Would you pay for personal statement support? How much would you pay? What would you expect?

[DirtyDennis]

I'm setting up a side business of tutoring but have had a few people ask whether I'd offer UCAS personal statement support too.

It got me thinking that it'd probably be quite a good idea but I'm not sure how big the market is. So my questions are;

• would you pay for one-to-one personal statement support for your child?
• what would you expect to pay?
• what would you expect for that?
• what would you expect the qualifications of the person providing the support to be?

Really appreciate any thoughts. Thanks

[titchy]

I would like to see radical change in HE but it won't happen.

Such as?

If you're not going to be part of the solution (and you could be if you chose) the very least parents and applicants can expect is that admissions tutors are not part of the problem.

Helping applicants to their best is one thing Maria. Only helping those can can afford the help is another.

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Helping applicants to their best is one thing Maria. Only helping those can can afford the help is another

How is different to hiring a private tutor,which is very common where I live?

[DirtyDennis]

@titchy
Such as...

• I'd like to see HE (esp. RG universities) only offering 7% of places to privately educated students reflecting the number of kids who are actually privately educated

• I'd like to see RG universities working in partnership with comprehensive schools in LPNs to properly mentor promising young students into university

• I'd like to see every department have a dedicated member of staff who's job is 100% FTE to work on admissions/recruitment with a particular focus on LPNs. At the moment, this kind of work is done either by central admissions teams who are spread across several different departments, or by academics within departments who are trying to squeeze this work into the gaps between research and teaching (and, as such, end up concentrating on non-LPN schools because they're already primed for those kinds of relationships)

• I'd like to see RG universities offering genuine support for students who come from LPNs and poorly performing comprehensive schools in recognition that those students may struggle more with university life than those who've been living away at a £50K per year boarding school since they were two weeks old. This,a gain, needs proper workload and staff, not just a shitty "add-on"

• I'd like to see some opportunities at universities (e.g. research internships) be only available to students from low-income backgrounds

• I'd like to see students immediately excluded from university when they behave appallingly (thinking of the example of the Cam students who set fire to money in front of a homeless man, and the Durham students who organised a miners and pit owners party)

[MariaNovella]

Helping applicants to their best is one thing Maria. Only helping those can can afford the help is another.

I don’t usually charge for the help I give.

[titchy]

I don’t usually charge for the help I give.

Then your conscious is clear

So why don't you OP knock on your Director of Access's door and volunteer to go to schools in your nearest LPNs, mentor some students and help your Outreach teams?

All (part from your first suggestion which is barking) good ideas.

[DirtyDennis]

@titchy Errrm, I am the admissions tutor for my department. This means I do school visits, I do work with LPN schools.

I do this as much as possible but this role is 150 hours per year, 56 of which are already allocated to open days, and another 80 are dedicated to making offer decisions. The 14 hours left allocated to that role doesn't exactly leave much time for proper, good quality, effective work with LPN schools and students.

That's my point. This stuff shouldn't be an add-on, and undertaken by an academic trying to squeeze it in between research and teaching (you know, the stuff I'm actually an expert in and was hired to do). It should have a full-time member of staff who's job is 100% to undertake this kind of work.

Not sure why the first suggestion is barking

[pqgh04]

I'd like to see HE (esp. RG universities) only offering 7% of places to privately educated students reflecting the number of kids who are actually privately educated

Because some kids at private schools are on scholarships & come from much less affluent backgrounds that kids at high performing state schools. The % on scholarships at sixth form level is much higher than further down schools.

Because the country throwing away high achieving/strong ability kids just because of their school background is nuts.

Because the % in private schools at sixth form level is considerably higher than 7%.

Because some kids go to private sixth forms as the local state sixth forms don't offer the particular subjects they want to study e.g. further maths.

Some kids get sent to private schools because the local schools that were offered weren't suitable for those children for many reasons e.g. not having the resources to deal with high functioning autism.

Etc etc.

And if you work for universities you will know that budgets are under massive pressure. Where do you want to take the money from for more outreach work? Should academics work even harder for even less money, to make way for more admissions/widening participation staff?

It's BTW simply not true that personal statements are going to tip the balance for many top courses. We are currently in a demographic dip. For many top courses, if you get close to the required grades, you get in.

[titchy]

If only 7% come from private schools then 93% must have to come from state schools. Do you really think that enough state school kids get 3 x As or more to make up 93% of places?

I entirely agree something needs to be done to address the imbalance but having a quota as you suggest is ridiculous. There are far better measures (contextual offers for example).

