If your child is planning to apply to university (or you, if you’re in Sixth Form!) for 2026 entry or beyond, there’s an important update you should know about: the UCAS Personal Statement is getting a makeover.
Dr Rachael Pearson, Oakham School’s Head of Careers and Progression, guides us through the changes designed to make the university application process more structured, focused, and supportive.
The UCAS Personal Statement has been an unchanging feature of UK university applications for decades.
Traditionally, students have been tasked with explaining their interests, suitability and experiences in a free-text box, using a maximum of 4,000 characters. Contrary to some reports, the Personal Statement is not being scrapped, and the changes to it do not relate to its purpose, or even really content, but to its presentation, structure, and focus.
Students will still have 4,000 characters, but rather than a free-text box, the statement will be broken down into three questions.
Students will need to respond to each question, using a minimum of 350 characters, but other than that are not required to address each one equally. The change is designed to help the student through scaffolding – the questions are, in essence, prompts.
Why is a statement needed?
Universities do not always use statements in the same way, or at the same part of the applications and admissions cycle. Depending on the university and course, they may be used to ascertain academic interest and ability beyond exam results, to inform some questions in the case of an interview, and to inform decisions in ‘borderline’ cases.
What are the questions and what goes where?
UCAS has some great advice on how to address and approach each question (https://www.ucas.com/applying/applying-to-university/writing-your-personal-statement/the-new-personal-statement-for-2026), but here are some ideas:
- Why do you want to study this course or subject?
- Students could discuss the origin of their interest – a life event, role model, or learning something which created curiosity about the subject.
- Students can explore super-curricular engagement – what have they done academically beyond the taught syllabus? Have they, for example, done extra reading, visited a relevant place, listened to a podcast or watched a documentary? They should reflect on a few examples rather than listing many without demonstrating engagement and critical understanding.
- If students have an idea about how the course may relate to later career or study plans, they can add that too.
- How have your qualifications or studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?
- Students could write about how current or recent studies are relevant.
- They can also write about formal super-curricular studies, such as a MOOC or independent schools work like an EPQ or IB Extended Essay.
- They should draw on the skills that will be helpful when studying the course. These will vary depending on what they are applying to – for example critical analysis in essay-based subjects and patient-facing skills for clinical courses.
- Educational achievements such as involvement in essay competitions and Olympiads should also be used here.
- What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful? UCAS gives a wide range of examples here, including:
- Volunteering and work experience.
- Hobbies and extra-curricular outside of school and college – again, draw on the relevant skills developed.
- Any relevant personal experiences or responsibilities.
Remember:
- ‘Relevant’ is repeated here so much because it is a key point. Keep the focus on suitability for the course!
- The split between academic and co-curricular content should be about 80:20 and, for the most academically elite and selective universities, closer to 90:10. Students’ other interests are crucial to them as individuals, but not necessarily the information which academic admissions staff are focusing on.
- Do not repeat information from other parts of the application, such as GCSE grades, predicted grades, or by using the same example in response to more than one section.
- Some examples of students’ engagement with the subject may theoretically relate to more than one of the questions. It will not matter where it is used, but should only be used once.
- Submitted statements are screened for plagiarism – students should be honest and write about themselves in their own words.
Extra Support
Some subject-specific examples can be found here: https://www.ucas.com/applying/applying-university/writing-your-personal-statement/2026-personal-statement-guides
