Can anyone help my students with their personal statements?

Starting the UCAS process

As every Head of Sixth Form and Sixth Form tutor knows, the UCAS process is one of the most important parts of a student’s time in the sixth form. Yes, passing the exams is obviously the goal, but there is little motivation to do this if you don’t have a suitable destination when the results come in.

When I was Head of Sixth Form, this process started from the beginning, with information about destinations, presentations from higher education institutions and reminders and opportunities to gain the right experience to reference in personal statements, happening right from the first assembly of Year 12.

The UCAS application process started in June of Year 12 with a UCAS launch week for students and parents, and visits to local universities and higher education fairs. We aimed to give the students and parents information about their choices, student life, finance and the application process through assemblies, guest speakers, workshops and the offsite visits. Having a designated week of ‘launch events’ ensured that the start of the process had impact and that the students knew it was time to begin planning the rest of their lives. We followed this with time in Personal Development sessions to register with UCAS, fill in the application form and write the personal statement.

In recent years, this event evolved to include far more information about the alternatives to university, particularly degree apprenticeships which many students are now applying for, either instead of or as well as university.

Student engagement in the process

It would have been brilliant to think that all of these preparations and events meant that every student was immediately engaged in the process and completed their applications over the summer ready to apply when UCAS opens for submissions in September but, as anyone who has worked or lived with teenagers knows, this is wishful thinking! Many students will put off this process until the last minute no matter how much coaxing, persuasion and nagging their sixth form throws at them.

For some, this is because they do not know what they want to do in the future. For these students, the best advice is to initially apply for the subject they are currently enjoying the most; this means that students are keeping their options open as most subject degrees can open doors to a wide range of different jobs. Students can change their minds and apply for different courses through Clearing after they have received their exam results so making the wrong choice now is not a problem. It’s not advisable for these students to apply for a vocational course which will only prepare them for a job in that specific field – if they haven’t made their minds up yet, this will only their narrow their future options.

For other students, they may have made up their minds that they do not want to go to university, and this is fine. Nobody should be forced to go and there are many routes after sixth form which do not involve university. However, my advice would always be to submit an application anyway. Over years of seeing students on Results Day, there have been so many who, having achieved far more than they expected and seeing their friends getting their university offers confirmed, suddenly change their minds and realise they would like to go to university. Whilst this is still possible on results day, it involves an intense and very stressful period of completing the whole application process in a very short time – far better for reluctant students to go through the application process at the same time as their peers and keep their options open. Many parts of the application will overlap with applications for jobs and apprenticeships- personal statements can easily be tweaked to become covering letters and the content adapted for CVs – so the process is still worthwhile.

Personal Statements

The personal statement can often be the most time-consuming part of the process – students often struggle to make a start on this and are not sure what they should be saying about themselves and how they should be saying it. It doesn’t come naturally to many of us to essentially boast about ourselves or even to be fully aware of just how many skills we have developed and evidenced through our lives, and this is particularly so for sixth form students. I have had many personal statement guidelines which I have given to students over the years but, in my experience, the only guidance that works for some students, is actually sitting down with them and talking to them about their particular personal statement.

Once students have overcome the initial obstacle of starting and writing a first draft, I always told them that they would probably need to do around 7 drafts in total before the statement was ready to send; this allowed for several revisions and additions of content, as well as wording amendments, corrections and ensuring the character limit of 4000 words was met. This can be a daunting amount of work and effort for sixth form students who are also trying to juggle a huge workload, impending NEA deadlines, revision, learning to drive, part time jobs…it’s no wonder some find it immensely stressful and will do anything to put off the job. (If you have a child who needs one to one support with their Personal Statement, I can help)

This process can take up a lot of time for teachers too – in some schools this workload is shared between a tutor team but in some sixth forms, there will be just one Head of Sixth Form or UCAS coordinator who shoulders all of this work while still teaching and fulfilling the other expectations of their job.

I can help.

How I can help

Most of the guest speakers we used for the UCAS process were from local universities who gave their time freely because they were promoting their own university, but I know that for my students, I didn’t want them to just consider the local university – I wanted their aspirations to be wider and unlimited. Having an independent speaker telling them about applying to any university and giving unbiased advice about the range of different universities available to them might be far more useful to your students and your sixth form’s destination targets. As a former Head of Sixth Form and UCAS coordinator, I can give your students the information they need and support them through as much of the process as your sixth form needs me to.

These are the services I can offer:

1. Launch assemblies, informing students about the whole application process
2. Presentations to parents, giving them the information about university applications and other routes.
3. Personal statement workshops, supporting students with writing their first draft.
4. Drop-in workshops where students can bring drafts to be checked, thus relieving pressure on busy teachers.

I can offer either whole day or shorter sessions to meet your sixth form’s requirements. You may want all of your students to be in workshops where they can work on drafts with the help of a former UCAS coordinator and Head of Sixth Form or you may just have a small group of students who would benefit from one-to-one support.  Whatever the needs of your sixth form, by giving students the opportunity to work with a professional with years of experience of helping students with their personal statements, as well as being an English teacher who can ensure they are completely accurate, you can save yourself months of cajoling, coaxing and chasing.