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What is the UCAS personal statement?The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) is the organization that aggregates college admissions for the UK. Just like the Common Application for American universities, UCAS provides one unified platform for students applying to schools in the UK. After entering your personal details, grades, education and employment history, and prospective major(s), you will face the UCAS personal statement.
The personal statement is an opportunity for admissions to better understand your academic interests, any relevant experience you have pursuing those interests, and your career aspirations. This is your chance to share who you are and differentiate yourself from other applicants with similar grades, coursework, and test scores.
Unlike the Common App and other American application essays, the UCAS personal statement does not have a word limit; instead, it has a character limit of 4,000, which comes out to roughly 700 words. Starting during the upcoming application cycle, the personal statement will comprise three short-answer questions instead of one long essay. This way, students have more guidance as they draft their statement and can more easily provide the relevant information for admissions. The 4,000-character limit applies across all three essays as the accumulative total, and each one must be a minimum of 350 characters long, or approximately 50-88 words minimum. Basically, admissions wants you to write something in response to each prompt, but how much you write for each one may vary based on your experience, projected majors, and goals.
Read on to learn not only what these changes mean, but also how to approach your UCAS personal statement as an American applicant!
UCAS made the decision to change the personal statement structure in an effort to even the playing field for all students, including mature students who may not have school support. This change was made after consulting with teachers, students, admissions officers, and other administrators. The old prompt was more general and provided less structure.
The new questions are as follows:
With three distinct prompts, the new personal statement provides clearer guidance on what to write about, making the process easier both for students to write and for admissions to assess. By focusing on your prospective major, your academic preparation for it, and other relevant experience, the questions force students to think primarily about their recent history, with a dash of foresight into their futures. The new method also provides a clearer way for non-traditional students to highlight their non-academic experience; these could include students who have taken gap years or who have been in the workforce for several years.
Tl;dr: UCAS wants all the same information they’ve always wanted; they’ve just given clearer, more specific guidance to help you provide the most relevant information for their assessment.
Even if you haven’t yet tackled the The Common App Essay or studied our approach to writing it, you probably know that the Common App asks applicants to tell admission a story from their life that illustrates what has shaped them or to describe key experiences that have impacted their worldview. By contrast, schools in the UK are less focused on the particulars of how you became the person you are and more concerned with your academic interests, relevant experience, your preparation for this course of study, and—if you read between the lines—how you hope to use your education. They still want to know about your life outside the classroom, but generally speaking, the UCAS essay is more similar to the “Why this school?” supplemental essay common among American institutions.
| US Common App Essay | UK Personal Statement | |
| Length | max 650 words | max 4,000 characters (~700 words) |
| Prompt | Choose one of seven | Answer all three |
| Content | A personal story or anecdote illustrating your characteristics, personality, skills, maturity, and readiness for college | A focused discussion of your academic and extracurricular qualifications for the specific major you want to study in college |
| Style | Conversational, engaging, evocative, humorous, unique | Conversational, engaging, direct, evocative, succinct, clear |
Both the US and UK personal statements are approximately the same length and encourage students to write in a conversational style, as if they are speaking directly to admissions. Admissions counselors on both sides of the pond want to get a sense of your personality and what it would be like to sit in a room and talk with you face to face.
That said, in many ways, the UK personal statement is more similar to a graduate school personal statement in the US, as the focus is less on your personal qualities, life journey, maturity, and perspective, and more about the specific major you want to pursue, your preparation for that course of study, and your future goals. In the UK, students generally enter university directly into their major as opposed to the US option of having an undeclared major, so UCAS wants you to illustrate why you are applying for a certain major at a certain school. Because of this difference, the writing style for the UCAS essay should also be more direct and clear, rather than metaphorical or whimsical, as it can be for your Common App essay.
Unfortunately, because the content is so different, you likely won’t be able to repurpose your US Common App essay for your UK applications. So how do you write it? Read on, and we’ll show you.
Just like with all other admissions essays, there is one tried and true method to writing an excellent response: research! Because the UCAS personal statement centers on your prospective major, spend some time exploring the UCAS Subject Guide, surfing the websites for these majors at your prospective universities, and speaking with admissions counselors, current students, and professors, if you can. Open up a document on your computer or a note on your phone and jot down all of your impressions as you do this research. Does the University of Manchester’s Psychology major and study abroad option excite you? Are you eager to dive into the Global Business Strategy and Sustainability module in the Economics major at University of Warwick?
