# How to Write an UNBELIEVABLY Good UCAS Personal Statement (New 2026)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQyZP78mGAM

[00:00] Here's the truth.
[00:02] Just like you and me, university admissions tutors have very small attention spans.
[00:06] Every year, they have to sift through hundreds of personal statements, and most of them sound exactly the same.
[00:13] However, every year, there are a handful of students who write something so unforgettable it could almost be framed in a modern art gallery.
[00:22] And these are the students that get the offers.
[00:22] I'm CVY.
[00:24] I'm a first class Cambridge graduate, and my company has helped thousands of students win places at Oxbridge and top UK universities.
[00:32] Me and my team have read countless personal statements and I can tell you with certainty what separates the offers from the rejections.
[00:38] In this video, I'm going to give you five practical tools to help you write an unbelievably good personal statement.
[00:44] It will almost be impossible for a university to reject you.
[00:48] And pay close attention to number two because this is something that I see students get wrong all the time.
[00:54] Grab a pen and paper because we're about to get very detailed.
[00:55] Let's jump in.
[00:57] Okay, tip number one, writing a killer introduction.
[00:59] So, there's an idea in
[01:01] Psychology called the halo effect, which is very simply the idea that your first impression can shape everything else.
[01:09] Think about when you wrote an essay at school.
[01:10] If your first paragraph is full of scribbles, there's ink on the page, it's a mess, there's spelling mistakes.
[01:16] Regardless of how good the rest of your essay is, your teacher is going to mark you down.
[01:20] There's no doubt about that.
[01:22] Now, the same thing applies to your personal statement.
[01:23] You have about 2 seconds to hook the tutors.
[01:25] If you start strong, then they'll keep reading.
[01:29] If you start weak, then you're fighting an uphill battle.
[01:31] The problem is that most introductions are really, really generic.
[01:35] Most of them start with something like, "Ever since I was a young age," or "Ever since I was a child."
[01:40] If you start your personal statement with this, it's going to be very forgettable.
[01:43] Now, the good news is that writing an introduction is not as hard as you think.
[01:47] And I'm about to show you four very simple ways that you can write an introduction that feels powerful, memorable, and authentically yours.
[01:55] Let's jump in.
[01:57] So, let's take a look at our four categories.
[01:58] First up, we have a personal anecdote.
[02:00] Now, a
[02:03] Personal anecdote is something truly unique to you and fundamentally something which nobody else can say.
[02:10] So, a real test of this is asking yourself, can this statement be lifted and shifted from my personal statement into someone else's?
[02:18] And if the answer is that to no, then you've probably landed on a really unique thing to talk about.
[02:22] Now, your anecdote doesn't have to be anything earthshatteringly impressive.
[02:25] For example, you don't need to have solved a Rubik's cube in under 6 seconds before the age of 10.
[02:32] Clearly, there are much more ordinary and normal things you can bring into your personal statement.
[02:37] Now, a good example of this is actually from a friend who was applying for economics at university.
[02:43] And when he was growing up, he grew up in Australia.
[02:45] And Australia was interestingly one of the only countries in the world that didn't suffer from the financial crisis.
[02:51] And so he started his personal statement with the words having grown up in Australia, I realized XY Z about financial inequality.
[03:01] Similarly, I had a friend who applied for engineering and he
[03:03] Talked about how when he was younger, he really liked dismantling TV remotes to see how they worked.
[03:08] And so if you have an ordinary example from your life, you can really transform them into something quite interesting for admissions tutors to read.
[03:18] The second device we can use is called the seed of inspiration.
[03:24] Now some of you may have had a particular inflection point or eureka moment during your studies where you realize that actually you really wanted to study medicine or engineering.
[03:34] And this is a really powerful and unique way to demonstrate genuine interest in the subject.
[03:38] Now, I can't tell you what your seed of inspiration is, but I can guide you to it naturally by encouraging you to think about moments from your life.
[03:47] Now, if I were to answer this question having applied for geography 7 years ago, the way I would have approached it is maybe thinking about a moment when I was out or about or when I was traveling.
[03:57] So for me, when I was in Portugal before I did my GCSEs, I really was fascinated by the weathering of the.
[04:05] Limestone cliffs and how such a beautiful landscape can be transformed by something so small and surreptitious, which is ultimately water.
[04:14] And I really find that fascinating.
[04:15] And so that's something that I could have talked about in my personal statement introduction.
[04:21] And some of you may have similar seeds of inspiration.
[04:23] And hopefully this concept will help you arrive at an answer.
[04:28] Next up, we have a literary device or a quotation.
