Writing your personal statement
What is a 'Personal Statement'?
A personal statement is way of telling a colleges admissions team, an employer, or training provider why you want to study or work there, why you chose the course(s)/career, and why employing you would benefit the college or employer. A good personal statement will help your application stand out from the crowd. It is a summary of what you can offer, an opportunity for you to provide additional information about yourself which can be taken into consideration alongside predicted or actual grades, achievements, attendance, and punctuality for example.
The statement should be personal to you and the content should be different for each opportunity for which you are applying. The aim of a personal statement is to get across the relevant skills and experience you possess as well as your enthusiasm, interest, and suitability for a course or employment opportunity.
Plan your Personal Statement - try structuring the content into different headings...
- Who you are
- Where you are currently studying
- Which course(s) you are applying for
- A couple of your main skills and qualities
Why this course?
- What interests you about the course(s)?
- Show you have researched the course(s) and know what is involved.
- How will the course(s) benefit you?
- Stepping stone to further study or career pathway?
- Develop your skills and knowledge to help future employment potential?
Why you?
- Why are you suitable for a place on the course(s)?
- Why do you think you will be successful on the course(s)?
- Give examples from your life in or outside of school.
Why this provider?
- What made you apply here?
- What makes this provider stand out for you?
- Be sure to mention if you have attended one of their open days.
Skills and achievements in and out of school can also help to demonstrate your suitability for courses. Try and make what you include relevant to the course(s) you are applying for and use examples to give some context. Remember to tell the truth - you might be asked about the contents of your personal statement during an interview!
Outline some of your soft* and hard** skills (see the posters below, and use our Skills page). Provide specific examples to back-up claims about your suitability. If you choose to include information about work experience, volunteering, clubs or any other out of school activities, try and explain what you learned from them and if they helped you develop new skills or knowledge. Even if the experience you had isn't in an area you want to do in the future, there will be transferable skills you could identify - see 'soft skills' below for ideas about what these are.
Include details of placements, work experience, voluntary work, or jobs – especially if it is relevant to your chosen course(s).
Try to show how this experience gave you new skills or made you think about your future plans. For example, things you really enjoyed or were good at.
Don’t forget to include any part-time work you are still doing, like a Saturday job or babysitting.
Do you have long term plans or goals? If you don’t, that’s okay.
In this section you could write about what you would like to do in the future and why; explaining how your chosen subject(s) can help you achieve this.
Be positive and remember concluding your personal statement is a reminder to the admissions team on why they should choose you over someone else.
Re-reading what you’ve got so far may also help you see what you’d like to reiterate in (or leave out of) the conclusion.
Personal Statement top tips
Do:
- Make an effort! A poorly written personal statement will reflect badly on you.
- Write in full sentences using correct spelling and grammar.
- Be enthusiastic, show your interest in the course!
- Get someone you trust to proof read your personal statement and give you feedback.
- Be prepared to make changes to get it right!
Don't:
- Send the same generic personal statement with each application. Personalise it for each course/provider.
- Waffle! Yes you need to include as much relevant info as you can, but keep it concise so it is not repetitive, irrelevant or boring!
- Rush it! Make sure you allow enough time to write your personal statement and check it over for spelling and grammar mistakes.
- Exaggerate! If offered an interview, you might be asked about what you have written.
Don't forget, update your personal statement in your >log on | move on> account and tweak it within each application!
In order to complete your profile, work through and complete each of the sections, including your personal statement.
