Writing a Personal Statement | Applying for Cambridge or Oxford

hey friends and welcome back to my series on applying for cambridge or oxford my name is ray and i'm a first cambridge student studying physical natural sciences and in this video i'll be talking about personal statements i'll cover what they are what you should include how you should structure them and then my tips for writing them as always timestamps will be in the description below so feel free to skip to any part you find useful as a disclaimer my video isn't a complete guide i'm not an admissions tutor i'm just a student who's been through the whole process

and wanted to share my tips i would suggest googling to hear other perspectives of admissions officers teachers and other students especially if you're planning on studying medicine and law because i know that personal statements can be a bit different there also i have left a few links in the description down below to any resources i found useful uh some of which have been made by admissions officers but of course you can find many more out there so what is the personal statement it is basically an essay that you write as part of your application to universities to apply to british universities you have to use an online platform called ucas and when filling out your application on this service you have to write an essay which is your personal statement it can be up to four

thousand characters long which you realize isn't a lot once you start writing it you can apply for up to five courses out to five different universities on ucas and your one application will go to all five which means your one personal statement will also go to l5 so you should not mention the name of any specific university when writing your personal statement otherwise other universities will feel left out and may not offer you a place instead you should focus on writing about the course as you will be applying for similar courses across different universities admissions tutors at the universities you have applied to will then read your application and your personal statement and use this alongside your grades any interviews or admissions tests and a whole host of other things to decide whether or not to offer you a place for the course you applied for at that university so now you may ask what should i write about well there are a number of things that you could write about number one academics these will usually be anything that is relevant to the course or subject that you're applying for and this will usually be about why you're interested in the subjects you're applying for which you can usually demonstrate through reading books listening to podcasts reading magazines such as the economist or new scientist and a whole host of other things these are called supercritical activities and i have made a video about them which should be linked up somewhere right now number two relevant work experience this is usually really good when you're applying for medicine or law but it can be useful for other subjects for some subjects it will be almost useless like for maths so it's not worth writing about if you're applying for those subjects i did not include work experience in mind because i didn't have any and i didn't think it'd be that useful but i would recommend looking out more about including work experience in personal statements related to the course or subjects you're applying for number three hobbies and interests these can include any extracurricular activities you have done and can take up a brief section towards end number four any future aspirations this is about any plans you have for the future whether you want to study physics to do some groundbreaking research someday or study computer science to make our computers and devices faster than ever before this usually links back to how studying for the course that you're applying for will help you achieve this

so people often ask how should they structure these sections so i'll briefly mention this but bear in mind these will be loose and general structures sticking to your rigid structures such as you should include uh 40 obvious four sentences in there or using some sort of template can uh make your personal statement lose its uniqueness but you will of course need number one an introduction it is a good idea if you try and grab the admissions tutor's attention and this can often be with a full question or an experience you have had number two subject interest so you will have to write about the subject or course that you're applying for it is good if it flows nicely from your introduction and there is no clear structure that you should follow when writing this but if you're applying for subjects i'd like to see work experience such as medicine law then it's a good idea to include that in this section number three extracurriculars or hobbies and interests it can be a good idea to include these even though oxford and cambridge do not care about extracurriculars which are not relevant to the subjects you're applying for all the universities you usually like to see them you can also show that you have transferable skills in this section if you haven't heard of the term transferable skills before they're basically any skills you have picked up by doing one thing which you can transfer for another thing that you are or will be doing for example tutoring students on the weekend may have helped you develop organization and communication skills which can be beneficial for studying your course at university i would suggest googling transferable skills so you can see a few more examples number four conclusion finally you should add some closure to your personal statement which is done in the form of a conclusion during this sum up any key skills you have to offer you can also outline any future aspirations you may have and how studying the course or subjects at university will help you achieve this is a general order that i find many people use when writing personal statements when you're applying for oxford or cambridge you usually hear that personal statements should be roughly 80 academic 20 extracurricular this can vary on as subjects by subject basis though i have many friends studying maths who did a roughly 90 academic and 10 extracurricular personal statement and they were fine and now for my tips on