[04:30] Now, many of your teachers at school may have advised you not to start your introduction with a quotation.
[04:39] And if I'm being completely honest, I don't know where this advice comes from because in my view, starting your personal statement with a powerful line from a killer book or an article that you have read is such a unique way to separate you from everyone else.
[04:52] Think about it logically.
[04:54] Imagine you're a philosophy student and the goal here is to demonstrate that you're very well read and you understand some central concepts in philosophy.
[05:01] And so you immediately start your personal.
[05:05] Statement with an abstract quotation from Friedrich Niche who is a German philosopher.
[05:09] Now what does that do?
[05:12] Well, it immediately demonstrates to the admissions tutors that you're someone that pushes yourself outside of the Alevel curriculum and you can challenge yourself academically.
[05:20] Now, of course, a quote in isolation is pretty meaningless, but one that is backed up by your own interpretation and if it ties with your academic interests is a pretty lethal combination to open your personal statement.
[05:36] And finally, we have experience-based motivation.
[05:38] Now, this is pretty much what it says on the tin.
[05:40] The easiest way for you to tie together your interest with your desire to study the subject at university is through some work experience.
[05:49] So, if you're applying for something like a vocational course, medicine, law, then naturally you'd want to start your personal statement by stating something you have done.
[05:59] But don't worry if you're not applying for something vocational.
[06:00] You could be applying for something as rogue as as pottery or even something as normal as
[06:05] Psychology and still find a way to tie together your work experience that you do.
[06:10] Many of you here watching will probably have a weekend job working behind a bar, working at H&M or a supermarket or a retail store.
[06:19] You can find a really intelligent way to tie together what you do at work with your academic interests.
[06:23] For example, if you're a psychology student, you might want to comment on the herd behavior that you often observe during a summer sale and why do people flock to discounts?
[06:33] What's driving that behavior?
[06:35] Similarly, if you're applying for economics and you work at H&M, you might be fascinated by pricing dynamics and how different prices affect supply and demand.
[06:43] So experience should not just be limited to this illustrious work experience that you may or may not have done.
[06:49] It can also be rooted in something as simple as working at a retail store.
[06:54] So those are the four devices.
[06:56] I'd really encourage you to employ them where you can.
[06:57] And that's one way you can write a really powerful introduction.
[07:03] Okay, tip number two, the golden ratio.
[07:06] Now, I'm going to be honest because these questions have just been introduced in 2025.
[07:11] You guys are all a bit of a guinea pig.
[07:13] Nobody really knows whether these questions are better than the old personal statement and it's all a bit of an experiment.
[07:18] Now, there's one fatal mistake that I'm really praying that students stay away from and that is the mistake of not knowing how to split up the word count between your questions.
[07:28] Now, UKCAS, they've been pretty poor at advising students on how to split up the word count.
[07:34] And I'm being honest.
[07:36] I've graduated from university.
[07:37] I've written my personal statement.
[07:40] I have seen the website and the guidance and it's pretty vague and so I'm not surprised that this has become a problem.
[07:45] So I was in a school recently assisting some students with their personal statement and one of the guys in the audience comes up to me and asks me to read his responses.
[07:54] Now within the first second I immediately noticed something was wrong.
[07:59] And that's what I'm about to share with you in the following example.
[08:00] All right, I'm about to flash on screen a personal statement.
[08:05] It's all in Latin gibberish, so don't.
[08:06] Worry about reading it.
[08:08] I just want you to pause the video, glance at the structure of the page, and then let me know if you can spot what is wrong.
[08:16] Did you spot it?
[08:18] Don't worry if you didn't, because it's going to become more clear as I'm going to flash another example on screen.
[08:21] And in my view, this example is what a model personal statement should look like from a structural perspective.
[08:31] Okay, so what's going on here?
[08:35] Well, the difference is in the proportion of words between the two questions.
[08:37] You might not necessarily have caught that because it might be small on your screen, but did you notice how in the first example, the personal statement has the exact same proportion of words.
[08:48] So, if you look, it's 33%, 33%, and 33%, a third each.
[08:54] But in the second example, there's a pretty drastic difference, especially in the amount allocated to question two, and it's something like 20, 70, and 10%.
[09:04] Now, the burning question here is why is
[09:07] The second example is correct and better as a structure.
[09:10] Why should you write more for question two?
[09:12] Is basically the question you have in your head right now.
[09:15] And this is just my personal opinion.
[09:17] And I'm going to be honest, the personal statement was changed in 2025.
[09:21] This is just my opinion having done this for eight plus years.
