No personal statement from 2024 (according to the Times)

[lieselotte]

Although you will have to fill in answers to a number of guided questions. And maybe submit a video message (maybe give students a choice so they can use their preferred communication style, I'd hate to have to put a video together).

A video message could soon replace the personal statement, the university admissions body said as it announced it was scrapping the written essay.
Candidates have a blank space on university application forms which they can fill with up to 4,000 characters. Ucas said that from 2024 they will instead respond to questions that will guide them to support their application in the right way.
Social mobility experts have campaigned for change and said personal statements were “barometers of middle-class privilege” because wealthier teenagers had tailored help. Numerous companies offer their services and private school sixth forms have specialists to help pupils.

Ucas is making the changes after a consultation with 1,200 students, 170 teachers and more than 100 universities and colleges. It said this paved the way for further change in future, such as moving from written text to multimedia submissions.
While students want the space to advocate for themselves on the form and demonstrate achievements beyond grades, most said the process of writing the personal statement was stressful and difficult to complete without support.

The questions the admissions service plans to introduce include asking about applicants’ motivation and preparedness for the course, their preparation through other experiences, any extenuating circumstances, how prepared they are to study and their preferred learning style.
Kim Eccleston, head of strategy and reform at Ucas, said in a blog for the Higher Education Policy Institute: “We believe this will create a more supportive framework, which in turn will help guide students through their responses by removing the guesswork, as well as capturing the information universities and colleges have told us they really need to know from applicants when it comes to offer-making.
“We are continually working to improve the admissions service to serve applicants better and broaden participation for all students, whether pursuing a traditional undergraduate degree or an apprenticeship.
“Through these upcoming reforms, we aim to introduce greater personalisation for students making post-secondary choices, give more structure to free text sections of the Ucas application, enhance visibility of the range of grade profiles and deliver new initiatives to support further widening access and participation.”

The change will affect those applying in 2024 to start university in 2025.
Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at Exeter University, has campaigned for change. He said: “This is a significant breakthrough in our efforts to make university admissions fairer and fit for purpose for all students.
“Personal statements have become little more than barometers of middle-class privilege, disadvantaging applicants from poorer homes who do not benefit from the extra help provided by an army of advisers filling in the submissions.
“I’m afraid it is time to say goodbye to the university love letter that has been a key part of university applications for decades.

“No one should underestimate how important this reform will be in helping to level the playing field in university admissions. Statements currently add further advantage to middle-class applicants who are often given help in filling in their submissions.”
On its website, Charterhouse, a private school, says: “We offer guidance on choosing degree courses and universities as well as support on writing personal statements. We have dedicated specialists for Oxbridge, medical and law applications and applications for the USA.”
Cheltenham Ladies’ College, a private boarding school for girls, has a dedicated professional guidance centre which supports girls in their university applications.
Radley College, an independent boys’ boarding school, has a director of university entrance whose team provides “comprehensive guidance through the process of applying to UK universities through Ucas.”

It said on the news this morning students would be given 6 questions to expand upon to give structure to the presentation, rather than a specific word count and self structuring?

@WednesdaysPlaits
I do think demonstrating broader interests has a place in an application. It certainly shows a student can complete tasks on a number of fronts. They might also demonstrate why they might be able to converse in seminars and be a responsible good student. I don’t see anything like this as academically important but it gives more info about the human being. I am looking forward to seeing what the questions are!

That is the general direction of the revised approach being proposed.

as the UCAS document linked above makes clear:

working with students and providers, we have tested different models to identify a way to retain the student voice that the personal statement offers while reducing the associated stress. Through this work both groups identified a preference for structured questions that bring focus and clarity for students, reducing the need for support.

Following on from this, we have been engaging further to begin establishing the focus of the questions. Six key areas have been identified so far

these are then listed before the section concludes with

we continue to refine these areas to ensure that they capture the information providers really need from applicants.

Structured questions does seem a good idea.

@TizerorFizz the focus of the six questions is already published in the UCAS document linked above. Not 100% final but a pretty good indication of likely wording.

nothing on word limits identified at this stage. Although I’m sure they will be put in place rather than inviting War and Peace.

Are they not suggesting a variety of ways to submit a personal statement of sorts? Multimedia is what they've said, so a video could be one of the options. As could a narrated power point, an essay, a podcast or whatever creative solution you can come up with.

I like it. University assesments aren't all essays nowadays and I think it's great. Giving students the choice in how they express themselves. Writing isn't the only way to show your skills off, or to demonstrate you've met learning outcomes. I think it's the way of the future and we should be welcoming change, because it offers flexibility and personalisation. I'd like to see more of this in GCSESs and other qualifications.

Whether anybody actually reads/watches/listens is another issue altogether, isn't it?

Videos are already commonplace as part of internal applications for learning programmes in workplaces.

