Writing your Personal Statement

The end of your AS levels or your penultimate year of IB has finally come, almost the time to leave home and come of age. But how does one get there? Well essentially through UCAS but specifically its all about writing an application, probably the most important application to date and quite possibly ever.

I want to make one very important point rather than write out a whole step by step guide explaining how to write an introduction, middle and end. However first I would like to simply highlight your cover letter is where you are essentially speaking to your university, so make the most of it especially as some courses don’t have interviews so as the saying goes you should want to sell yourself.

To do so make it clear you have actually done research to do with your degree but most importantly to do with each course specifically at each university you are applying to. Course administrators want to here you are smart enough to know in advance what your course will entail. Through knowing that you can tailor you personal statement to at least make the university think you have the qualities or are at least show you are understanding of them and eager to learn in such a direction. No one wants to here for instance how you were just simply born to do this degree or how you just happen to randomly love bridges or money for a degree in Civil Engineering or Economics respectively. Rather administrators want to here how for a degree in Civil Engineering at UCL for instance that ‘although I haven’t had the chance to work in teams I understand the benefits of working in groups to complete at first seemingly difficult tasks. This is possible as a group consists of members of various skill sets, each one having particular strengths. By delegating these tasks effectively between these strengths I hope to be able to achieve more than I would have ever been able to by myself.’