Constructing a Personal Statement

For University applications, I had to write a personal statement to showcase my achievements and talents. A personal statement is required for UCAS applications, and it is required to be no more than 4000 characters and 47 lines. When I started writing my drafts of my personal statement. During the process, I was helped by one of my lecturers so that my statement was professional and well-written.

UCAS states that a good personal statement should include: your work experience, details of jobs and placements and to link any relevant skills or qualities.

Before writing my statement I conducted research into good statement examples. To do this I googled examples relating to the course I want to do, which is filmmaking.

This example was from University Compare.

As I began reading the example, I found out that the author focused on their interest in the industry in the first paragraph. This fit with the templates I was given by lecturers. I found it interesting reading through the first paragraph, as everyone's interest in the industry stems from different places, mine having come from watching films and TV and picking apart different shot types.

The second paragraph starts out by mentioning academic achievements of the author, which then moves back towards their interests and their passion for the industry. They then go on to mention their hobbies and work life, then going on to talk about their skills and qualities.

The third paragraph then mentions the authors time in education, going through the knowledge they have gained, as well as the skills they have developed through education, which is something I aim to do in my own statement.

The final paragraph acts as a sort of ending, explaining how excited they are at the opportunities in the industry. They also state that they are determined and have a great passion to work in the industry.

I will use this statement as an example when writing my own statement, and will use some of the techniques myself.

First Draft

This is the first draft that I sent my lecturer. After sending this she had a look and made comments on what I could improve. 

This draft was 3145 characters and 30 lines.

Once changing my personal statement to the comments my lecturer gave me, I created the second draft.

Second Draft

This was the second draft of my statement. I also sent this to my lecturer and she gave me more comments on what I could improve, which I then did in my third draft.

This draft was 2917 characters and 27 lines

Third Draft

This was the third draft of my statement, in which I included the comments my lecturer gave. I read through the comments she added to this one and improved upon them in my next draft.

This draft was 3054 characters and 28 lines.

Fourth Draft

This was my fourth draft of my personal statement, and also my last draft, as my next statement is the final one. 

This draft was 4005 characters and 35 lines, which was over the UCAS limit, so in my next draft, I got rid of a few characters. The lines written in green were lines that I could get rid of if need be, and even without these lines the words would still flow.

Final Statement

This is my final personal statement. I used the comments given by my lecturer to update all of the other versions and when asked for feedback on the final product, I was told that it was very concise and professional.

This version of my statement is 3840 characters and around 32 lines.

This final version is the version I uploaded to UCAS and the version I used to apply to the university.