1 BEFORE WE START
I’m not going to write your personal statement for you.
There are good reasons for this. First – although you may be finding it traumatising – the process of writing your personal statement is an incredibly valuable one. It helps you work out who you really are and what you really want. It forces you to think hard about university and why you want go. And it’s good that it does so: you’re making a huge decision – one that will cost you three or more years of your life, as well as tens of thousands of pounds. That’s not something you want to rush, and it’s certainly not something you should want someone else to do for you. Indeed, they can’t.
The second reason is that a really good personal statement is precisely that: it’s personal. It’s about you. What you write should make you come alive on the page. That’s the only way admissions tutors are going to be able to distinguish you from the hundreds of other applicants they’ve got whose grades are just as good as yours. No-one else has had your experiences. No-one else knows what you’re thinking – unless you tell them, and if you can tell them, you can write it down in your personal statement in your own words.
It is difficult. But it’s important. Don’t rush it.
If you don’t take it seriously, you may go down a path you’ll regret.
Like I did.