Tell the universities and colleges why they should want you

Your personal statement is your chance to tell universities and colleges why they should want you as a student. Admissions officers will want to know why you are interested in the courses that you have applied for and what you hope to do after your studies. A good personal statement is important - it could help to persuade an admissions officer to offer you a place. In many cases, applicants are not interviewed, so this may be your only chance to make the case for your admission.

You should carefully consider the information you give and the best way to present it effectively. Remember, you must be truthful and accurate in what you write. It is up to you how you write your statement, but we suggest you include some or all of the following points.adviser helping student

  • Why you have chosen the courses you have listed. Remember that, although each university or college that you have applied to cannot see your other choices, they will all see the personal statement.
  • What interests you about your chosen subject. Include details of what you have read about the subject.
  • What career plans you have for when you complete your course.
  • Any job, work experience, placement or voluntary work you have done, particularly if it is relevant to your subject. You may want to include the skills and experience you have gained from these activities.
  • Any involvement in widening participation schemes such as summer schools or mentoring activities.
  • Involvement in master classes or other Gifted and Talented programmes, including those offered by the Young, Gifted & Talented Learner Academy, which launched in September 2007 (www.ygt.dcsf.gov.uk).
  • Details of any accreditation received for your activity in preparation for Higher Education, for example through the ASDAN Aimhigher Certificate of Personal Effectiveness (CoPE qualification).
  • Details of non-accredited skills and achievement that you have gained through activities such as:

    ASDAN (Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network awards), for example, Universities Award;

    Diploma of Achievement;

    Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme;

    Liverpool Enrichment Programme;

    Millennium Volunteers Scheme; and Young Enterprise.
  • Any subjects you are studying that do not have a formal assessment.
  • Any sponsorship or placements you have or have applied for.
  • If you are planning to take a year out, your reasons why.
  • Your social, sports or leisure interests.
  • Your future plans.

If you are not in full-time education, you should give details of any relevant work experience, paid or unpaid, and information about your current or previous employment.

If you are an international student, also try to answer these questions:

  • Why do you want to study in the UK?
  • What evidence do you have to show that you can complete a higher education course that is taught in English? Please say if some of your studies have been assessed in English.
  • Have you had a position of authority or used your communication skills in any activity?

If you want to send more information, perhaps a CV, send it direct to your chosen universities or colleges after we have sent you your welcome letter and personal ID / application number. Do not send it to us.

How to provide your personal statement

You can enter up to 4,000 characters (this includes spaces) or 47 lines of text (this includes blank lines). You do not have to use all the space provided. When you save text, the system will tell you how many characters are still available or if you have used too many characters. You can preview your statement after you have saved it.

You will not be able to change the presentation of your personal statement by using features such as bold, italic or underlined text or foreign characters, such as á, ë, õ. If you use these types of formatting or foreign characters, they will be removed from the text when you paste it onto your application and save it.

We recommend that you prepare your personal statement offline using a word-processing package and copy and paste this into the Apply system. This is because Apply will time-out after 35 minutes of inactivity. When you enter your personal statement directly into Apply, you must save it to prevent your work being lost.

Make sure that your personal statement is your own work

We will, along with other verification checks for identity and academic qualifications, test applications to detect plagiarism. If we have cause to question your application, we will inform all the universities and colleges to which you have applied. They will then take the action they consider to be appropriate. We will also contact you by email. Find out more about how we test applications to detect plagiarism.