Personal Statement Workshop: Sixth Form

What the reader is actually looking for

A sixth form or college form usually gives you 500 to 600 words and some version of four questions: why this college, why these subjects, what you will bring, and what you want to do next. Check your own form, because the questions are theirs and not ours. The person reading it has a pile of them and a deadline. They are not looking for a beautiful essay. They are looking for evidence that you know what you are signing up for, and that you will still be there in June. So answer their questions, one at a time, using their words. A single block of writing pasted into every box is the easiest thing in the world to spot, and it usually means one of the questions never got answered at all.

Two kinds of evidence, and one of them keeps getting forgotten

Everything you could write about falls into one of two piles. Most people fill the right-hand column and leave the left one nearly empty, and then wonder why the form felt hard to finish. The left column is the one that answers why these subjects. It is also the cheapest column there is: a library book, a podcast, a documentary you looked something up after, a free online course. None of it needs money, a contact, or anybody giving you permission. You need both. The right column shows them who turns up. The left column shows them why you picked these three subjects rather than any other three.

Which three say something about the subjects?

Somebody is applying for A level Biology, Chemistry and Psychology. Which three of these belong in the subject column?

• Reading about why teenagers sleep late after a Biology lesson mentioned it in passing
• Finishing a free online course about how vaccines are tested
• Listening to a psychology podcast and being able to say which episode annoyed you
• Being captain of the netball team
• Duke of Edinburgh bronze
• A Saturday job on a cafe till

Nothing is weak until you leave it unexplained

You have more than you think

This is somebody who says they have nothing to write. Two of these are already subject evidence. Tap both.

• I work Saturdays on a cafe till.
• I watched a programme about how they rebuilt a cathedral roof and then spent an evening reading about why they used oak.
• I play five-a-side with the same lot every Thursday.
• I finished a free online course about how the weather is forecast, over the summer.
• I walk my neighbour dog while she is at work.

The three-part move

Weak statements list. Strong statements list, then explain. Every item you use gets the same three parts, in this order.

So what? Take one: the Saturday job

Build the sentence so it does all three jobs.

Describing, or reflecting?

Two of these sentences only describe. Tap both.

• I have been a member of the school council since Year 9.
• Getting the water fountain fixed took four meetings and a budget I had not expected to have to argue for.
• I also enjoy reading and playing football at the weekend.
• Reading about the 1918 flu made me realise history is mostly people making decisions with half the facts.

So what? Take two: the thing you organise

Every week I get _____. It taught me _____, and _____.

Which question does this belong to?

You want to write about a week of work experience in a vets. The form asks: why this college, why these subjects, what you will bring, and what you want to do next. Where does it go?

• Any of them, as long as you say what it shows and why it is there
• Only under why these subjects, because it is science
• Only under what you want to do next, because it is about a career
• Nowhere, because one week is too short to be worth mentioning

Why this college, and why anybody could have written yours

This is the answer people fake, and it shows. A reader can tell within a line whether you have opened their prospectus.

The cliche clinic

Three lives. Every question shows two openings. Pick the one a reader has not already seen two hundred times.

The word budget is not a suggestion

Your college gives you 600 words. The why this college answer came to 180 and why these subjects came to 240. How many words are left for the last two answers together?

The cut

You are 90 words over and it is due tomorrow. Three decisions, and each one costs you something.

• The first cut has to come from somewhere. Which paragraph do you open?
• Still 60 over. You have a list of five clubs you belong to, one line each, none of them explained.
• Twenty over. The last paragraph reads: I believe I would be a valuable addition to your college and I hope you will consider my application.

Order one answer so it argues

These five sentences are the whole why these subjects answer, in the wrong order. Put them so each one earns the next.

• I am taking Biology, Chemistry and Psychology.
• Biology and Chemistry go together because most of what I want to understand about the body happens at the level of a reaction.
• Psychology is there because the year I spent helping at a dementia cafe taught me that the body is only half of it.
• Together they are the three subjects a nursing degree asks for, which is what I am aiming at.
• If I am wrong about nursing, the same three still take me into anything in health science.

Now write one for real

Write the what you will bring answer, about 90 words. Nobody marks this and nobody sees it. Use something you actually did this year.

• Name one thing you did, in a clause. No build-up.
• Say what it taught you that you could only learn by doing it.
• Connect it to the college or the course, not to your character in general.
• Cut any sentence that would still be true if somebody swapped your name for anyone else in your year.

The last read before you paste it in

Which three of these are worth doing the night before the deadline?

• Read the whole thing out loud
• Check it against the questions the form actually asks
• Check the word or character count in their box, not in your document
• Swap ordinary words for longer ones so it sounds more academic
• Compare yours against an example statement online and borrow the best lines
• Add a paragraph so it fills the whole box

It has to be yours, and that is practical advice

Applications get checked for similarity against work submitted before, and against the example statements published on advice sites. Text written by an AI tool comes from that same pool, which makes a match more likely rather than less. You also sign to say the work is your own. The reason that matters more than the rule: a statement you did not write is a statement you cannot talk about. If somebody asks at interview what you found difficult in the book you listed, you need an answer that came out of reading it.

Take it into school

The real one gets written in your school's format, on their form, to their deadline. That is fine. You have now made every move once. Before you close this: write down the three or four pieces of raw material you used here, each with what it taught you and how it connects. That list is the thing worth keeping. The sentences you build from it will change for every form you fill in. If your school's template asks different questions from your college's form, answer the college's. Theirs is the one being read.