Fantastic news, imho.
Personal statements just felt like an extra thing that might cause your application to fail.
I’m 99% sure none of the technical degrees I applied for read mine, and I wouldn’t blame them at all.
Bad headline, it’s just split into three sections now:
will be asked to answer why they want to study the course or subject, how their studies or qualifications helped them to prepare for the course and what experiences they have had outside of education that will be helpful
Literally cannot remember if I wrote one of those when I applied and got in somewhere. But then the first digit of the year was still a 1 when I left, so it was a while ago.
Good, it was bullshit. Tell me about the voluntary work in Mali your parents financed. Tell me about the work placement your family arranged. Tell me about the online company your family set up with you. The last one was literally a suggested topic for an Oxbridge application, the assumption was you’d have been importing and selling Italian food online as a 17-year-old, completely deranged. If you had shitty, abusive parents, then what?
Or lovely but poor parents. I hated the whole gap year culture when I went to University. Everyone carried on like they were so cool. No, you weren’t, you were just rich enough to afford flights and to do fuck all for a year.
My aunt, who I live with, has a parrot called Perseverance…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Instead of a statement limited to 4,000 characters (including spaces), those applying for undergraduate places in 2026 through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) will be asked to answer why they want to study the course or subject, how their studies or qualifications helped them to prepare for the course and what experiences they have had outside of education that will be helpful.
Experts have said the old format gave an unfair advantage to middle-class students and are hopeful the new questions will improve the chances of applicants from backgrounds who lack a family history of higher education or help from tutors.
“This welcome reform strikes the right balance between a more structured approach to deter fabrication, while not limiting the opportunity for applicants to personalise their statement.
I believe it is a significant step in making the university admissions system a little bit fairer for all applicants.”
Ucas made the announcement as its updated figures showed a drop in undergraduate applications by sixth formers in England and Wales for the second year in a row.
Just 42.7% of 18-year-olds in England applied for a place by June this year, compared with 44.9% in 2022, as universities continue to be concerned about lower student numbers harming their financial position.
The original article contains 410 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 49%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
