With UCAS season firmly kicking off - the personal statement panic has also kicked in.
The personal statement is your time to show off how great you are to Universities and secure those competitive spots. However, getting everything squeezed into just 4000 characters can be a nightmare - and we think that careers teachers at school often just don't provide the 1 to 1 help and support that students need to tackle this tricky task. Often it is not what you write in the statement - but instead how you utilise the structure of your statement that can make you sound like a really impressive candidate.
At Scope we believe that making your personal statement stand out from every other applicant comes down to 3 core steps.
1. SCOPE'S WEAVING MODEL
Instead of listing your experience, extra curricular activities and interests in big chunky paragraphs; the best statements interweave everything throughout. We have created the WEAVE MODEL which essentially is a template for each of your paragraphs: 1. What did you see. 2. What skills did you learn. 3. What did you go and do after. For example, instead of "I did work experience in a bank and I work in a shop", the Scope model transforms this into "I have a particular interest in finance and economics, therefore I arranged to spend one-week of work experience at RBS. During my time there I appreciated how important it was to have a sound knowledge of financial law, but also that customer communication is a vitally important component. Following from this experience, I worked on my own communication skills by working in a shop every week where I have hugely improved my own customer service skills." This makes you sound so much more proactive and impressive!
2. FLOW
Achieving a casual yet effective flow in your statement is so important, but tricky to achieve. Flow comes from linking the last sentence in the preceding paragraph to the first sentence of the next paragraph.
3. TOPIC
The best personal statements have a theme and topic woven seamlessly throughout them. This can be anything from a particular skills, to an experience, to even an academic topic. Once you have chosen a good theme, you can become creative and select a unique and impressive opening and closing sentence so that the admissions officer remembers you! Everyone's theme is different, but at Scope we are experts at crafting a theme around someone's personal statement.
Our new personal statement package is only £60.
This package includes:
- Access to the full Scope personal statement model and previous successful template statements.
- One phone call or meeting to discuss the plan for your statement.
- Two critical drafts of your statement.
You can purchase our package here and we will be in contact ASAP to arrange our first meeting!
