1. Personal Statements

2. Aims and objectives Understand what a personal statement is
Understand the role it plays within the UCAS process
How to best prepare yourself for writing a personal statement
The aims of today’s presentation is to hep you to understand what a personal statement is and to understand the role that it plays as part of the UCAS application. Finally we’ll cover how you can prepare yourself for writing your personal statement and offer you some helpful hints, tips and tools.

3. UCAS application Personal information Course choices
Achieved or predicted grades
Reference
Personal statement
The UCAS application form can be divided into several stages:
Your personal information, such as your name, address, DOB.
Your 5 university choices and the courses that you wish to study. NB: We only know what course you want to do at Exeter. We do not know your other choices!
Your achieved grades, such as GCSE results or AS-Levels and your predicted grades such as A2.
Your application will also include a reference from your tutor. This gives us an idea of what you are like as a students and can also highlight any extenuating circumstances that may effect your grades or learning style.
The final part of the application form is the Personal Statement, which is what we are now going to look at in more detail.

4. Personal statement
Your opportunity to explain why you have chosen your discipline
A chance to show your knowledge and understanding
Demonstrate enthusiasm and commitment
Stand out from the crowd!
The personal statement is important as it your only opportunity to express yourselves to your chosen universities.
It gives you the opportunity to explain why you have chosen to read your subject at university.
It also allows you to demonstrate your current knowledge, understanding and passion for that subject.
However as university places get more competitive you have to make sure that your personal statement stands you out from the rest of the crowd. This may sound hard but it is easier to do then you may think.

5. Guidelines One personal statement for all 5 UCAS choices
Limited to 4000 characters (47 lines)
70-80% directly relevant to the subject
Be focused throughout
Before you can make a start on writing your personal statement there are some guidelines that you need to be aware of.
First of all you only write one personal statement for all five of your UCAS choices. This means you need to make it no institute specific (unless you are applying to do 5 courses at the same institution).
Like Twitter, you have a word limit of 4000 characters (approximately 47 lines) so you need to make sure that you are focused and precise on what you write.
Finally it is recommended that 70-80% of your personal statement is directly relevant to your subejct.

6. Getting started What subject do you like?
What parts of the subject are you interested in?
Before you can start writing your personal statement you need to think about your subject choice. (Ask the audience how many of them know what course they want to study at university).
Once you know the subject you wish to study you need to start to think about what parts of that subject are you particularly interested in. For example if you were thinking of studying History then what period or civilization do you wish to focus on? Is it the modern period (1600 – present day) or do you prefer the Ancient period (such as the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Vikings). Do you only want to learn about political history, or the history of a certain culture, for example American History or British History? Are there other subjects that are more specialised to the period you wish to study? For example if you love dinosaurs and you think that would be covered in an Ancient History program you’d be shocked to learn that it isn’t! You have to study Palaeontology!
It is important to start thinking about your subject and the parts of it that you enjoy as this will make writing your personal statement so much easier!
This is also a good exercise to do as if you’re struggling to think of what parts of your chosen subject you enjoy then you may not have chosen the right subject for you. Remember you’re going to be studying it for at least 3 years!

7. I enjoy Because www.exeter.ac.uk Activity!
We’re now going to get you to start thinking about the subject that you wish to study.
(Hand out some paper and pens).
Tell the group to draw a circle and write in it “I enjoy” then the subject they wish to study. For example “I enjoy… Psychology”
Them ask them to draw another semicircle around the circle, like the first layer of an onion. In this layer get them to write “because” and then state the reason why they want to do their subject. Going back to our example “I enjoy Psychology Because I want to learn more about human behaviour”
Give the group 5 minutes to do this activity. If you have time you may wish to get a few to read there ones out.

8. Stage two What subject do you like?
What parts of the subject are you interested in?
What inspires you about this subject?
What understanding do you have about this subject?
Ok, so now we’ve started to de-construct and analyse your subject choice but we need to delve a little deeper into your subject in order to give you a good grounding to base your personal statement on.
Now you need to think about what inspires you about this subject. For example you could say that what inspires you to study Film is the way that modern directors use the medium to highlight important issues that effect society to the masses, such as empathy in voting or human rights.
This is also a good way for you to demonstrate your understanding of the subject.

9. I enjoy Inspire Because www.exeter.ac.uk Activity!
Now get the group to add another layer to their thing and write inspire in it. Then think of a reason why their subject inspires them.

10. Stage three… What subject do you like?
What parts of the subject are you interested in?
What inspires you about this subject?
What understanding do you have about this subject?
How can you demonstrate the understanding?
Why you are suitable to study this course?
In this final stage you need to look at how you can demonstrate your understanding of your subject and what makes you suitable for the course.
For example you may have done a piece of coursework, such as the EPQ around a subject related to your chosen degree or perhaps you attended an event or lecture that was on something close to your subject. Do you read books, articles magazines about your subject area or watch documentaries and films that discuss things you are interested in studying.

11. I enjoy Understanding Inspire Because www.exeter.ac.uk Activity!
Now add a final layer titled understanding and write about how you can demonstrate understand of your subject. For example if you were applying to do Film Studies you may put “I wrote my EPQ on superhero icons betrayed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which demonstrates my understanding of gender role portral in film within western society

12. Skills… What transferable skills do you hold?
Demonstrate where the skills have come from
How the skills have made you excel in your chosen discipline
Which skills are relevant to the discipline

13. Your skills Accomplishments Skills attained Links within your subject

14. www.exeter.ac.uk 01392 724043 visitus@exeter.ac.uk