Will you send a brag sheet to the UCAS advisor about the honours and ECs outside school for preparing the reference letter?

[User11010866]

I understand that the school UCAS advisor doesn't have any information on ECs DC has outside school. Even some of the competitions organized in the school might not have been recorded or unknown to the advisor.

My son had to write notes for his referees (subject and form teachers) on unifrog which would serve that purpose I guess.

Your DC can mention these achievements on their personal statement. The UCAS reference is usually compiled out of academic references from each of the teachers, and in my experience (30 years 6th form teaching) would be written up by the student's personal tutor. The UCAS advisor might check the final draft. Unless your child's school/college expects the UCAS advisor to write all the references or they have asked for this info to be sent, I wouldn't. But gathering it all together could be very helpful for DC writing personal statement.

at DC's school, the UCAS advisor is responsible for writing all the references. The advisor might gather information from A-level subject teachers. DC intends to apply for a course related to Maths and CS, even though he hasn't taken CS at the A-level. However, he did participate in a Computer Science-related competition. It's uncertain whether the advisor is aware of his achievements as DC tends to be reserved when it comes to mentioning his accomplishments.

Yes just send it. It will help them structure the reference.

I feel sorry for the advisor! Hopefully the individual subject teachers write great references. In this very specific case of a student having achievements in the discipline they want to study, it probably is worth making sure the UCAS advisor knows. However it also gives you child something interesting and concrete to illustrate their commitment to the subject in the personal statement. If your DC tends to hide light under a bushel, helping them compile a 'Brag sheet' as you put it, would be helpful for writing the PS.

The Head of Sixth writes the ref in my daughter's school , and she will speak to the teachers. But no she would not know of any extracurricular, but none relate to the subject anyway so it is all mentioned in one short sentance in the PS.
For relevant super curricular, that goes in the PS.

Our class tutors write the references but they are strictly academic.

Any relevant extra stuff goes in the PS which we check if the student asks us to. I'd say we advise far more to cross out irrelevancies tbh.

The CS competition (if fairly recent) should go in the PS as it demonstrates his ongoing interest in the subject.
It wouldn't be appropriate for the reference.

That info should all go into the personal statement which should be written by your child.

The UCAS advisor will only write the school reference and predicted grades. Your dc will write the PS and it is here that relevant competitions need to be included, and crucially what they learnt from the competition itself.

I don't completely agree with everything that's been said here.
My children were advised by school to put no extra curricular stuff in their PS (other than maximum of one sentence for one child who was nationally ranked at a sport).
The teacher doing their school reference put everything extra curricular in there (so music done out of school, competitions, sport etc) alongside the references from the teachers. We didn't do anything but the referee spoke to the children and asked if there was anything they should know about.
Supra-curricular things went in the personal statement.

The UCAS reference has changed substantially this year. It needs to include things like personal circumstances that might affect performance, as well as the contextual details of the school. Schools should have processes in place to make sure relevant circumstances are recorded.

https://www.ucas.com/advisers/writing-references/changes-undergraduate-references-2024-entry

^^this
DS is applying post A levels this year so I had a long chat with schools ucas advisor. The reference is in 3 parts and applicants will have some input. The other good news is that the personal statement is going but not this year. The unis don’t like them so it is being replaced with a questionnaire to standardise it.
For DS is will be a bonus, I was diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks before he started yr12 and the DH had a stroke 2 mnths after I finished treatment. His yr 12 culminated with the death of his grandfather who had had a catastrophic stroke in 2020. Suffice to say yr12 was not a good yr for him. He did bounce back but most of his revision was teaching himself the yr12 stuff he hadnt really taken in while he was distracted by what was going on at home.

I'm not so sure getting rid of the PS is such a good thing. Now that so few interview it seems the only chance for an applicant to say anything about themselves outside their grades. Even though it is supposed to be about the course/subject they are applying to, how they write it is telling to those who read 100s a year.
However, as with so many things, it does seem some students get a lot of input from parents or others in writing it, removing the individual from the page. My daughter has written her own and only showed it to me when she was about to submit it to school. I proofread it, suggested one or two sentence structure changes for clarity. Her head of sixth has suggested she cut two lines and add in something about a part of the course that applies to Cambridge only (which we both disagree with as it's not her area of interest and does not relate to the other university courses she is applying to). But 95% will be her ideas/structure/wording.
I went to uni in America where they do like to hear about the extracurriculars and that you were president of this society and had a Saturday job at McDonald's and love watching old Hitchcock movies! They want a holistic picture of any candidate. So I find it hard when the process here is reduced to three grades, a reference and a short essay solely built around their interest in the subject.

@mondaytosunday the personal statement isn't being abolished just the free text format. Suggestions by UCAS are that the new style will include prompts like motivation for the course, preparedness for the course, preparation through other experiences each with a short explanation of what each one is asking for.

We were advised by a top 10 university admissions advisor that they wanted to see you as a person in the personal statement, that they were interested in what you could bring to the university and they meant extra curriculars like sports, potential to join clubs etc that your love of the subject was a given but what else would you do at uni? Definitely not just supra-curriculars.

At Ds's school if you are already taking the subject then your subject tutor will write the reference, I don't know who writes it if you aren't taking it as Ds falls into the first category. His UCAS advisor just checks over everything, I am not sure if any head of house/year adds anything in to the reference. He will find out on Friday when he gets to see his reference.

I have volunteered in the past review ps for students wanting to apply for my profession and they are very 2 dimensional to read. You get no idea of the person behind them or whether they genuinely are interested in what is a very niche vocational job. But then this is reflected in the current graduates who think they will have a licence to print money.
A guided ps would give those who are self conscious about selling themselves equal billing. Fortunately there is an intense interview proceed, but only for those who make it past the ps.
Also since the profession is rather top heavy with egos they are often not as objective as they could be when interviewing candidates.
PSs are often superb works of fiction.