Once you have selected all your top schools and courses of study at each one, sit down and compare each school’s majors. You may select up to five courses of study to include in your UCAS application, and they can be as similar or different as you’d like. But remember: you can only write one UCAS personal statement, so you’ll want to focus your five choices enough that one statement can apply as broadly as possible. Again, research is key here; make sure that you know what each of your target schools requires and select your majors accordingly.
Note: If you have an outlier major in your list or if one of your schools has a very unique major, you may email or call the university directly and ask to submit a supplemental statement directed toward that particular course of study. If you decide to do this, make sure you contact the university well in advance so there’s plenty of time to receive a response and draft another essay!
At the end of the research phase, you should have a list of schools and majors and you should know which academic subject you will focus your personal statement on.
If you’ve explored our other college essay resources, you’ll find another common theme (besides research), and that is…brainstorming! Before you sit down to craft your three beautiful short answers, spend some time thinking about your inspiration to study your chosen major—what coursework, extracurriculars, mentors, or independent study led you to select this major? Maybe helping out at your family’s restaurant awakened your interest in business and financial management. Perhaps joining your school’s Model UN on a whim sparked a passion for diplomacy and international relations. In what other ways did you pursue this passion? Did you pursue advanced courses at school? Did you take relevant electives? Did you join interest groups in your community? Did you volunteer with nonprofits in your area? Did you spend hours in internet rabbit holes? What skills did you develop? What achievements are you proud of?
Let your brainstorming spread out over several days. As you go about your daily life, let your mind wander and jot down all the experiences you can remember related to your prospective major, as well as certain achievements, skills, or aspects of your personality that you want to make sure admissions learns about you.
Once you feel you’ve exhausted your brainstorming, sit down with your notes and open a blank document. Start expanding those little brainstorms into full sentences, explaining the circumstances, actions, and outcomes of each experience. For example, maybe you joined your school’s newspaper because you had to wait around school anyway for your brother to finish soccer practice and soon discovered a good outlet for your inquisitiveness, eventually becoming section editor and in your senior year, editor in chief, and you look forward to studying journalism in college.
In this stage, be as specific as possible as you flesh out your brainstormed ideas, elucidating every detail and tangent as they come to mind. It’s always easier to cut information than it is to add information, so the more words you have now, the easier it will be to craft your winning final responses. And you never know which tangents might lead to an important point you may have forgotten!
Once you’ve wrung every word you can out of your head and onto the page, come back to the three UCAS prompts and start organizing your thoughts into three buckets that match the questions. UCAS offers a worksheet that can assist with this. Open a new document and cut and paste your fleshed-out brainstorms based on the question you think they’ll best answer. Once you’ve assigned each of your ideas to one of the three questions, it’s time to weave them together into a coherent story with a beginning, middle, and end. Return to each prompt and arrange the pieces you’ve written in a manner that makes sense to you. This could be chronologically, centered on a particular class, or organized in any other style that suits you. Then, fill in the gaps with transitions, explanations, and other missing information to create a narrative. Don’t worry yet about the perfect wording or the perfect opening sentence; just make sure that you have all the information you want to convey gathered together in a general flow.
UCAS recommends the PEEL method, which stands for point, evidence, explanation, and link. This means that for every point you make in your essay, you have to provide evidence that this is true, explain why it’s important, and link it back to your theme/thesis. So for example, if you are making a point that you’d make a great teacher, you should provide an anecdote that serves as evidence for why that’s the case, explain how this anecdote or example from your life shows you have the qualities to make for a great educator, and link this back to your plans to study Education.
At the end of this step, you should have three rough, chunky (and overly long) responses to the prompts.
Now you’re ready to take your spiky drafts and polish those rough edges away. Remember that all three of your responses will be considered at the same time, so you don’t need to repeat any information between your answers. Read through for repetition and start to cut out anything that you deem redundant.
This is the stage when you can start refining your wording and focusing on your opening and closing sentences. UCAS recommends you lead with recent and relevant information, so try to get right to the point.
