Reforming admissions

As identified in the report, students have mixed views on the personal statement.

Our survey of 2022 cycle applicants found most students are in favour of personal statements – 89% of respondents said they felt that the purpose of the personal statement is extremely clear or clear. 

Students tell us it helps their decision-making, while admissions teams say it supports comparability for them when making offers.

However, 83% of students did say the process is stressful. They rely heavily on support from others in order to feel confident that they've covered all of the right information. In splitting the statement into a series of sections, it will be much clearer to students what supporting information really makes a difference to their application, making it simpler for applicants to express themselves as well as increasing their confidence that they have properly understood what they should include. 

The personal statement is being reformed not completely removed – and the clear message is that the personal statement enables them to use their own voice, advocate for their chosen course, and showcase their potential outside of their academic achievements.

By framing the personal statement as a series of free-text questions, we believe this will create a more supportive framework, which in turn will help guide students through their responses by removing the guesswork.

From the original six themes, the following three themes have been confirmed by consultation with providers and advisers for inclusion in the personal statement section. They are intended to help admissions teams assess whether applicants are a good fit for the course, and how they might compare to other applicants for the same courses:

• Motivation for course: Why do you want to study these courses?

  For some students this might relate to careers ambitions, for others it may be a simple love of the discipline. In considering this question, students will be ensuring through their research on courses that their options really do deliver against what they’re looking for – whether that’s sector body accreditation, a pathway to a specific profession or the opportunity for a deep dive into a subject area that fascinates them. Providers are looking for evidence that students understand that no two courses – even those with the same title – are the same, and that their course is a good match for the student.

• Preparedness for course: How has your learning so far helped you to be ready to succeed on these courses?

  This is an opportunity for students to highlight what they’ve gained from school/college or other formal learning opportunity. This might be an A level curriculum helping them understand the breadth of a discipline and pointing them to further research into where their interests most lie. It may be specific skills and competencies related to the courses they want to go on to study. As always, answers will be personal to each student but key here is demonstration of understanding of what will help them succeed.

• Preparation through other experiences: What else have you done to help you prepare, and why are these experiences useful?

  The experiences featured here are likely to be varied and may include activities such as self directed extracurricular learning, involvement in sports or social clubs, and employment or other work experience. What all responses should include is a reflection on why the activity is being referenced – what has been learned from it? What skills have been developed? What critical thought has been sparked, and what did the student do next as a result? Why will these things help them on their courses?

Following consultation, it became apparent there were concerns that two of the themes proposed were potentially going to be difficult to tailor to universities offering different teaching and assessment styles, and therefore were likely to produce generic answers.

These have been withdrawn and are no longer under consideration for the personal statement. The extenuating circumstances theme was recognised as being extremely valuable, and that it would be better placed in its own section. UCAS is looking to deliver this alongside the reformed personal statement.

• Extenuating circumstances: Is there anything that the universities and colleges need to know about, to help them put your achievements and experiences so far into context?

  Not all students will feel the need to respond to this question, but for those who strongly feel that they would like to contextualise their application in their own words, this space allows them to do this without 'spending' words they could be using to articulate their skills and suitability for the courses.

Withdrawn themes:

• Preparedness for study: What have you done to prepare yourself for student life?
• Preferred learning styles: Which learning and assessment styles best suit you – how do your courses choices match that?

Our user experience team will look at how we word the questions so we can ensure all students understand exactly what is being asked of them.

Opportunities for engagement and feedback on these will be highlighted in our email bulletins to providers, teachers and advisers, and we welcome all input to inform the final output.

Informed by feedback from stakeholders across the education sector, we plan to introduce these changes in 2025 for 2026 entry.

This will ensure that we can produce guidance to support applicants and advisers in completing the new format.

We know there’s interest in mixed media personal statements – whether that’s from providers offering courses where other skills such as performance are more relevant, or from students who feel they can better present themselves in ways other than writing.

In splitting the personal statement into sections, we can start to explore combining written and other responses – but as always we will conduct significant customer and stakeholder engagement before making any decisions on this.