writing them number one write more about less when writing about academics super curricular activities and any work experience you may have done it is better to focus on a few examples and write more about them it can be tempting to just list everything you have done but it's usually much better to pick one or two or three of these and write in more detail about them this is because oxford and cambridge are more interested in how you have benefited from the things you have done rather than the things themselves so you could mention how reading a book on x has changed your perspective on why time in history or that volunteering for such and such a charity has helped you develop an understanding of the injustices going on in the world and how that's inspired you to uh pursue law so you can combat these injustices number two show don't tell when writing about yourself as a person you may write that you're organized you're good at communicating uh you have time management skills uh and you have teamwork skills and so many other things but it's much better to give examples of these things because anyone can write that they're good at such and such a thing but i have no evidence to back it up this links to writing about any transferable skills you may have gained from any of your extracurricular activities there's a great and funny 40-minute talk by an admissions tutor imperial college which completely changed my perspective on this so i would highly recommend watching it there is a link down below in the description if you're interested you should also use this to back up your interest in your course rather than writing i am really interested in biology back you up with some super curricular activities you will have done number three ask others to read it especially teachers it can be easy to think that your personal statement is great but it's not until you give it to someone else and ask them to offer you constructive criticism at which point you realize you were wrong after you receive feedback from others you should redraft your personal statement and make it better and ask for feedback again then just repeat this process until you're happy remember that it's an iterative process you won't get a good first time and you may have to go from anywhere between four to ten drafts and that's completely normal but remember that during this process you do not have to make all the changes your teachers recommend it's your personal statement and it's not theirs it needs to sound like you and not them if your teacher asks you to change something and you don't agree with that change it can be a good idea to politely ask them why they think that change should be made so you can understand their reasoning and make your own judgment about whether it should or shouldn't be changed number four reflect and think deeply about the things you're writing about including some original thoughts is good especially if you're playing for humanities you want to show them that you're a student who thinks hard about their subjects and is therefore interested it can be helpful in interviews in case an interviewer asks you about that specific aspect of your personal statement you will be more prepared because you would have thought about it beforehand number five sleep on it you won't be able to write your entire personal statement in one day the whole process of drafting it re-drafting asking for feedback redrafting over and over again may take a few weeks during this period you should forget about your personal statement for a few days so you can come back to refresh eyes like an admissions tutor would personally i wrote my personal statement over the summer holidays and often left it alone for a week just so i could claim my mind the earlier you start the more time you will have to be able to do this and also redraft number six try to tell a story i find it's much more enjoyable for others to read your personal statement and see that there's a story happening here for example you could read an article on new scientist which led you to pick up a book on the topic and that led you to contact someone at a local university to do a live placement which you then blogged about or you made a video presentation about for other students basically the possibilities for a story are endless it helps add some flow to your personal statement and can help you avoid just listing things and not going into detail which is the last thing you want to be

doing and now for my don'ts number one don't write cliches these can be very common words and phrases that people overuse when writing personal statements and admissions tutors just get sick of seeing hundreds of thousands of these cliches if your personal statement does have a cliche then they can get bored quite quickly so you want to avoid these common cliches can include i have always been interested in physics since i was a child or for as long as i could remember i have been passionate about the works of william shakespeare or something like that number two don't include quotes it's often better to write your own thoughts on subjects and not someone else's number three don't mention books you have not read it would give a really bad impression to the interviewer if you write about a book and if they end up asking you about it but you haven't read it and you don't know what to say then they're not going to be very happy likewise don't mention five different books because your interviewer could ask you a question on any of those five like i said write more about less number four don't start writing the introduction if you don't know what's right writing the introduction is the hardest part and you can always come back to it after writing in the rest of your personal statement don't try to avoid writing your personal statement just because you can't think of a good introduction at that moment also you can read through many examples online of good introductions and even ask your teachers for help and

finally here are my other tips number one remember that if you can't fit everything that you want on you can ask your teacher to add it into their reference they will also get up to 4 000 characters to write about you for their reference for my case there were a few things i wanted to include but didn't have room for so i asked my teacher to include them for me in her reference also on that note if you have experienced any extenuating circumstances or hardships it's better to ask your teacher to include them in their reference rather than you including in your personal statement because you want more room to be able to focus on your subject but definitely if you have any these should be included in the reference because it helps admissions tutors put your application into context and finally remember your personal statement isn't everything you still have to prepare for any admissions tests you will have and any interviews you may have someone with a decent personal statement with a good admissions test and a good interview score is more likely to be made an offer than someone who has a fantastic personal statement but a terrible admissions test and interview score just try and do your best

and finally a common question i hear people asking is it okay if i read examples of personal statements online so other people often want against reading examples because they can lead you to plagiarize and ucas has applied terrorism detection system so if at least 10 percent of your personal statement is plagiarized you will notify all the universities you have applied for and let them know that you've plagiarized however other people say that you can learn a lot by reading but other people's personal statements especially when reading good and bad examples and comparing the two so you can figure out how you should be writing but here's my two cents in this situation i think it's okay to read personal statements online to help you understand structure formatting different styles of writing and much more especially when it comes down to writing a personal statement on your specific subject or course but i think it can also lead you to lose your voice because you might start copying someone else's style so i would recommend that you try and write as much as you can in your own words and then look at other people's personal statements if you want to so you can see how you can improve yours in any way but remember many of the personal statements you see online aren't perfect examples even if someone has a fantastic personal statement they may still be rejected because of their grades or admissions test score or interview likewise someone who has a mediocre personal statement may have had a really good interview score and may have been accepted mostly because of that i personally read a bunch of personal statements months before my application was due but because i did it so early i knew by the time it came to writing my own personal statement i would have forgotten most of the details but i still made a few notes and structures and like cliches to avoid and any like styles i thought were quite uh quite nice i also found reading examples helps me get a feel of uh what is a good personal statement and what is a bad personal statement so i could kind of judge your mind more objectively

objectively and that's basically it if you want more advice by admissions officers who actually read them then i would highly recommend checking out some of the links i put in the description if you want to see me break down my personal statement and talk about the good parts and the parts i would improve looking back on it then i would recommend watching my other video in my series but if you are here super early and have like months to go even a year then i would recommend brainstorming what you would include if you started writing it and then deciding which supercritical activities you want to write about or want to then do and write about anyways thanks for watching if you found the video useful then leave a like if not leave a dislike and let me know why if you have any questions about anything i mentioned then leave a comment down below and i'll try to get back to you but for now that's basically and i'll see you next time