Starting your UCAS Personal Statement

For students applying to start university from September 2026 onwards, the UCAS personal statement format is changing. This blog post has been updated to cover these changes!

Your school will give you lots of help with writing your personal statement, but it can really only come from you, as you are the main topic. It’s a way for universities to see how well you can articulate why you want to be on that course and why you are a suitable candidate!

UCAS have updated the personal statement format from one longer piece of text to three separate questions. The idea is for the three separate questions to give you a starting point, helping you to scaffold your answers and make sure you include exactly what universities are looking for. The expected content is largely unchanged!

Each answer needs a minimum character count of 350 characters, along with an overall character count of 4000 characters (including spaces).

The new personal statement questions are:

Question 1. Why do you want to study this course or subject?

Question 2. How have your qualifications and studies helped you prepare for this course or subject?

Question 3. What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

Let's look at each question in more detail...

Question 1: Why do you want to study this course or subject?

In this section, your focus is to show your passion for the subject area. You might want to include:

Your motivations for studying the course or subject(s)
Your knowledge of the subject area
Your future plans and why this is a good fit for you

Question 2. How have your qualifications and studies helped you prepare for this course or subject?

In this section, share the relevant or transferable skills you've gained from your education, and crucially highlight your understanding of how these skills will help you succeed in the subject area or as a university student in general. You might want to include:

How your school studies relate to the course or subject area
What relevant or transferable skills you have
Any relevant educational achievements

Question 3. What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

This section is your chance to talk about any other activities you've taken part in outside of your school studies, or any personal experiences, which you feel demonstrate your suitability. You might want to include:

Work experience, employment or volunteering
Personal life experiences or responsibilities
Hobbies and any extra curricular activities
Any widening access or outreach activities
Achievements outside of school

The UCAS website has more detailed info on what you might like to include in each section.

Once you've created your UCAS account (which you'll use to apply to university), you'll have access to an individualised UCAS Hub page. From this page you can access the UCAS personal statement builder tool to help you get started, giving you prompts for each section!

If you've had your LEAPS Pre-UCAS Interview, dig out your action plan and take a look at the things you discussed – your passion for your course choice, your work experience – and start writing!

You can also list your work and volunteering experiences in the 'Employment' part of your UCAS application. However, the most important place to talk about these additional experiences is in your personal statement.

It's normal to go through a few drafts before you get to the final version that you submit as part of your UCAS application, so just keep this in mind when you're working on your statement. Your school will usually be willing to read a draft of your personal statement and provide feedback, so make sure to check in with your teachers on when there will be an opportunity for this!