How to write a winning personal statement

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A personal statement is meant to show off YOU. You’ll need to think about why you want to study the course you’re applying for, what you’ve done to work towards that already, what transferable skills you have and what you want to do after university. It’s a lot to think about and squish into the strict UCAS character and line limit, but don’t worry, we’ve got all the tips and advice you could want.

Personal statement all finished? Read more about applying to university.

CONTENTS:

When’s the deadline to finish my personal statement?
How to get started on your personal statement
Tailoring your personal statement to your subject choice
How to structure your personal statement
What to include in your personal statement
Can you use AI when writing your personal statement?
Things to avoid in your personal statement
How long should your personal statement be?
How to edit your personal statement
Are you ready to submit your personal statement?
UCAS proposed reform

When’s the deadline to finish my personal statement?

The UCAS deadline for 2024 entry is 31 January 2024 at 6pm UK time. You can submit applications after this, but you won’t be covered by the Equal Consideration Policy and some courses may be full. Any applications received after 6pm on 30 June 2024 will be entered into Clearing.

It’s best to have your personal statement drafted a couple of weeks before the deadline so you have time to get feedback on it and edit it.

How to get started on your personal statement

Before you even think about writing, you’ll have to research the courses you’re applying for. This can give you some inspiration on what to write about, and if you see you’ve already covered some of the first-year material, even better.

After research comes planning. You’ll want to plan out paragraph by paragraph what you’re going to include to make sure you don’t repeat yourself or miss anything out.

If you have your research and plan completed, it’s time to start writing!

How to start writing your personal statement.

Tailoring your personal statement to your subject choice

Admissions tutors want to see why you’d be a good fit for the course you’ve applied for on your personal statement, so you’ll want to make sure the things you’re mentioning link back to the course you’ve applied to. For example, if you’re applying to study psychology, there’s not much point going on about how much you love watching Great British Bake Off. However, if you’re a huge fan of Milton’s Paradise Lost and you’re applying to study English literature, that’s a great thing to mention.

Not everything you mention has to be directly linked to your chosen course, but it should either link or demonstrate transferable skills useful to university study such as time management, leadership, balancing responsibilities or independent research.

Tailoring your university personal statement to your subject

How to structure your personal statement

There’s no set way you have to structure your personal statement, but if you read a few examples online, you’ll probably notice a bit of a pattern occurring. The main thing to do is to open your personal statement by introducing yourself and why you want to study the course you’re applying to. You might then want to talk about:

Your academic qualifications
Any work experience or volunteering
Extracurricular activities
Any reading you’ve done around your subject (and what you learned from that reading!).

A good way to close your personal statement is to talk about what you’d like to do after university, and how the subject you’re applying for will help you get there.

How to structure your personal statement.

What to include in your personal statement

Your personal statement should be just that – personal! Exactly what you should include depends on what you’ve done. However, some areas that you might want to cover in your personal statement include:

Work experience
Part-time work or volunteering
What you’re studying now
What topics within the subject particularly interest you
Your future career goals
Extracurricular activities or reading you’ve done relevant to your course

Essential topics to include in your personal statement.

Can you use AI when writing your personal statement?

ChatGPT and AI is a hot topic right now, so you might be wondering whether it can help you write your personal statement. In short, you have to be careful if you’re using AI to help you with your personal statement.

Your personal statement must be original work, which means you can’t copy and paste chunks from an AI. UCAS checks personal statements and can detect AI-written content, so using AI-generated paragraphs could harm your application.

However, AI can be helpful for the planning stage as it can generate personal statement examples that you can use for inspiration on what to cover and how to structure your own personal statement. It can also help you to brainstorm topics related to your subject that you could relate to your experience when it comes to writing your personal statement.

Using AI and ChatGPT when writing your personal statement.

Things to avoid in your personal statement

It probably goes without saying that you shouldn’t use any inappropriate language such as swear words in your personal statement. You should also avoid slang, or language that comes across as too informal (the admissions tutor is not your ‘mate’).

Be wary of using cliches or buzzwords if you don’t have the experience and evidence to back them up, and of course you should avoid lying about anything. It’s also wise to avoid discussing anything that you can’t link to either the subject you’re applying to study, or a transferable skill you learned that’ll be useful at university.

Words you should never use in your university application.

How long should your personal statement be?

The limit for your UCAS personal statement is 4,000 characters (not words!) including spaces or 47 lines, whichever comes first. To check the length of your personal statement, copy and paste it into the UCAS application form as character count may vary a little bit between your word processing program and UCAS, and the only way to check your line count is to put it into the application form.

How to edit your personal statement

Once you’ve got a first draft of your personal statement, it’s time to get feedback and redraft. One of the first things you’ll want to do is check how it compares to the UCAS character and line limit. You can’t go over the limit, but you want to get as much in as possible.

You’ll also want to show it to a few people and get some feedback. You could ask your parents, friends or a teacher at school to read it over for you – the more eyes you can get on it the better. It’s good to show your personal statement to whoever is writing your UCAS reference so they can mention some of the things you’ve put into your personal statement.

You’ll need to proofread it to make sure it all makes sense and there aren’t any spelling or grammar errors before you send off your final draft.

How to tell if your university application is good.

Are you ready to submit your personal statement?

Have you drafted, redrafted and drafted your personal statement again? Have you checked for any spelling and grammar mistakes? Have you got a few people to look it over and give you feedback? If you answered yes to all of these questions and your personal statement fits within the UCAS character and line limit, all that’s left to do is go through our application checklist and send it off…

University application checklist.

UCAS proposed reform

For 2026 entry onwards, UCAS are changing the way the university application process works. For those applying for entry in 2024 or 2025, the personal statement will not be changing. We’ll bring you more information about the application reform when UCAS release the details of the updated process.

How to write the best personal statement