URGENT - Personal Statement 'too many lines' ?

[54isanopendoor]

Ds has just finished his Personal Statement to include on his UCAS form for submission tomorrow.

3,976 characters used (4000 max limit) but it's saying it is over the line count - 67 max but only 47 allowed. Are we somehow formatting this wrong ?

I really don't want him to have to cut 20 lines out?

advice please (not at school or college so can't ask there...)

So he's put it in the Ucas form? It's 47 lines or 4000 characters whichever comes first. But 67 lines seems weird. My DD's was 47 lines and 3850 characters.
Remove para breaks? Check no double spaces?

Yes it’s 4000 characters or 47 lines max, whichever comes first.

Has your DS included spare lines for paragraph breaks? If so you will need to remove these. It will make it look quite blocky but I think most people have to do this so the universities are used to it. Remove the spare lines in Word and get as close to 47 lines as you can. Then I would paste it in to UCAS and continue to edit it there.

Are you using two carriage returns instead of one for paragraphs? Or using too many short paragraphs. Merge some together. Otherwise yes it will have to be reduced.

you Can’t have paragraphs or even gaps between full stops. If you take these out it will be fine.

You do have to be quite ruthless in terms of removing any superfluous wording, use shorter words where you can.

He should concentrate mostly on academic stuff - extra curricular not related to the subject can be mentioned in the reference or if has music grades (for example) in the other qualifications but. They really don't care about that stuff. Don't quote books or anything either - it's likely they are very familiar with any texts.

Cut a few words or a sentence, close the paragraph breaks. That should sort it - quite a common complication.

Ah thank you all so much !!!
I've got rid of paragraph breaks & all extraenous spaces. Cut the odd word or too & now UCAS is happy. 46 lines & spaces to spare. Chuffs sake ... need a cup of tea & a nice sit down now. Thanks again xxx

@Rollergirl11 @mondaytosunday

ARgh - now it wont accept the course bit...

I've put in the Uni name, the course code, level & title
but it wont then let me move onto the location?

Is it accepting the info in to the fiends? Are you manually entering the information are you populating by selecting from a list? I can’t remember how those fields are populated. Do you definitely have the correct course code?

Is he getting it checked at his school too? My son’s college checked them all.

Why are you putting in courses and codes? Absolutely no need. Your DC has done that in the Choices section of the form.

And why are you doing it? Should be your son!

I helped read through the personal statement but that's about as close as DD let me to hers...

By location do you mean the campus it's on? UCAS is pretty intuitive when it comes to putting most information in, including courses.
The college/school should be monitoring progress anyway and be able to help your child.
It's important too that they are doing this, because it's already teaching them the independent learning skills for uni.
If a student can't fill in a UCAS application (though it's not very accessible to visually impaired), then should they be going to uni?

It won't actually go straight to UCAS if he's applying through a college, careers or whom ever will check it through before it goes.

Sorry for late reply - form now popluated, it was just the site glitching.
!I think I panicked as we'd just had the stupid 47linesor4000words nonsense!)

re 'why am I helping'? because he is not at school or college so no help there.
(last year his Tutor / Head of Dept were on strike & refused to fill in the students UCAS References. Half the class went through Clearing & some just gave up).

He's written his own Personal Statement & it's just fantastic - so pleased for him.

He is very dyslexic so I'm helping him go over the form.
He also has Autism & Clinical Anxiety (which I didn't put in my OP tbf)
He has every right to apply for & successfully attend University
(where specialist support will be available to him as a disabled student)

You don't need to justify yourself on why you're helping. You're his mother, why wouldn't you help. These comments about helping always come up on these sort of threads and it's ridiculous really. Good for him on getting to this point 😄

Thanks @Goawaytina
Its a bit tricky without School or College guidance (esp if you are a bit anxious)
I have had some good advice on MN though for which I'm really thankful x

FFS there's always one! @54isanopendoor glad youve got it sorted - stressful isn't it!