Online personal statements using Ucas Apply
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Now that Ucas are phasing out applications, the dynamics of the online form become more important. There are still little tricks to squeeze more words in, but take care using them, as using them will only clear you through the automatic preview – you can’t tell how it will appear to the admissions tutors.
Word, character and line limits
Firstly remember, there is no word limit – instead you're concentrating on a character limit (4000 characters including spaces) and a line limit (47). Both of these must be satisfied to allow you to save your personal statement.
Checking you’re within the character limit is easy, just use the “word count” tool on your word processor which should show you how many characters you’ve used.
The line limit is more difficult, as the length of the lines is predetermined, any lines longer than 93 characters (including spaces) are wrapped onto the next line. You can check you don’t go over the line limit using a word processor which shows the cursor position (the upright bar which shows where you’re typing) and creating a new line after you’ve typed 93 characters – if you’re doing this make sure your word processor doesn’t wrap lines automatically before this.
Other things to remember
No formatting of any type is allowed in your personal statement, except using capital letters, so any bold, italic, or underlined words will disappear in the preview.
Tabs and multiple spaces will be condensed to a single space, so it is no longer possible to indent lines. Single spaces at the beginning of lines will also be removed.
You have a very limited set of “special characters” to use along with all the upper and lowercase letter and numbers you can use the following symbols:
!"£$%^&*()_+' |/ ,.;:'@#~[]?*-=
Common symbols which are not allowed are €, long dashes (–) and the special quote characters “ ‘ ’ ” which will simply be removed from your statement, so remember to replace long dashes with - and quotes with " and '. Some of these problems stem from Microsoft Word's autoformat feature, so you might want to turn if off before starting your statement.
Backslashes (\) are also not allowed but will be replaced with forward slashes (/) and curly brackets will be replaced with normal ones.
Tricks to squeeze more in
Coming soon
Comments
Let me know what you think about this page so I can make some improvements. I should be able to reply any questions within 24 hours.
Comment on the personal statements page.
Comment by guest at 16:16:48 26/09/2005
We're supposed to have a minimum of size 12 font when applying but when you copy and paste your statement from microsoft word all the writing seems to revert to a smaller size. Is there any when of changing or checking the font size of your UCAS personal statement ( I'm quite confused :( )?
Comment by loftx at 16:59:18 26/09/2005
The size 12 font limit only applies to paper applications, which have now been discontinued in most circumstances.
There is no way of selecting or changing font size on online applications - and you don't need to. The only conditions to worry about are the ones mentioned above.
Comment by guest at 11:49:45 02/12/2005
This is really important stuff which a lot of people forget to mention, thanks a lot! I need the rest though, 7 lines over the limit at the moment :( Was fine until my teacher told me to add a paragraph
Comment by guest at 23:06:15 25/08/2006
so even if i will be applying online, what font size should i write it in in microsoft word? if you should be using near to 4000 characters, works out that it should be about size 10 because mine is 50 lines and 4132 characters atm.
Comment by guest at 22:52:07 03/09/2006
Thank you for the useful information, I'm clueless and this has helped me alot. Much appreciated!
Comment by guest at 16:22:10 10/09/2006
Thanx a bunch for all the information mate!!! These guidelines are have been like a bible to me so far!
Comment by guest at 26/09/2006 15:50:14
Can I ask if it will disadvantage my application to leave out the spaces between paragraphs? Just because I have a lot that I want to fit in and it is 47 lines without the spaces between paragraphs- unfortunately it doesn't allow you to indent paragraphs so it looks really dense like that. My tutor says it'll be fine because the content is most important, but I can just imagine that admissions tutors will throw it away because they don't want to read something so dense!
Comment by guest at 26/09/2006 15:54:15
Also isn't it kind of impossible not to start any sentences with 'I'? It is a 'personal' statement and if I tried to start every single sentence in a different way, I think it would sound OTT.
space on personal statement by guest at 29/09/2006 14:38:41
Have found this site very useful - thanks. Can you help please. I have been strugglig to find out what font type and size should be used so that I can check if my statement will paste into the application. Also one of your guest comments implies that you cannot indent paragraphs - is this right as this is the only way I can distinguish between paragraphs and still fir everything in. thanks
Comment by guest at 15/10/2006 20:55:38
just saved my life..been trying for days to write a successful statement!
Good Sonila Haskaj by guest at 13/11/2006 18:12:46
Overall a very good one it has helped me writing my personal statement. What front size can i use for my personal satement?