[09:23] So you don't need to take it literally or treat it as an exact science.
[09:27] But there are really two reasons in my estimation.
[09:32] Number one, you've got to put yourself in the shoes of a university admissions tutor.
[09:36] These are people who have arguably given up a career in banking, law, whatever these corporate jobs to pursue a career in academia.
[09:44] These people love reading and writing articles and publishing things.
[09:49] It's their bread and butter.
[09:51] And so fundamentally, the university professors want to see if you are also very well read and have engaged widely with your subject.
[09:59] They're not too interested in whether you've done DV or whether you have work experience or how passionate you are about your.
[10:07] Subject.
[10:10] And the reason for that is just my belief.
[10:15] And I think that number one, so question number one and number three to an extent can be faked.
[10:19] There is literally nothing stopping you from chucking that question into an AI and asking it to spit out a really compelling example.
[10:27] Whereas question two cannot be faked.
[10:30] Now to an extent you could ask it to create some really fancy sentence about how you derived a cool insight from a book or you could ask it to summarize the book.
[10:40] But most universities have interviews and so when you get to interview the university professors will immediately be able to discern whether you have or have not read the book.
[10:48] And so in my view, it's very hard to fake academic interest.
[10:50] It's very hard to fake having read a book.
[10:54] And the professors can pretty much sniff that out from a mile away.
[10:58] So if there's one thing I want you to take away from this slide, it's that the bulk of your personal statement should be spent talking about your academic interests.
[11:06] And in this example, it's around 70%.
[11:08] But if you really want to be ambitious, I would even push that up to 80%.
[11:13] Just remember, you're applying to university and university is a place where you read, write, and think critically about academic stuff.
[11:19] So, make sure you pay attention to question two because it's truthfully all that matters.
[11:23] Okay.
[11:26] Tip number three, the intellectual arc.
[11:29] One thing you need to understand is that university is fundamentally different from schools.
[11:33] Is a lot more independent.
[11:36] Learning and studying is self-directed and it's really challenging.
[11:40] The single greatest skill that you will learn to cultivate when you're at university is the ability to independently solve problems by yourself.
[11:47] Whether that's writing a really complicated essay or solving a tough maths problem.
[11:52] Now, why is that important for you to know?
[11:54] Well, admissions tutors are really looking for one thing in particular.
[11:55] They are trying to understand whether you're someone that can independently take the wheel of the car, go off on your own, do some research, and keep digging until you find the answers.
[12:06] And this is what I refer to as the intellectual arc.
[12:07] In
[12:10] Simple and plain English, it's the ability that you can take an idea, explore it independently, and grow from it in the process.
[12:17] Now, if that sounds confusing, then don't worry because I'm going to bring this to life with a very clear example.
[12:21] All right, I'm going to flash on screen an example of question two, and it's a really fantastic case of how to build an intellectual arc.
[12:28] So, pause the screen, give it a read, and then we'll go over why it's really good.
[12:35] In my head, there are really three reasons why this is such an exceptional example.
[12:38] Number one, there is a very clear intellectual journey and narrative peppered throughout this question.
[12:44] Just look at it.
[12:47] My academic journey has been shaped by a sustained fascination.
[12:50] So, he read the undercover economist, right?
[12:53] It's a pretty basic text.
[12:55] It's a very introductory text that pretty much everyone applying for economics should have read.
[12:57] But he doesn't stop there.
[13:00] He investigates.
[13:02] He dives deeper into Gregory Manip's principles of economics.
[13:04] I have no idea what this book is, but it sounds a bit more advanced than a popular book by Tim Harford.
[13:07] But again, this individual doesn't stop there.
[13:12] Curiosity pushes him further, and he reads 23 things I don't tell you about capitalism, immediately signposting that this is someone that likes to engage with materials way outside of A levels.
[13:22] But also, he doesn't just stop at one book or one article.
[13:24] He keeps digging and digging and investigating and ultimately uncovering why he's so interested in a subject.
[13:30] So, that's number one.
[13:32] Really really strong intellectual journey.
[13:36] Number two, there's very good signposting and choice of language.
[13:38] Now, what do I mean by that?
[13:40] Well, again, remember what I said in the very first segment of this video.
[13:44] University admissions tutors have very tiny attention spans and so they want to make sure that you're using language that shows you're doing all the hard work.
[13:56] This is really great because he uses sentences like curiosity pushed me, investigation, my academic journey.
[14:02] You know, he's already talking about the fact that he's on this intellectual journey, which is point number one over here.
