Personal Statement

Is it actually personal? Or have you listed your Higher/A-level coursework texts as your 'favourite' works and thus produced a personal statement indistinguishable from hundreds of others doing the same course and showing the same lack of imagination?

Degree sought

Are you clear about what kind of degree(s) you are applying for? You stand little chance of being made an offer for English if your personal  statement is exclusively about your plans to study law or your wish to become a journalist. Likewise, statements that are primarily concerned with English language suggest that the applicant would be unsuited to the St Andrews English course, because we only offer degrees in English Literature, albeit literature from the Anglo-Saxon period onwards. Even students on the 'English with Linguistics' degree will spend 3/4 of their degree taking modules in English literature.

Creative Writing is an optional (and extremely popular) part of the undergraduate syllabus at St Andrews. However, students can do no more than 1/4 of their honours modules in this area, so statements that are entirely focussed on a desire to do creative writing may be unwise: you have to be good at (and interested in) literary analysis too!

Other Activities

Hobbies and part-time work are fine to mention because they suggest you have time-management skills, independence and maturity. However, you should bear in mind that we are still primarily interested in your academic and personal suitability for a degree in English or English with another subject. What do you like about studying English (and the other subject, if applicable)? Why do you want to pursue it at university? What do you hope to get out of it in the longer term? Do you hope for any less tangible benefits from your university education?

Career Plans

Regarding careers, the same advice applies as for writing about your current hobbies and activities. It is salutory that you have plans, but if they are discussed to the exclusion of things that would indicate your suitability for the actual degree course you may weaken your application.

For example, many applicants want to become journalists. A degree in English is very good starting point for getting into journalism and it is a field that many of our graduates do enter. Nevertheless, a degree in English Literature is NOT vocational training for working in the media, so a personal statement that focuses exclusively on plans for a career in journalism may suggest that you would not be happy on a degree course in literature. We offer no Media Studies modules in the School of English.

Finally...

Does your statement demonstrate an excellent command of written English? You are, after all, applying to read for a degree in ENGLISH. Personal Statements that are poorly expressed, vague, or littered with basic errors in grammar, punctuation, word-use and spelling are unlikely to secure an offer.