Thank You by guest at 14/01/2007 22:04:50
Thank you soooooooooooo much, been gr8 help. There's so much to remember with these things and not everyone tells you about formatting. thank you thank you thank you
Line Spacing. by guest at 14/01/2007 23:35:43
I am editing my personal statement and don't know I should single or double-space?
ijakings by guest at 19/06/2007 10:26:28
I would single space. It wont take up as many characters so you can write more. It may also seem like you are "padding it out" if you double space.
brilliant` by guest at 21/06/2007 23:18:28
this is really helpful.. thanks a lot!. if i get into the university i want to, i will thank you so much you will not believe.:)
Comment by guest at 12/07/2007 11:32:53
Really useful for my personal statement. To avoid the special quotation marks, just use notepad or wordpad as it doesn't autoformat them
Comment by guest at 14/08/2007 12:39:27
This has been a great help for me. Despite having written two personal statements for previous years, I was completely stuck and had to go back to basics, you've done a good deed!
Regards,
N. Brown
Comment by guest at 05/09/2007 23:26:48
This is extremely helpful! Thanks alot.
Comment by guest at 06/09/2007 12:24:53
This is a fantastic site and is really helpful for getting personal statements just right! Thanks soooo much!
Indents by guest at 06/09/2007 19:59:11
i wanted to get rid of the lines between paragraphs too. I thought because i can't use indents and i'm still under the character limit why not just put 15 spaces at the start of a paragraph, it has the same affect. Hope this helps anyone in the same situation.
Comment by guest at 09/09/2007 15:31:51
i've not yet entered my personal information on ucas and need to knoe do i need my name in my personal statment
nice, how much is fish? by guest at 10/09/2007 17:25:06
yea v.helpful, will you get the "Tricks to squeeze more in" section up soon please
Spaces for indents by guest at 17/09/2007 15:15:27
You can't put spaces at the begginning of paragraphs as they just get automatically deleted by the system. There is no way to indent the paragraphs. Hope that helps.
Comment by guest at 19/09/2007 14:04:51
My personal statement is so far 8,807 characters with spaces hmmm? xx
excellent by guest at 24/09/2007 16:19:29
this page is so helpful. but the thing about not allowing indents is annoying cuz i need to delete my spaces between paragraphs, but wont that look off-putting to the admissions people?? oh and please hurry up with tips on how to squeeze more in!!
Thanks
Comment by guest at 28/09/2007 17:52:35
is ther a word limit, or just a character limit?
thanks for all the help
tricks to squeeze more in by guest at 01/10/2007 20:01:13
any chance the Tricks to squeeze more in section could come any sooner! go on make my day!
someone help! by guest at 10/10/2007 22:44:53
I've completed my personal statement and its about 45 lines and about 3995 characters. However when i copy and paste it into the box on the ucas website, it appears like this:
This is
an
example of how
my personal statement appears on
the
ucas website
why on earth is it doing this?
Comment by guest at 11/10/2007 19:23:00
this is a really good website coz my personal statement was really short but when i looked on this website i seemed of missed out a lot of info so thanks
Comment by guest at 07/11/2007 16:46:41
I have been so stuck on even starting my personal statement and after following your advice I have all the ingredients to write a great one tonight! thank you so much!
xx
Comment by guest at 14/11/2007 10:58:07
EXCELLENT SET OF ADVICE ON THIS WHOLE WEBSITE - KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
Thanks! by guest at 20/11/2007 19:56:47
Our College deadline for applying to UCAS is the 23rd (which is also a non-pupil day here) and I have been struggligng to write a statement. Your guides have helped me greatly. A lot more than my Tutor and Careers woman.
I will be recommending your site to the students who have to do this next year!
Thank you again
advice by guest at 12/12/2007 15:56:11
you should never use indents on typed documents. ONLY handwritten ones - they teach you that at primary school
Comment by guest at 28/12/2007 16:00:29
Thankyou soooo much for this information, its was really helpful.
Scared Student by guest at 02/01/2008 23:23:14
Cheers me dears, great help tah!
Comment by guest at 04/01/2008 13:09:21
hi!! this site has been soo much help!! but im a little confused, can it only be 47 lines including the spaces between the paragraphs?? thanx so much!
Comment by guest at 28/03/2008 09:13:40
This is an extremely helpful website. Thanks so much for your contribution.
hmmm by guest at 25/04/2008 08:56:22
cheers mate