Does anyone ACTUALLY read the personal statement?

[llareggub]

Genuinely, I’ve always wondered. If someone does read them, what importance is given to them? Can an amazing personal statement result in a lower offer? Surely there is a point where they are all really quite similar?

It varies hugely depending on university and course. Some (but not all) STEM courses are upfront about ignoring the PS. But for essay subjects, it's the only opportunity you have to demonstrate that you can write clear concise prose!

I am in STEM. In our School someone on the Admissions Team reads the statement in case there is anything that should be flagged or that could affect the decision making process; this is rare.

More importantly, when someone is invited for interview the interviewer also reads the PS. This background can help to orientate the interview and make it productive.

I have never heard of even a great PS resulting in a lower offer, partly because one never knows who has written it.

@llareggub I think there are broadly two categories of uni/course - 1. the ones that are oversubscribed by students with the required grade predictions so need to use the personal statement as a tool to differentiate, and 2. all the rest.

I've never heard of a statement being used to lower an offer.

I used to do admissions for an RG uni 10 years ago and yes, I read them (skimmed). I'm a professor in a science subject.

Now the system is that the admin team in admissions read and flag up anything unusual we should read (eg major health issues that disrupted study) but otherwise the professors don't read them.

Big variation by uni/ subject.

We went to one uni open day and the academic speaker said that they use the PS in case of a student falling short of their offer grades and they then look for reasons to still accept the student.

It obviously varies wildly. My son has applied this year and the applicants info page for his course at one place states that they consider grades, PS and ref. Another states that they weight their decision towards grades but look at the Ps if needed as a tie breaker between applicants.

I have also wondered this OP and how uni admissions have time to read all of these for each application. My conclusion is that the majority are not read or considered in any great depth. Unis are interested in grades first and foremost not when you did your DofE.

My son's was mentioned in his offer letter, so some do end up being read.

Totally depends on the course. DS has just started engineering. All the information from open days, admissions etc was that as long as you were predicted the grades you got an offer and they didn’t look at PS. On the other hand his GF got a lower offer for English because she had an amazing PS.
Also met an admissions tutor for a London law school recently and she said they get so many applications all they can do is flick through the pile and choose one or two at random!
Anyway, haven’t they got rid of the PS? My DD is year 12 and we’ve got to do all this again soon

Definitely depends on the course. We interview for our course and I can’t interview all applicants. I reject 75% before interview and base my rejections on a combination of the personal statement and gcse grades but mainly the personal statement.

I think this must have happened for my dd. She was fairly short of her grades offer for her (hate to say it, RG) university this year but still got the place.
She has a lot of outside interests, which I would imagine would make her an asset, and it is an oversubscribed subject, so I can only think they liked the sound of her.

Whatever reason it was, it was a massive relief!

The PS will still be there, sorry! It's just that it's going to be split into sub-sections (with the same total character limit) to ensure that applicants don't go too far "off piste."

I read ours. My subject is not taught at A Level so I do due diligence to ensure they know the subject and have applied for the right course. It's also helpful when students may be borderline on points.

It is very complicated as people have said

1. some read / use at interview
2. someone in admissions read and summarise
3. no-one reads
4. not read initially but is read after results if the person is a narrow miss.

Best bet is to write it for scenario 1.

Possibly. But also what’s the alternative for the university? That they go into clearing? If they go into clearing every uni I’ve worked at makes you drop the tariff for clearing.

so my course is 128 ucas points, in clearing we go down to 96. So say I have 50 places. If on A level results day I haven’t filled them, we go into clearing and take anyone with 96 points. But it makes far more sense to keep the ones we’ve already made offers to as long as their ucas points are between 96-128.

its a real balancing act and we always over offer knowing not everybody comes. So it’s possible one year someone only slightly misses their ucas tariff and maybe has 125 ucas points, but if at that point we had all 50 places filled still we would turn them down. Another year they’d get in with 96.

Both DCs were asked about it at their interviews (humanities, Oxbridge) and as they got in, I think they thought the time spent on the PS was worth it.

Oxbridge definitely do, although more for Humanities than for STEM ime. Other universities might, especially if over-subscribed. However, if there is an admissions test that is far more important than the PS. DD is at Oxford doing History, and they told her unless they get a certain mark in the test, they don't even look at the PS, unless the student qualifies for the Pupil Premium, goes to a very low-performing school, or is a Looked After Child or young carer.

DS went to an offer holders day at Leeds and the course leader said he’d read everyone’s PS. He spoke about how interesting it was to read about why everyone was attracted to the subject. Quite impressive.

As other posters have said, it depends on the Uni & course. The Glasgow Uni engineering admisssions officer stated that they never read any PS on principle (rationale: it told you nothing about the applicant, just their background and life opportunties so far). But I see from responses that other Unis & subjects do use it. So it is worth asking about at open day.

DD applied for an oversubscribed course that interviews. One of her offer letters mentioned her PS in great detail, and two of them had picked points out of it when she went to interviews.

DD was an Oxbridge applicant so early. She had an offer from Bath within a week of applying (usually offer later) due to 'the strength of her personal statement' so yes it seemed to carry weight in her application.

My DC is applying for engineering..The admissions tutor at one highly competitive uni said he thought it would be difficult to write a statement that would appeal to him and also to the Imperial admissions tutor, because the two courses were so different (Imperial's being more theoretical and the other uni's course being more practical, hands on, requiring lots of teamwork etc). DC has applied to both, so will be putting that to the test. 🙂

I think it is a really good question to ask at open days etc. working on the PS can totally dominate this term if one isn’t careful, so being clear how important it is can be a great time saver.

Yes, we read them and they’re the basis of some questions we ask at interview, in addition to the standard questions we ask all applicants.

A PS will never result in a lower offer. More usually it’ll raise questions about the fit between applicant and our course.