Your personal statement is your chance to distinguish yourself from all the other candidates and to leave a lasting impression. This piece of writing needs to be informative, persuasive and engaging. Therefore, it’s important to get it right! Here are my top tips that should help keep that urge to throw your laptop through the nearest window at bay…

1. Don’t start writing it two hours before the deadline

Selling yourself can be difficult to do. Selling yourself with a rushed and sloppy piece of writing is even harder.

2. Beginning the piece with an overused quote is pointless

Forget what Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or Muhammad Ali said and focus on what you want to say. Be your own hero.

3. Trying to be funny isn’t recommended

You might find an elaborate anecdote hilarious but there’s no guarantee that the admissions tutor will too… #Risky

4. Don’t big up your favourite university choice too much

Repeatedly going on about how much you heart one university over anywhere else probably isn’t going to come across as genuine.

5. Don’t wax lyrical about the gap year that you never went on

If you didn’t spend six months backpacking around Thailand, don’t say that you spent six months backpacking around Thailand.

6. Overused cliches just make you sound silly

Do you really “have a thirst for knowledge”? Probably not.

7. Don’t make silly spelling mistakes

Are you a “great” candidate for the course or a “grate” one?

8. Keep it current

You may have wanted to take art since first watching Art Attack 10 years ago, but try your best to think of a more up to date reason.

9. Leave out the irrelevant personal facts

Is mentioning the school trip that you went on in year seven really relevant? Or the fact that you walk your dog 3 times a week? Or that you iron your socks?

10. Don’t sound like you’ve swallowed a dictionary

Keep the language that you use simple and straightforward instead of “unostentatious” and “veracious”.

 

Want even more advice? Take a look at the UCAS website for a huge amount of articles, hints and tips. They probably won’t include gifs though.