UCAS PERSONAL STATEMENT –
Medical and Oxbridge

You are required to compile a Personal Statement in support of your application. What you write here is likely to have a huge influence on whether you receive conditional offers from universities.
Therefore you need to put time and effort into this to ensure you stand out from other candidates!!

How to write the UCAS Personal Statement

The Personal Statement is your only opportunity to 'sell yourself' to a university department before being offered a place or an interview. It must stand out and be attractive to read. No purpose is served by cramming everything into a relatively short space, but also you should not write too much and so to prevent this the statement is limited to 4000 characters.
You should: 1) Write in complete sentences, and recognise that lists are of limited value. 2) Avoid any information that is misleading, fictitious or trivial. 3) Remember to use clear English together with correct spelling and punctuation.

Most of the Personal Statement will reflect your academic and intellectual interests. Throughout, specific examples are far more convincing than general statements, so do not start by saying "I want to read Chemistry (etc) because I am very interested in it."

Our advice is to work on the basis of three paragraphs:

The First Paragraph - outline clearly the reasons for selecting your courses/subject(s). Explain clearly what it is that excites you about them, and make explicit reference to examples of topics, lessons, practicals, research, courses, fieldwork, projects, reading outside the A. Level syllabus, etc. Where a joint honours degree is involved, you should do this for both subjects. If you have not studied your proposed degree subject at school, explain exactly what has attracted you to it, and offer details of research that you have done.
For Medicine, Veterinary Science and Dentistry: It is essential that you include relevant work experience and this should be described here. It is essential to explain exactly how you benefited, what you learnt and the skills you gained from your work experience If you plan to take a Gap Year, outline the reasoning behind your decision, and try to give some indication of what you are planning; any activity that is likely to develop your skills is particularly worthwhile in this context. Other information may include wider reading on topics related to your chosen course.

The Second Paragraph – consider the subjects you are currently studying, how do they link to your chosen subject/s, or what skills do they give you which may apply to your university studies.. In other words, you must justify your choice of degree course with backing from your current interests. You may also want to include some details about your academic achievements, such as scholarships, prizes awarded and participation in external competitions

The Third Paragraph - offers a golden opportunity for you to advertise your individual strengths and qualities and thus to impress the selectors with your likely contribution to university life. This opportunity must be seized. The aim here is to include examples of your activities which demonstrate your leaderships skills, your capacity for teamwork, your enterprise or originality, your sensitivity to the needs of others and contribution to the community, and your determination to stick at a task. Select three or four activities which bring out these qualities; they do not have to be confined to school activities, and might well include sporting, musical, artistic and dramatic talents and achievements. Charitable works, team membership, direction of a play, posts of responsibilities, musical activities, unusual hobbies are simply a few of the possibilities.

Final Summary - Remember that the aim is to establish that you are an interesting individual in your own right with your own values, priorities and agenda, someone who will clearly benefit from both the course and university life. This should be emphasised in a short, concluding sentence.

Please use this to guide you in writing your personal statement. At times an interesting first sentence can really help to grasp the reader’s attention. Remember that course admissions tutors will potentially read thousands of personal statements, so try to make yourself stand out.