How much do universities see of the application? Do they know which other universities have been applied for? One issue with the personal statement, even if broken up into questions, is having to write a single one for different courses so if you are applying for different subjects (eg the ‘extra’ in medicine or because there are only a couple of your preferred courses available) it is very difficult to make it sound like you are especially keen on all your options. Now it is all online, isn’t it time to be able to write tailored statements for each university?

Except these are 17 Tate olds and don’t have the experience of workplace videos. I do think the written word and expressing yourself in writing is important.

@boys3 Missed that link. Will look.

No @JuneOsborne that is not what the UCAS document is proposing.

as the document clearly states, and I’ve already directly quoted it earlier this morning, multi-media submissions might be a future enhancement at some point after this initial change is finalised and implemented.

if you think they should be incorporated from the get go there is a feedback survey available linked within the UCAS document.

Whether anybody actually reads/watches/listens is another issue altogether, isn't it?

well no, the whole point is not to give students at schools with the ability to offer media training and advertising skills the chance to coach their children to produce slick advertorials. It is to enable universities to effectively wade through thousands of applicants and quickly identify the best candidates regardless of resources available to that candidate.

Actually there are several proposed questions about what extra prep
you have done for university. UCAS do already provide a template for the PS. Did no one ever use it?

@Shelefttheweb unis don’t see who else you’ve applied to. Unlike to good ???? Old days, wow betide if you applied to Durham and didn’t rank them first. Mind that is over 40 years ago.

with the structured question approach I’d have thought it would be technically fairly straightforward to allow a slightly different response for one or more unis if needed.

whilst the majority probably wouldn’t need this for the example you gave, and no doubt some other courses, having that option would be useful for some applicants.

And as one who keeps advocating people should follow the link and read the 2 pages in the UCAS document (more space taken up by pictures than text as well if anyone finds the thought of two pages daunting) the point that @Shelefttheweb raised is acknowledged in the document. I should have flagged this in my first response. Apologies for the oversight.

anyway there is a para on page 7 entitled Multiple Statements mixed perspectives and UCAS keen to hear more views on this.

@boys3
And thanks for your prompt.

As a job seeker, you are always advised to tailor your application to what job you want. You look at the job and person specs and write an application to explain why you are a good fit. If a student wants, say, two different courses, and my DD did, then it’s difficult to do yourself justice for both in a limited space. I would therefore advocate that some questions are tailored to each course - therefore repeated but with different evidence from the student if necessary. If would also depend how different they are.

I have seen various PSs dissected by Oxford admissions and then compared with what teachers think about the same PS. Teachers ideas were not what Oxford wanted. Therefore headings might be useful.

But the PS guidance given on various (non-Oxbridge) universities' websites does include incorporating a small amount of information about extracurriculars - and if Durham has moved to specifically telling applicants not to, rather than expecting them specifically to tell them all about being Head Girl / hockey captain etc, that has presumably happened quite recently? So whereas the teachers may not be giving the best advice specifically for Oxford, generally not so off-cousre, perhaps? Surely if Oxford can cope with a PS from someone also applying to LSE complying with the LSE requirement for a PS to be 99% Why I want to do this subject, in the precise form of its presentation at LSE, they can put up with a section of the PS relating to How my part time job in retail / volunteering at Riding for the Disabled helps me to keep my head when faced with difficult situations or whatever?

I'm not sure why no-one has yet mentioned Elle Woods' legendary video essay for Harvard Law School I'm sure our teens will have no trouble matching this 😂

In reality it sounds as if the proposal is just creating more structure to the content the students are already meant to provide, but may not help to level the playing field as much as hoped.

Well, structured questions to guide you through creating a personal statement is one thing, but if they think multimedia submissions would do anything but make the whole process infinitely more stressful and open to abuse, they have another think coming.

@MarchingFrogs
I seem to recall the differences were about the teachers thought detailing what you had done/read/attended was good but Oxford wanted what you had learned from it and how it could be applied to the course. That’s not saying all teachers gave poor advice but the article was trying to help.

I love the way they pretend this is all about eliminating middle class privilege. Then replace it with something where you can hear the accent The real issue is that Chat GPT can write an amazing personal statement with the right input. You wonder how video is the answer though. I think that offers after A Level grades would be better.

@mellicauli that’s not what is being currently proposed though in the actual UCAS document. Link to it upthread.

I think this thread has been massively distracted by the multimedia vague suggestion. I wish the OP hadn't mentioned that now!

The changes suggested for next year are, broadly, positive.

Well if lots of respondents to ucas say don’t consider it in the future, then it’s not so bad that it’s had an airing now.

@Piggywaspushed The OP was just referencing what was reported in The Times.

Having read the original HE Policy blog post, it appears The Times have used journalistic licence to include references to videos etc.

Yes, that's kind of what I meant. I don't mean the OP did anything wrong : I just mean discussion of this non imminent element has now dominated over the other definitely going to happen changes...