2025 Personal Statement Frequently Asked Questions

The UCAS personal statement, long-feared by applicants to UK universities, has been changed in format for the 2025-26 UCAS application cycle. These changes, which UCAS have trailed for years now, should not make too much of a difference to the content of your personal statement. However, any change in format is understandably going to cause some anxiety for applicants.

With this in mind, our expert consultants have compiled some of the questions that they are asked the most by prospective applicants and answered them in this blog. We hope this resource is helpful to UK university applicants who are understandably concerned about nailing the new personal statement format!

Before delving into the Q&A, allow us to remind you briefly of the new personal statement format as outlined by UCAS:

1. Which of the 3 questions do you think tutors will pay the most attention to? How should I weight the word count per question? 

Excellent question! UCAS have made it clear that universities will review all the questions together as if it were one whole statement, and each section needs to be at least 350 characters. In short: don’t worry too much if your content isn’t very neatly categorised as it will all be read. The questions from UCAS are about helping students know how to structure their statement rather than changing the content universities were already looking for. 

However, it’s also worth checking the universities you want to apply to. Some universities have given preferences and advice, and there has always been variation. For instance, here’s what LSE have said: 

“At least 80% of the character count (minimum 3,200 characters) should address Questions 1 and 2 and should emphasise your interest in the programme you are applying for with evidence of your critical engagement with the subject and your super-curricular activity. While Question 3 may include extra-curricular achievements, applicants are encouraged to use this space to expand on critical reflections already covered in Questions 1 and 2. This section should not exceed 20% of the character count (800 characters) and writing the minimum of 350 characters is entirely acceptable.” 

Meanwhile, as an example of slightly different advice, here’s what Cambridge have said: 

“We do not have a preference for how you split your personal statement between the 3 sections. But make sure you have enough space to talk in detail about your academic interests. You can include this in any section.” 

For courses which require work experience, such as medicine, Question 3 will also be very important. So, overall, don’t worry too much about how to balance the sections out, but do pay close attention to what your specific choices are looking for and tailor it accordingly. 

2. How will universities compare applicants under the new system to those from previous cycles who wrote traditional personal statements? 

Since this is a transitional year, drastic change in how universities compare applicants would be very risky and therefore highly unlikely. From messaging so far, universities will read all sections as one application, rather than comparing section by section. So, guidance and examples for the older statement format will still be useful to look at and you should not think your approach needs to be totally different this year. 

4. Are there any common mistakes applicants might make with the new structure that they should avoid? 

There are a lot of common mistakes with personal statement writing. Looking specifically at the potential pitfalls in the new structure: 

For Question 1, don’t fall into the trap of dwelling on your future career plans unless you are applying for a vocational course. Even for a course like law, admissions tutors want to know if you will be happy writing academic essays about law and will be less bothered about whether you want a training contract with a magic circle law firm. Where you are applying to a vocational course (such as physiotherapy or nursing) then your career plans can be relevant to discuss, but in the majority of cases academic potential is the priority. Also avoid spending time discussing events from when you were much younger – even if you were putting model planes together at age 5, keep the majority of the evidence of your motivation recent so that universities can see you have a real understanding of what you are getting yourself into.   

For Question 2, avoid discussing all your current studies, or aspects of your studies which could already be inferred from your application. If you have Maths A Level on your application, the person looking at your UCAS form can already tell you broadly the modules you are studying and the skills you are gaining. Remember that you will also have a reference from school which gives universities more information about your academic skills. Also avoid simply listing bits of reading and super-curriculars you have done. If you have done a lot of wider reading, then you will need to be selective about which would be best to include, and its also important to indicate your own personal academic thoughts about what you have done. Do you agree or not and why? What connections did you make? What ideas are you excited to explore next? 

For Question 3, avoid taking too much space on irrelevant extracurriculars. Make sure everything you put here has a specific impact and can prove why you might make for a great undergraduate student for the courses for which you have applied. A UK personal statement can be quite different to what other countries are looking for, so thinking your US College essay will be submittable through UCAS is a mistake.  

5. How do these changes affect competitive courses (e.g., Medicine, Law, and Oxbridge applications) compared to less competitive ones? 

