Personal Statement Advice

This is a crucial part of your admission application and will determine your success in obtaining admission with the University of your choice. It's an opportunity to sell yourself to the admissions committee and demonstrate why you're a good fit for the program. Many students may produce similar looking personal statements which is common however, we encourage all our students to spend at least 5 days working on the statement.

Student Connect offers personal statement advice and consultations to help you make a strong case for admission. This page gives an overview of what a well-written personal statement should include.

REMEMBER PERSONAL STATEMENT IS YOUR STORY! WRITE IT WITH PASSION.

• Your personal story, including your motivation for choosing your degree, goals, aspirations and individual strengths. This should cover who you are, what your interests are, what is your background, what is the vision for your future. Use a formal tone to your statement.
• What is your educational background, how is this relevant to what your vision is and the course you are going to apply for? What specific degrees, majors and/or courses have you completed that qualify you for this program? How does your previous education fit into your future goals?
• Why have you applied for the particular university and program? How do they fit into your personal and professional development goals? Go to the respective university website and do thorough research. all of the information you need is a click away on the websites. invest time in researching.
• Do not copy paste from the internet and bring your own voice to the statement.
• Think about how the course combined with your previous course you have studied will support your career aspirations.
• Talk about your career aspirations and how individual modules within the course support them. How do the modules in this course help support your future career goals? If you have a study gap, then justify this with reasons including how the time was spent and how it benefited your personal development. Note that, the longer the study gap since you finished your last course, you will need a stronger personal statement outlining your reasons.
• If you have any work experience, volunteering or any other form of experience, bring this to your statement and discuss what you have learnt and how you can apply that experience as a student.
• If you have already completed and wish to complete another Master’s degree, then you need to provide solid justification as to why you wish to do this and how both courses complement and support your career aspirations.
• Think about how you can contribute to society with a degree and what actions you will take. Use personal pronouns such as "I", "me," and "my".
• Carefully double check your spelling, grammar and content. Edit and revise your personal statement until you are satisfied with it. Make sure that the final version is well-written, free of grammatical errors and flows smoothly.
• Get feedback from someone else - a friend, family member or tutor - to help improve your personal statement.

For further assistance on writing personal statements, visit British Council SOP Guidance