A great personal statement will help your university application stand out and get those offers rolling in. We cover everything you need to know about writing your personal statement.
Updated: 03 Nov 2025A personal statement is meant to show off YOU. You’ll need to think about why you want to study the course you’re applying for, what you’ve done to work towards that already, what transferable skills you have and what you want to do after university. It’s a lot to think about and squish into the strict UCAS character and line limit, but don’t worry, we’ve got all the tips and advice you could want.
NEXT: Personal statement all finished? Read more about applying to university.
The UCAS deadline for 2026/27 entry is 14 January 2026 at 6pm UK time. You can submit applications after this, but you won’t be covered by the Equal Consideration Policy and some courses may be full. Any applications received after 6pm on 30 June 2026 will be entered into Clearing.
It’s best to have your personal statement drafted a couple of weeks before the deadline so you have time to get feedback on it and edit it.
Before you even think about writing, you’ll have to research the courses you’re applying for. This can give you some inspiration on what to write about, and if you see you’ve already covered some of the first-year material, even better.
After research comes planning. You’ll want to plan out what you’re going to include to make sure you don’t repeat yourself or miss anything out.
If you have your research and plan completed, it’s time to start writing!
NEXT: How to start writing your personal statement.
Admissions tutors want to see why you’d be a good fit for the course you’ve applied for on your personal statement, so you’ll want to make sure the things you’re mentioning link back to the course you’ve applied to. For example, if you’re applying to study psychology, there’s not much point going on about how much you love watching Great British Bake Off. However, if you’re a huge fan of Milton’s Paradise Lost and you’re applying to study English literature, that’s a great thing to mention.
Not everything you mention has to be directly linked to your chosen course, but it should either link or demonstrate transferable skills useful to university study such as time management, leadership, balancing responsibilities or independent research.
NEXT: Tailoring your university personal statement to your subject
UCAS changed how personal statements work for the 2026 entry cycle, from it being one big essay to answering three smaller questions (although the character limit of 4,000 words remains the same).
The three questions are...
Why do you want to study this course or subject?
How have your qualifications or studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?
What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?
The advantage of this new style is that it gives you direction for your answers, though you'll still want to consider how you structure each of them.
The first question is about your ambitions for the course, so it would make sense to begin with what you hope to get out of the degree, then lead into how it could help you achieve goals after you finish studying. You might then think about finishing off your answer with how the degree could be used to get into your dream career.
The second question is looking at how well suited you are for the course from an educational standpoint, so you could begin by explaining how your A-levels or similar studies helped develop your interest in the subject. You might then follow it up with any achievements within education that you have made, and then end on how your talents have been advantageous at school or college.
The last question is about your extracurricular activities and how they might relate to your subject. Consider starting with anything you do outside of school that links back to the subject, and then lead into other activities that show any skills which would be useful on your course. Mentioning any part-time jobs or awards that you have received, whether as part of a team or for yourself, would be a good way to finish it off.
Ashley Harrison-Barker, Home Admissions Manager at University of Hertfordshire, says "We want you to give us a summary of you as an individual and your journey up until this point... Think of it as a timeline that explains your journey to-date and how you would use this course as a springboard to achieve your desired career aspirations."
NEXT: How to structure your personal statement.
Your personal statement should be just that – personal! Exactly what you should include depends on what you’ve done. However, some areas that you might want to cover in your personal statement include:
Work experience
Part-time work or volunteering
What you’re studying now
What topics within the subject particularly interest you
Your future career goals
Extracurricular activities or reading you’ve done relevant to your course
Simone Wilson, Careers Manager at Wirral Grammar School for Boys, says it's important to, "explain what interests you about particular topics and how you have gone above and beyond to learn more about it."
NEXT: Essential topics to include in your personal statement.
ChatGPT and AI is a hot topic right now, so you might be wondering whether it can help you write your personal statement. In short, you have to be careful if you’re using AI to help you with your personal statement.
Your personal statement must be original work, which means you can’t copy and paste chunks from an AI. UCAS checks personal statements and can detect AI-written content, so using AI-generated paragraphs could harm your application. As Harrison-Barker says, "AI won’t know all your personal experiences so there is no substitute for the real thing."
However, AI can be helpful for the planning stage as it can generate personal statement examples that you can use for inspiration on what to cover and how to structure your own personal statement. It can also help you to brainstorm topics related to your subject that you could relate to your experience when it comes to writing your personal statement.
NEXT: Using AI and ChatGPT when writing your personal statement.
It probably goes without saying that you shouldn’t use any inappropriate language such as swear words in your personal statement. You should also avoid slang, or language that comes across as too informal (the admissions tutor is not your ‘mate’).
Be wary of using cliches or buzzwords if you don’t have the experience and evidence to back them up, and of course you should avoid lying about anything. It’s also wise to avoid discussing anything that you can’t link to either the subject you’re applying to study, or a transferable skill you learned that’ll be useful at university.
NEXT: Words you should never use in your university application.
The limit for your UCAS personal statement is 4,000 characters (not words!) including spaces or 47 lines, whichever comes first. This character count is split across the three questions, and you can use as many characters as you like for each one, as long as the grand total of all three is under 4,000.
To check the length of your personal statement, copy and paste it into the UCAS application form as character count may vary a little bit between your word processing program and UCAS, and the only way to check your line count is to put it into the application form.
NEXT: Read more about the length requirements for personal statements.
Once you’ve got a first draft of your personal statement, it’s time to get feedback and redraft. One of the first things you’ll want to do is check how it compares to the UCAS character and line limit. You can’t go over the limit, but you want to get as much in as possible.
You’ll also want to show it to a few people and get some feedback. You could ask your parents, friends or a teacher at school to read it over for you – the more eyes you can get on it the better. It’s good to show your personal statement to whoever is writing your UCAS reference so they can mention some of the things you’ve put into your personal statement.
You’ll need to proofread it to make sure it all makes sense and there aren’t any spelling or grammar errors before you send off your final draft.
NEXT: How to tell if your university application is good.
Have you drafted, redrafted and drafted your personal statement again? Have you checked for any spelling and grammar mistakes? Have you got a few people to look it over and give you feedback? If you answered yes to all of these questions and your personal statement fits within the UCAS character and line limit, all that’s left to do is go through our application checklist and send it off…
NEXT: University application checklist.
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