We should also be very careful that universities don't become solely responsible for addressing inequality - the problem starts much much earlier (access to decent housing, childhood poverty, low primary and secondary school standards). Universities cannot right all those pre-existing social and structural inequalities.

[MariaNovella]

7% is not the correct figure for sixth forms - the percentage of pupils at private sixth forms is much higher than that.

Outreach to the poor but deserving is an absolutely endless task. I volunteer with refugees and often feel overwhelmed by the need.

[MarchingFrogs]

Then again my local FB group had someone looking for a tutor to help her child write her dissertation.

Is the child (presumably, age-wise at least a young adult, but in this case, possibly the former is a better description) in agreement of this? Or even the instigator? Mind positively boggling here, anyway, whether it was the child or the mother.

And OP, no, I wouldn't pay anyone to help me write my PS (I'm not thinking of going back to unoversity anytime soon, anyway). I certainly wouldn't pay anyone to help my DC write theirs - there is plenty of advice out there for free on every university's website, TSR etc, should our last potential university applicant feel he needs it. Sorry. I'm sure you will find plenty of takers, though.

[Tiramisu1]

Actually there is a lot of excellent free advice on how to write a Personal Statement, even by the Universities themselves.

Surely if you're bright enough to go to University then writing a statement about yourself shouldn't be too difficult anyway!

[GCAcademic]

I take it you have declared your tutoring business and will also do so for a personal statement service via the annual Conflict of Interest form your university must ask for? Do they really not have an issue with this?

[daisypond]

No, I wouldn't. To be honest, it seems quite easy to get into an RG university, despite the dire warnings of how difficult it is. One of mine (inner city comprehensive) applied on the closing date - and not a high achieving child by any means, and did A-levels in the "easiest" subjects they could think of - think photography, media studies, etc - did quite well - not outstanding (no all As) - and straight into an RG university. Originally said they didn't want to go to university, so school had no input on the PS and nor did we. They applied after they'd left school the next year.

[Xenia]

I want to see places going to those with the highest grades - full stop with no bias whether towards those from fee paying, state grammar, posh comps or because the child is under privileged. We have a fairly good merit based system at the moment.

On payint for PS help - no. My 5 have managed to get to university without that paid for help and I wouldn't pay.

[PCohle]

Really? Do you genuinely think a kid who gets three A's from Eton is as bright and shows as much potential as a kid who got AAB but from a shit inner city comp?

Grades are important but I certainly think that other factors are also indicative of a child's true potential.

[DirtyDennis]

We have a fairly good merit based system at the moment

We absolutely don't.

[Romax]

full stop with no bias whether towards those from fee paying, state grammar, posh comps or because the child is under privileged

Do you not see the contradiction in what you write here?

[MariaNovella]

On payint for PS help - no. My 5 have managed to get to university without that paid for help and I wouldn't pay

Your DC went to private school. By definition, they got paid help.

[RedHelenB]

Both Dds wrote their own ps. State comp and 6th form college.Dd1 got 2 offers for dentistry and an interview just by following what she got told on the Leeds open day. Dd2 has had offers from 4 out of Russell group. Again she just followed general guidelines. She didn't get an offer for Cambridge . So I agree that there's no need but ime parents in certain social circles like one upmanship so I'm sure there would be a market. Just as my dd didn't do any paid for stuff for Ukcat but loads did via medley and the like.

[Fazackerley]

I wouldn't pay, no. But I did help dd with hers (proofread) and her school also helped move a few paragraphs about and suggested she give more emphasis on a certain thing (state secondary).

[Fazackerley]

Really? Do you genuinely think a kid who gets three A's from Eton is as bright and shows as much potential as a kid who got AAB but from a shit inner city comp?

Depends if they were studying the same subjects.

[Fazackerley]

DirtyDennis so you expect the taxpayer to spend a lot of money giving students advantages after their A levels, rather than private money giving students advantages before?

[Xenia]

To get to Eaton or a good state grammar like Henrietta B you have to be very bright. Just about no one at Eton bar perhaps Prince Harry is not bright whereas there are private schools around here where you go if you aren't very bright and cannot get into 10 harder to get into ones and then we also have all those inner London comps which have had money pumped into them in a way that Sunderland schools (where some of my family are from) haven't had or you could be someone at a fee paying school with veyr little money on a full scholarship. Anyway there we are - the only true measure is the exam result (and loads of private school pupils in the private schools for the intellectually challenged get bad grades by the way).

[Fazackerley]

and loads of private school pupils in the private schools for the intellectually challenged get bad grades by the way

yup