[14:07] He talks about his theme crystallizing, building on this, there's a really subtle but powerful choice of.
[14:15] Language here that demonstrates to the tutors that yes, this person has undergone a pretty cool intellectual arc.
[14:22] And lastly, I think this example of a personal statement is very well structured around one theme, and that's the theme of economic inequality.
[14:32] Now, a really common question I get when I'm speaking to students and visiting schools is, should I focus more heavily on one theme or scatter the gun and go for a really widespread approach, trying to catch lots of different eggs in different baskets?
[14:47] My personal opinion is that your personal statement should be centered around one bulletproof theme and in this case it's economic inequality.
[14:55] You've really got to imagine your theme being a planet and around that there are little sub themes that orbit but it all comes back to this one topic.
[15:03] So if you're studying psychology, you might be interested in how gender dynamics affect parenting roles.
[15:09] You might be interested in the history of China in AD52.
[15:12] I don't know.
[15:13] Whatever it is that you're interested in, make sure.
[15:16] You identify that as your core theme because it's really going to help add character and personality to your responses.
[15:24] So, my meta takeaway from this slide is to show the university admissions tutors that you're not just well read, but you've also been on a really exciting intellectual journey.
[15:32] Okay, this next tip is something that I've noticed crop up time and time again over the years.
[15:40] And I want to introduce you to a buzzword that you're probably very familiar with, but don't really understand it in its entirety.
[15:47] And that buzzword is the super curriculum.
[15:50] I'm going to give you a piece of advice that probably sounds quite counterintuitive and it probably goes against the grain of everything that your teachers have told you at school with regard to your personal statement.
[15:59] The biggest and often most fatal error that I see students make with their personal statement is talking about their A levels.
[16:07] You heard me correctly.
[16:10] I'm going to be honest.
[16:11] If your personal statement has the word Alevel in it or there's a sentence that starts with something like, "From my A-level
[16:17] Studies, I learned this.
[16:19] It's toast.
[16:20] There's a very strong chance that your personal statement is not on the right trajectory.
[16:23] Just think about it logically for a second.
[16:25] Everybody applying for the same subject at you at university is going to study the same A levels and so you need a much better way to make yourself stand out.
[16:34] And the truth is what universities are looking for is simply evidence that you have engaged with your subject outside of the Alevel curriculum.
[16:42] And if you're wondering what type of things constitute the super curriculum, then listen up cuz I'm about to tell you.
[16:47] Now in my view, there are really four big things.
[16:49] Now number one is advanced books and articles.
[16:52] Now, these are books or pieces of information that you would simply not find on the shelf at your school library.
[16:59] It's really degree level material that's designed to challenge the way you think.
[17:03] So, in my case, because my personal statement was built around the topic of sustainable development and economic inequality, I chose this book, Peak Inequality by Danny Darling, who's some goated professor at the University of Oxford.
[17:18] Now, based on the bookmark, I didn't get very far.
[17:21] Only read 102 pages.
[17:23] But that's not the point because what I demonstrated in my personal statement was that I can engage with things outside of the A-level curriculum, things that are challenging and really complicated.
[17:32] And that's what you should strive to do, too.
[17:33] Secondly, and this isn't something you typically think about as being a supercurricular activity, but the next thing is lectures, talks, and master classes.
[17:43] Now before I went to Cambridge University and before I wrote my personal statement, I attended a master class or a symposium at Cambridge and it was about population dynamics and demography and it introduced me to the idea of Malthusian economics and that was something that I wrote about in my personal statement and tied it to this guy over here, Danny Darling.
[18:01] So I'd really encourage you to do the same.
[18:03] Try and seek out a webinar, a master, a lecture.
[18:05] There's so many resources out there.
[18:07] There are so many things you can go and book, visit and see.
[18:10] So I'd really encourage you to go and do that.
[18:12] Okay, number three, competitions and independent projects.
[18:14] Now, the conventional view of this is simply that
[18:18] In your spare time when you're not doing your A levels, you should be doing things like an EPQ, DOV, MU, law, sock, debating.
[18:27] There's so many different things that a student can do nowadays with their time.
[18:30] And some of you here might feel a bit intimidated by that because honestly, when I was 17, I wasn't doing all of these illustrious things that you tend to see on LinkedIn with students doing nowadays.
[18:39] But the truth is there's something a lot more simple that you can actually incorporate into your personal statement that technically counts as a supercurriculum if you word it correctly.
[18:49] So I was in a school giving a presentation and one of the guys in the audience mentioned how on his personal statement he wrote about the fact that he had an eBay business selling phones and laptops and he wanted to study economics and management at university.