Similarly, the closing line of each essay should wrap up the themes you’ve discussed while leaving the admissions officer with a strong image or sense of who you are. Tying your ending back to your opening statement while keeping an eye on your future is a surefire way to get admissions’ attention.
Now that you have three drafts ready to go, it’s time to check that character count. The prompts do not count toward this, so make sure you count only your three short answers. If any are shorter than 350 characters, read through them all again and see if you can move anything over to help bulk up the shorter one. Remember, it doesn’t really matter which section some information goes in as long as you include everything that makes you an attractive candidate for admission.
Most likely, however, after all your brainstorming and explanatory additions, you’ll be over the character limit. This is when your pruning shears come out and it’s time to take no prisoners; consider every word closely to determine whether you really need it. Did you spend your Tuesday afternoons in the bio lab making “really smelly” concoctions or “pungent” ones? Often, seeking a more concise way to say something can be just as—if not more—evocative.
Finally, read that statement over slowly and carefully to catch any final errors. Often, reading it out loud can help you locate those typos lingering in plain sight. You can also ask a trusted parent, mentor, or teacher to proofread your statement and give you feedback. This is an important step, so don’t rush it; if you turn in a statement riddled with errors, it will give admissions the impression that you’re not serious or conscientious.
While UK college applications are targeted to a specific major, it’s still possible to apply if you are undecided. You must still select up to five possible majors, and they can be as broad as you’d like. When it comes to writing your personal statement, you should discuss why these disparate subjects interest you and how you hope to streamline your vision through your studies. Because admission to most UK schools is directly into a major, it’s best if you focus your discussion to two or three subjects, as some schools (notably in Scotland) allow you to study a larger range of subjects, but not as flexibly as in the US.
Remember, you may also email or call the universities and ask to submit a supplemental essay targeted to the specific course of study at their school, since the personal statement cannot necessarily cover everything.
As an international applicant, it’s important for you to explain why you are applying to study in the UK instead of staying in the US. Adding this context to your application will help admissions understand how you will fit into the cohort at their school (and be a valuable asset!). Depending on your reasoning, this could appear in your response to any of the three prompts. Maybe the major you’re interested in is only offered in the UK; perhaps your eye-opening experience as an exchange student in Edinburgh inspired you to come back; or maybe you have extended family in the UK and want to be closer to them. Whatever your motivations for applying to UK schools, make sure you clearly articulate why studying your chosen major in the UK makes sense for you.
Yes, you can! Like the Common App in the US, UCAS is a college application platform that aggregates your applications to each UK school. As an American citizen, you may use the UCAS platform.
Maybe; some schools will accept applications directly, but others do not consider applications outside of UCAS, so as usual, you must do your research. However, if you’re applying to more than one school in the UK, it’s likely worth your time to create a UCAS account and submit your applications that way.
Your UCAS personal statement must be a minimum of 1,050 characters (350 per response) and a maximum of 4,000 characters. We recommend aiming for no fewer than 3,000 characters.
No, they do not. Each essay must be at least 350 characters long, but beyond that minimum, they can be any length up to 4,000 characters total. So for instance, you can have one essay that’s 750 characters long, one that’s 2,000, and one that’s 1,250.
This change is for students applying for 2026 entry and beyond.
No. All three of your short answer responses will be read at the same time by the same person. This means you don’t have to repeat yourself across the answers, as they will all be considered as part of one whole.
Depending on the major and school to which you’re applying, there may be an emphasis on one of the questions over the others. Make sure you carefully read the information provided by each school before you draft your responses.
No. While some students find AI helpful to spark brainstorming, AI cannot write a successful personal statement in your voice that accentuates your unique experiences, skills, talents, and future goals. Admissions officers are experts at spotting AI-generated content, particularly as it tends to be bland and generic, and many use special software to help check for this. Using AI will not only create a worse product, but can also get your application rejected out of hand.
You can visit the UCAS website to learn more about applying to schools in the UK and writing your personal statement. In addition to the brainstorming document linked above, the website includes specific guides for different majors.
In addition to copious free resources, College Essay Advisors offers one-on-one essay advising services to help students draft their best possible admissions essays. Learn more about our services!
