is his view, I think he wanted to free up weekends for partying, recovering and a bit of homework.
As a result I'm wondering what on earth someone puts in their personal statement who has literally no hobbies. Gave up his instrument in year 11, did not want to do any field trips for biology ( had chance of overseas one ) , refuses to do voluntary or paid work, does no sport, refuses to participate in school clubs.

Is this unusual?

My friend's DD worked every weekend in a supermarket whilst doing A levels and got excellent grades. Went to university, a very good one, and dropped out after a year. Whether someone works, or, not, between the ages of 16-18 does not necessarily mean they are top students. It also means you cannot trust a ps to tell you who is likely to be worthy of a place on a course. Obviously admissions tutors do have their likes and dislikes. My DDs were at boarding school where no-one works at weekends and only a handful did a holiday job. Should they be disadvantaged for this? The school gave them opportunities to do other things to support their university applications. I actually think this is why boarding school pupils apply in large numbers to a relatively small number of universities.

Higheredserf Nice to hear that about the quirky statement. DS1 was slightly worried that his bore no resemblance to any sample he could find on TSR or anywhere else. The staff at his sixth form college said it was unusual.
He is geeky to the extreme and when I read what he had written I was blown away and have no idea where he got it from.
I suspect in the end though, it was the high UMS/grades that got him the offers and the PS might have swung it if he had been borderline.

We gulped at DS's determination to include his obsession with Thunderbirds and railways on his PS.

He tells us smugly that every single interviewer asked him about either steam trains or Thunderbirds as an icebreaker.

And that is precisely why just studying and doing nothing else comes across as a bit boring. If an interview is likely, only talking about your A levels is very limiting!

The interview if any, is likely to be about the subject and not about your flute or rugby playing, at least that was true for DS. No ice breakers, no chat, just all subject, albeit not the A level curriculum.

Donkeys' years ago, my brother was asked at every interview without fail why he had his hand in plaster. It was such a good icebreaker that he kept the strapping on for the final interview even though the injury had healed.

He might have over-egged the fact that it was a cycling injury as part of his unswerving love of Green Transport (as he was applying for environmental science).

Not that I'm recommending desperate measures...

senua going to give dd the "you know how lucky you are to get offer from Bristol...." later give it a try??.... thanks littleham
Ah Admission officer You guys/girls are so hard to please Spill the beans tell us the "je ne sais quoi" our dc need to impress you if only you could bottle it up and send it this way. Things I've learnt so far for a stand out PS:-
-Quirky is a good thing
-unusal hobby maybe?
-out of the box thinking, thought provoking
-hardship, challenges against adversity
-holding some kind of job but still getting
good grades aswell.
-link your subject area with something
that may have happened in real life to
yourself that challenged your thinking.
If my dd has to go through this PS thing again (hopefully not) doing the above should at least give her a bit more chance of success in the PS area

If all the candidates have red hot grades, the interviewers don't just take the obvious candidates though. At interview personality comes into it and who the lecturers feel has an aptitude for learning. At Oxbridge it is about who suits their way of teaching. Someone who does other things, besides just studying, shows they can achieve highly and learn quickly whilst doing hobbies and sport. Someone who just does their subjects is one dimensional by comparison. This is why offers from Oxbridge are so difficult to predict outside the genuinely gifted.

The most important thing to remember with a personal statement is to make it into a well told story, no matter what it's about or the subject you're applying for.
I'm a Journalism graduate and now a Children's Author, at college I wasn't really into after school groups, sports and the like. I was much more creative and reflective working from home, but that doesn't mean you're not 'active'. If you want to go to university then you obviously have some love of a certain topic, the university first and foremost what to see that you care deeply about that subject and why you care? What have you done in your life that indicates you've thought about that subject or that you'd be good at studying in that area.
It's always good to tell them about skills or experiences which may not appear directly linked to that specific subject but that show transferable skills. Think carefully about everything you have been working on in and out of school, any small edge you have over others.

A final tip; to get started write down 10 key points, things that have changed your view/ life, things that have inspired you in relation to your chosen subject etc. Then work out which order they go in and from there think 'how do I tell this story?'. Remember that a well written story about something small is always more captivating than a badly written story about something big.

My DD wrote about her big involvement with Girlguiding and how that had helped her choose to study MFL at Uni after going on an International camp. First question at interview she was asked ( at RG Uni highly ranked for MFL) was "so what do you think of the new Guide Promise ?" !!!! Not one she was expecting but one she was happy to talk about and relaxed her before some of the other questions ! So, don't think they don't take any notice of these things on applications as clearly they do ! We had prepared for all the expected questions ( why MFL, why this course, why this Uni etc) but didn't expect that one in a million years. Interviewer ( head of dept) did say they had a member of staff very involved in Guiding so he was aware of the (then) topical question.