Personal Statements to be Scrapped

[Xenia]

Might be of interest - Ucas scraps personal statements for university admissions
"Instead of a 4000-character statement, from next year applicants will be asked to answer three questions on why they want to study their chosen course and how they are prepared for it."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cger11kjk1jo

My study of X as part of my Human Geography module highlighted the issue of Y. This led me to attend the online lecture Z which explored A and emphasised the role of B within it. After reading C which raised some more recent research on it and D, my current thinking is E.

Its about connecting what you’ve done, to what you’ve learned from them and showing ongoing curiosity.

People often advise that the PS ‘shows’ rather than ‘tells’. Ie don’t STATE interests but evidence them. Leading with an analytical point can help. ‘I became interested in P when I was first looking at a case study about Q as part of my A Level French module. By reading of R articles in S magazine, I was introduced to the a different interpretation which seemed more realistic because…’

’Through my work experience in a X factory, I became more interested in the practical applications of Y theory which I had studied in Physics. Z’s theory of 1932 still seems to hold significant validity as shown by….’

’By writing for the school newspaper, I have developed my ability to focus on a particular audience. For example, in my piece about…..’

’Regularly attending Economics Club exposed me to a number of ideas which I had not encountered before. One talk focused on the ideas of P which particularly interested me and led me to explore further by reading Q’

Few schools have above 30% absence and if they do, there’s something utterly wrong with dlr and ethos . Most dc enjoy being with friends, doing some subjects (possibly not all), joining in with activities and having a laugh. Most dc enjoy most schools. As usual there are outliers and these dc probably go to the wrong school for them. I would expect dc not to enjoy super strict schools if they don’t fit into that ethos.

I agree with @Xenia. Dc need encouraging to try things. They are more interesting people if they do. It’s not just about paid work either. There’s more to life than that or we wouldn’t have school sport for example.

According to government statistics, there were 21069 academy and maintained schools in 22/23 (the most recent absence statistics) and more than 1975 had 30% or more persistent absence. So, no, not just a few. That is most likely higher for 23/24.

That also doesn’t account for the DC that aren’t on a school’s roll because they weren’t ’fine in school’.

ETA: If you break the statistics down further there were 3526 academy and maintained secondary schools in 22/23. Over 1150 had a persistent absence percentage of 30 or more.

I think whether kids have a hobby or do stuff extra to school would not be disputed as an enriching thing. But that is a whole separate thing from what universities require of a personal statement.

There's nothing worse than a student who says they want to be, say, head boy and then does bugger all because they just 'wanted it for UCAS'.

The CS teacher at DS school asked them to help Y11 I guess so they could put it on their ps. Lots of Y11 attended. However, while many Y12 came on the first session and one of them appointed himself leader most of them disappeared by the next session because their maths teacher had made them maths ambassadors. DS enjoys teaching and while he did mention it in his ps most of the others only attended because it would look good.

Thank you @WombatChocolate , that's how DS structured his ps too. I just wanted to make sure that's what's expected by Q2 for DS2. That was very helpful!

It’s what you learn from such an appointment. Wanting it and even getting it mean nothing unless there’s a learning experience. That’s what informs the ps. Not just a list of appointments.

Wombat is right about the "showing". It is the same with law job applications - don't say - I am wonderful at communication. Show what you have done.

As to hobbies in my view education is about a whole range of things of which public exams are one small part and having a chance to do a range of non academic things that may become hobbies for life is a good thing. Also when you go for interviews before graduation for first jobs (and indeed later jobs) it tends to be the case that a rounded interesting person to have in the office is more desirable than someone with no interests at all.

On helping others our sons' school had a programme where you could do various voluntary things One of mine went into a local deprived school where many children have poor English and helped year 11s with English who had English as their second language or not much English at all and I think all sides found a benefit from that.

I woke at a university and a lot of the UCAS personal statements are written by AI. We can't tell, and not everyone has an interview, but when I get them on my course its obvious they didn't have the language skills they made out. The whole thing needs changing due to AI.

And sadly this change won’t make any difference in this respect. It used to be a 4000 character personal statement. It’s now a 4000 character personal statement broken down into three subheadings.

Absolutely. ChatGPT writes "statements", nothing personal about them.

I went through an exercise with a student of mine who gave me a highly suspect "statement" straight off of ChatGPT. At first he swore it wasn't AI, before eventually admitting it was.

I told him to go back to ChatGPT and instruct it to create something personal by feeding it with all the info it needed to fold into the PS to make it properly personal. Conclusion: the process is much slower using ChatGPT. He needed to say "write a personal statement for x subject including my achievements A, B, C, my extra-curriculars X, Y, Z, and my work placements P, Q, R where I learned 1, 2, 3. Oh, and make reference to books L, M, N especially in how they relate to my other interests which include blah blah blah.

(and it still wasn't any good...[

@concretevase So why do they stay at the uni? Maybe getting tough would make more sense? Ah - money talks though. That’s the real reason some students are tolerated.