UCAS Personal Statement
Created | Updated Oct 16, 2002
"For god's sake, don't be funny witty, or in anyother way different, the personal statement is practice in Bureaucratese" (that is the language of those pen-pushing, ink sucking Bureaucrats).
This is the general reaction that i have got when i wanted to write my personal statement, alng with such statements as "Do you want to go to university?"
I drafted an original, informative personal statement, that, whilst it may have made me liable for prosecution for plaigarism, was different.
If you want to write an original statement, don't use mine as a good example, but read it and then come up with one of your own, remember to point out what you have to; get them to understand that you want ot do the course, and that you have done since before you were concieved, but have a little penache, don't take yourself too seriously, have fun, after all it is YOUR STATEMENT and not someone else's
Below is mine, which was a parody of the work of One Douglas Noel Adams:
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of Essex lies a small commuter town, hanging on the outskirts of which, lies an utterly insignificant comprehensive beacon school of excellence, who’s ape-like Governors are so amazingly primitive that they still think building on the field is a pretty neat idea. This school has a six-foot tall ape-descended student, who, as our statement unfold, no more knows his destiny as a tea leaf knows the East India company, who's Sepoy troops mutinied in 1857, known as the Indian mutiny it prompted the British government to take control of India.
This student has (or rather had) a problem, which was this, to explain the choices he has listed in a personal statement that will either have every line carefully digested and be considered the height of originality, or treated with disgust and contempt as a cheap façade to cover up for some fairly average grade predictions.
He finds the subjects he has chosen interesting and hopes to shed some light on some courageous and quite mad decisions or discoveries made over the illusion caused by the passage of history (or time as it is more accurately known). The process of decision-making interests him and wonders what could have been, based upon the book he has read; "What IF?" edited by Robert Cowley, "The Secret State" by Peter Hennessey, "The Search For Peace" by Douglas Hurd and "Man On The Moon" by Andrew Chaikin. All of which are historical, exploring what happened and how they occurred. Chaikin producing a narrative analysis whilst telling the story of Apollo, exploring the lives of the people who were involved with the Apollo project. Hurd giving a unique perspective of one who has served as a diplomat and foreign secretary, Hennessey plotting the system that made men think about the unthinkable for over 40 years, and what if taking a events which shaped the world and wondering what might have happened.
Admissions tutors might wish to highlight the last passage as our student feels it is relevant to his personal statement as UCAS told him to include it.
History has produced in this six-foot tall ape descendant a desire to see how things work and if they can be re-organised to make the universe seem less mad. The interest and study of Politics and Physics have given him a profound and vivid insight into whatever it is the universe is about. They have fostered different perspectives going from the details of the minutiae (in the case of physics this is very small indeed) and seeing their effects on as grand scale as Britain, Europe, the world and the Universe (deleting where applicable)
He has done such middle-class political actions as living in a commune in countryside (or the middle of Heaton park, Manchester) attending rallies where songs where sung and also helped reach out to the 'poor and needy' enabling them to have nicer lawns and flower beds, instead of a garden that looks like the reject area of a pharmaceutical company.
He has the Bowling action and batting skill of a one-armed monkey and the Cycling style of an elephant on a clown's Bicycle. But this does not stop him enjoying Cricket, Cycling, and a curious sport called Brokian Ultra Cricket, which involves handing in personal statements and running away, terribly fast.
This personal statement was a Megadodo publication
I hope this has been some (if any) help to you.