[19:04] And for me, it was such a unique way to tie together his interest of economics and market dynamics to his side hustle and ultimately to his subject.
[19:13] So if you have an interesting hobby, something that you do in your spare time, make sure you can try and.
[19:19] Find a way to link it back to your subject interest because that's really what the university admissions teachers are looking for.
[19:24] All right, last but not least, podcasts and documentaries.
[19:29] Now, if you've seen something really interesting on the BBC or Netflix and you can tie it together with your academic interests, then make sure you write about it on your personal statement because people are under the illusion that watching TV or listening to a podcast doesn't count as something academic.
[19:43] But if you can find a tangible way to apply it to a theme in your personal statement, you're winning.
[19:47] But let's just get one thing clear.
[19:49] Watching Love Island or Squid Game does not count as a masterclass on game theory.
[19:53] Oh, right.
[19:56] Tip number five, last but not least, the one cook principle.
[19:58] All right, I'm going to be honest with you here.
[20:01] If you're still watching this video, then well done because you're officially in the top 1% of all students who have very strong attention spans.
[20:12] And the truth is there's a direct correlation between attention span and performance.
[20:15] So, the chances are you'll probably do very well and go on to land.
[20:20] your dream place at your dream
[20:21] university. So, if you're still here,
[20:23] drop one cook in the comments to let me
[20:25] know who you are. However, if you have
[20:27] got this far, there is one fatal error
[20:29] that can jeopardize your entire personal
[20:32] statement. And that is the error of
[20:34] asking too many people to review your
[20:36] personal statement. I'm sure you've
[20:38] heard of the phrase too many cooks can
[20:40] spoil a broth. And the truth is, if you
[20:43] are asking too many people to review
[20:45] your personal statement, and I'm not
[20:46] talking about just one or two people.
[20:48] I'm talking about going to your
[20:49] grandmother, your brother, your sister,
[20:51] your auntie, your nephew, five teachers
[20:53] at school, using chat GPT, using Claude.
[20:56] By the end of that whole process, you're
[20:58] going to be very, very confused. And the
[21:00] truth is, your personal statement is no
[21:02] longer going to be Pville. It's going to
[21:04] be someone else's. It's actually a very
[21:06] well-known phenomenon across psychology
[21:08] that the more decisions you have to
[21:09] make, the more confused you are going to
[21:11] be. And that's called decision
[21:12] paralysis. Have you ever ventured into a
[21:15] supermarket and wanted to buy a
[21:16] chocolate bar? And you see Cadbury's
[21:18] dairy and milk. You see a crunchy. You
[21:19] see a twirl and you just think, I don't
[21:22] want chocolate anymore. I don't know
[21:23] what to get. And so the more decisions
[21:25] you have to make with your personal
[21:26] statement, the more confused you're
[21:28] going to be. Now, it may sound like
[21:30] counterintuitive advice, but what I
[21:32] would genuinely recommend that you do is
[21:34] first of all, get your personal
[21:36] statement to a final product, as
[21:38] finished of a draft as you possibly can.
[21:40] And only then should you seek the help
[21:42] of other people. And the amount of
[21:44] people you should seek help from is
[21:47] three. And the reason why I say three is
[21:49] because three seems to be this magic
[21:51] number where you're not confused about
[21:53] things and you can safely and
[21:55] confidently write a good personal
[21:57] statement. So, who do you seek help
[22:00] from? Well, the most optimal strategy
[22:01] from my experience is seeking the help
[22:03] of your subject teacher. And this is a
[22:06] teacher that studies the subject you're
[22:08] applying for at university. Number two
[22:10] is you seek the help of a neutral
[22:12] teacher. So, this is something like an
[22:13] English teacher if you're applying for
[22:15] engineering. And then finally, the third
[22:17] person should be a family member. And
[22:19] the reason for that is because your
[22:21] family know you very very well and
[22:22] they'll be able to tell if you're truly
[22:25] selling yourself in your personal
[22:26] statement. Now the benefit of all this
[22:28] is that your own style and personality
[22:30] is going to be retained in the personal
[22:32] statement. And trust me on this, if you
[22:34] stick to the process and follow these
[22:36] instructions, then by the end of it,
[22:37] you'll have a truly world-class personal
[22:40] statement. So that brings us to the end
[22:42] of the video. Thank you so much for
[22:43] watching. I am new here. So if you did
[22:45] like the content, then smash that like
[22:47] and subscribe button because there's
[22:49] going to be plenty more videos in the
[22:50] future. I'll see you soon.