Surrey Homes | SH23 | September 2016 | Education supplement inside

WT Education Supplement sponsored by
My Personal Statement Hell
Soon to be second-year uni student Isobel Haskell remembers all
too clearly the stress of getting that crucial statement ready – and
what got her through it – and two schools share the invaluable
tips they give their pupils.
T
he last year of school
is a whirlwind of exam
stress, newly acquired IDs
and leavers’ ball dresses, while
on the brink of leaving home
and moving on to exciting new
adventures. It’s a heady time.
My final year at Battle Abbey
School in 2015 was no different.
Despite all the happy memories,
however, there is one I am less
than keen to recall. Back in the
dark recesses of my now-student
brain lurks the traumatising
memories of writing my personal
statement. The horror, the horror.
The presence of this pernicious
document on the list of
requirements for applications
to every kind of
tertiary education
institution – art
colleges, drama
schools etc also
ask for them,
there’s no getting
out of it - is supposedly designed
to allow a potential student to
express their achievements and
ambitions in a concise style.
But at a time when most
school leavers are in the midst
of revision timetables and nights
out, the application process itself,
combined with the daunting
prospect of debt and uncertainty
afterward, can feel overwhelming.
The personal statement writing
trial also has an amazing ability
to bring out traits that you never
even realised you had. My talent
for forgetting that I had writing
“trying to condense
myself into 4,000
characters was the
stuff of nightmares”
to finish (or even start) and
capacity to exploit my newfound
adulthood at the pub as deadline
day rapidly approached never
ceased to surprise me.
So, for an already panicked
sixth former, being asked
to write this wretched
statement and go through
other rigorous entrance
assessments designed to judge
your character, sometimes
without a real life meeting,
can act as a real disincentive
to take their education on to
the next stage. Wouldn’t it
be easier just to get a job?
This is certainly one of the
dilemmas I faced as I sat, head
hanging, at
a desk in the
sixth form
common room
around two
years ago. As an
aspiring English
Literature student, trying to
condense myself into 4,000
tightly controlled characters and
47 lines – and it is characters and
lines, rather than words which are
specified, which feels odd in itself
- was the stuff of nightmares.
It was brutally apparent, as
one of my teachers repeated
on many, many occasions,
that personal statements leave
no room for “waffle” – but it
felt like there was no room for
style and character either.
Having been taught at A Level
that excellent writing has depth
Isobel at school
and subtleties, it was
very easy to feel disheartened.
With that restricting line limit
I felt completely stifled in
my ability to write anything
meaningful, let alone convey my
personality. Suddenly “Bronze
Duke of Edinburgh Award”
seemed like an awful lot of words.
But people with a naturally
concise writing style – which
seemed to be my more
scientifically minded friends
– found the slog of writing a
personal statement no easier
and the frustration of being a
hundred words or so under the
limit is constantly emphasised
by those who are suffering
for having written too much.
Especially those who seem to find
themselves overburdened with
attainments to crow about...
Even for the more average
achiever, trying to pack
maximum extra-curricular
activities and skills into a finite
number of characters, can make
drafts feel like little more than a
list of accomplishments, than a
flowing piece of writing. And
by feeling like an exercise in
7 wealdentimes.co.uk