Your Child's Personal Statement

We know that parents and students spend a lot of time working on the UCAS Personal Statement. We asked three of Aberystwyth’s Admissions Tutors, from the Departments of English and Creative Writing, International Politics and Geography, to give us a view about what they think is important in your child's UCAS personal statement. The key points that emerged were:

  • they all take the UCAS Personal Statement seriously: it is worth spending time on;
  • they all say that the UCAS Personal Statement may make a key difference in marginal cases;
  • they all want the UCAS Personal Statement to be really personal – that’s to say they are not looking for anything standardised, polished, formulaic: they want to know about the individual;
  • the most important factor is for your child to say why he or she has chosen this course – and to do so with convincing detail: 
    • not just ‘I like reading’; but, ‘I really enjoyed Zadie Smith’s White Teeth this year’; 
    • not just ‘I’m interested in International Politics’; but, ‘I’m really looking forward to studying arms reduction in the post-Bush, Obama era’;
    • not just ‘I’ve always enjoyed Geography’; but, ‘We studied glaciation as part of our A level course. Aberystwyth’s specialism in glaciology is a big part of why I chose it.’
  • the next most important factor is the statement of your child’s extra-curricular interests - exactly because it contributes to a rounded view of the real person. Again, this section needs to be convincing: and the most convincing thing is...the truth!

Finally, all of the above can be fatally compromised by poor presentation, and especially by mistakes in grammar or punctuation.

On the subject of extra-curricular interests, check out the Aberystwyth portfolio at Student Life or at The UK's Most Popular Student Town

After you have completed the Application Form, together with the Personal Statement, you will send them off by the deadline and wait for offers to roll in from the chosen Universities. A quick pause for breath and then you're into Dealing with Offers  

 

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