Not all universities and departments care strongly about applicants’ statements. More competitive universities are by definition more selective in the sense that they have many more qualified applicants than spaces available. Since their offer rate will be lower, features of your application like your personal statement will on average have a stronger weighting because they need to look at more evidence to determine who to offer places to. You could therefore say that effect of the changes themselves will be stronger for the more competitive universities and courses that already use them more heavily. 

With Oxbridge and Medicine (and a few other courses, particularly at Imperial), also remember that you are not getting an offer without first having at least one interview, and so your personal statement could also be used as part of a discussion – another reason to make sure you’ve done what you say you’ve done! 

Change – potentially for students who would not have had any advice on their statements, they may be giving more useful information. 

6. Among the personal statement, grade transcript, and letter of recommendation, which is the most important for universities? Are there any indications that this change will impact the weighting of personal statements in the overall admissions process?  

Part of the reason to make these changes is to make statements more useful to universities, so that people reading applications can have at least a rough guide on how to compare them, and that applicants also have some guidance on what to include, so it may lead to a slightly higher level of confidence in them in the future. However, for this year, it’s very unlikely that any change in weighting will take place.  

It's also not the case that every university has the same weighting as different factors are included in assessing candidates. For instance, for some Oxford courses, your grades are just as important as your admissions test score in determining whether you will get through to the interview. For some universities and courses, the personal statement doesn’t hugely matter and for others it can be crucial. 

Letters of recommendation or references are generally valued by universities for the very reason that they are not written by you, so that they have higher credibility. Universities in references particularly look for quantifiable statements about your academic potential – ‘Stacy came 2nd in the year in her end-of-year History assessment’, or ‘Tom is constantly bringing in academic ideas beyond his syllabus in Physics’.  

However, in the weightings available, on average, out of those factors, grades are most important because there are usually standard offers for A Levels or equivalent. The caveat is that grades are viewed in your own individual context, so there is some flexibility where you might have personal mitigating circumstances. 

7. What advice do you have for writing an impactful statement that applies to different courses? 

My first question would be ‘how different?’ and ‘why?’ If we are talking Chemistry at one university and French at another then, assuming both universities care about your statement, this is going to be a stretch. But I would also want to discuss your motivations to study those disparate courses in any case. 

However, if you’re applying for courses which have academic crossovers, my advice would be to choose what you are discussing carefully to speak to the most overlapping material possible and be sensitive to how you discuss the academic subjects. I applied for a multidisciplinary subject at Cambridge which is not offered elsewhere and then related courses at other universities. I made sure to speak to the similarities and avoid being too explicit about the unique aspects of the Cambridge course. Of course, it’s never advisable to be specific about particular courses or universities as your statement will be seen by all of them, but especially where the content of your courses vary, you may need to be more strategic in what to include. 

For Cambridge specifically you can submit an additional personal statement for those cases. For Durham, there is the opportunity to submit a substitute personal statement. For other universities, students are sometimes surprised to learn you can actually contact the universities and departments and ask. You can in some cases be asked to submit a separate or substitute personal statement where your original application might not seem like a good fit.  

If you are struggling with your university course choices or how to balance your statement between them, then ask one of your school teachers for help, and we are also always happy to have these conversations. 

8. How important is writing style under the new format? Should applicants focus on concise, structured responses or aim for a more engaging narrative? 

Again, the space available is exactly the same, and the sections do not need to work standalone. There is room still for flair and personality in your statement to an extent, but given the character limit its important to keep your points concise and succinct.  

9. How should AI be used if at all? Does UCAS screen for AI use? 

If your personal statement doesn't appear genuine, it could affect your chances of being offered a place.  

As LSE write: 

‘We do not encourage applicants to use generative Artificial Intelligence tools to create their personal statement as they do not produce high-quality personal statements and may lead to rejection. However, they can be used constructively to: 

• generate initial ideas.  
• suggest reading materials or references for you to explore (to be cross-checked with teachers for relevance).  
• proofread original writing.’ 

As for detection, while there is no perfect AI detection process, UCAS runs a similarity detection system to screen all personal statements for plagiarism, and using AI tools like ChatGPT to compose personal statements can inadvertently lead to higher similarity scores. Its also quite easy from a human perspective to spot the telltale signs of AI generated writing. 

Besides, it's only a short document. There’s no reason not to make sure it conveys your own personal perspective.