Personal Statement – what is it?

Personal Statement is sometimes called Statement of Purpose (SOP) as a personal statement gives clear statement of your purpose of choosing to study a certain course at certain educational institution. At Total Student Care (TSC), we find calling it ‘Personal Statement of Purpose (PSP)’ more appropriate as this terminology gives clearer meaning.

Normally, you will require submitting this statement with the admission application along with your academic credentials. It is an opportunity for you to tell the selectors why you think you would be a suitable student for the course you are applying and why the University should select your application over those of the other candidates. It is therefore vitally important that you make this statement as effective as possible.

Remember, Personal Statement, as the name suggests, is a statement that is very ‘personal’ to you – related to your past and current attainments and your future pursuance. Therefore, it has to be an ‘original’ statement – if it is copied from somewhere else or written by someone else, it won’t be personal anymore and on the other hand, it may constitute to plagiarism and your admission application can be cancelled or unsuccessful.

Personal Statement – how much you need to write?

As a general guideline, the length of personal statement should be between 500 to 800 words, roughly 5 to 6 paragraphs. The length may vary for foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate courses and as per chosen subject type. Besides, some special courses may require specific inclusion of certain statements. You should always check with your chosen university if they have any specific requirements.

You should present your key strengths i.e. academic grades, soft skills, work experience (if any), extra-curricular achievements precisely to give enough accounts for your eligibility. Very brief statement may not gain selectors’ heart and unnecessary large statement may ruin the selection chart. A well designed and carefully measured statement can win selectors’ heart and chart both.

Personal Statement - Presentation and Style

• Show your enthusiasm and commitment
• Start with interesting opening sentence that persuade the reader
• Establish your academic insight and prove your understanding about the intended study.
• Write in short paragraphs and make them connected, use simple English.
• Organise it in logical order, check spelling, grammar and punctuations.

Free tools to write your unique Personal Statement of Purpose (PSP) for university admission

Write your Personal Statement of Purpose (PSP) for university admission by using our 6s2s (six steps to success) formula developed by Total Student Care (TSC). The format is proven and tested for official acceptance by all universities and colleges (note: for application via UCAS, please follow their guidelines for writing personal statement).

Benefits of this 6s2s formula for writing Personal Statement of Purpose are:

• It is a free tool, you will write it online and there is no cost to you for usage of pen and paper
• The tool will save your time and from trouble of delay in sending this to university
• It has been designed for all students i.e. foundation, undergraduate, postgraduate and research course application for admission
• When writing, you will find easy-to-follow phased guidelines in each step
• The tool tells you what to write at what stage so that you do not lose coherence and cohesiveness
• You can save partially completed statement and come back later to complete it
• You will be able to edit and amend the writing as many times as you want
• Once you complete your writing, you will be able to download copy of your statement 

Write your personal statement