Wow! We’ve had so many Personal Statements to look at that I’ve barely had time to write this blog! Fantastic work all of you who have sent them in to us.
Quite a lot of people have sent 2nd and 3rd drafts and it’s always great to see improvement and feedback being taken on board. The majority of have come through the submission form on our S6 Resource Page, which has really simplified and sped up the process for us. It’s so much easier to download a word document via the form, compared with having to respond to say we can’t access the document on Glow.
When Personal Statements come in, I divide these out among the team so that everyone has a fair workload, while trying to take into account any subject specialisms within the team – it helps that our team has studied such a wide range of subjects! Then, a 2nd member of the team takes an additional look at your statement. This is to spot any typos or grammar errors that might have been missed and to makes sure the feedback is nice and clear.
We have seen a flurry (see what I did there?!) of statements over the last few weeks, as most of the schools we work with like to have everything submitted before the Winter break. Definitely sensible, you want to avoid having to write Personal Statements or Teacher References over the holidays if you can help it! Reminder: the LIFT OFF team will be out of the office and unable to review statements during this time.
If you’re a Core Pupil still putting the final polish on your statement, you can use our checklist, available on the S6 Resource Page. Things to watch out for include ‘icatch’ – how many times you start a sentence with ‘I’ and making sure you are under the 47 line limit for UCAS by checking your paragraph spacing.
Looking ahead we would love it if you could let us know if you get offered places on your chosen courses. It does really brighten up our day to hear the good news.
Some college courses have opened up applications earlier this year, so when we get back in January, we’ll be welcoming more Personal Statement reviews for HND and HNC courses.
In the meantime, we’d like to wish everyone the best of luck with your applications and looking forward to some mince pies to accompany my final bit of reviewing time before the break!
