W S Y C UCAS SCRAP

Personal Statements

ALMA SAMOCHA

An announcement from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) regarding amendments made to the process of university applications marks a significant change for students entering the 2024 admissions cycle - ie. prospective students of Year 12, yet to enter their final two years of secondary education. Claiming that the format of a personal statement offers middleclass students an unfair advantage, the admissions service reveals their intentions to replace the 4,000 character essay with a questionnaire featuring a series of questions about the student’s intended course. The ideal consequence is a levelling of the playing field for students from lower-class or disadvantaged backgrounds who have less access to support when submitting an application. Typically, private schools offer one-on-one support in comparison to the more independent approach favoured in many state schools, as well as the targeted tutoring for the writing of a personal statement provided for a hefty sum by private companies. Considering this disparity, it is immediately clear that this concern deserves apt consideration and that the service is right to look for ways in which to improve accessibility.

The decision, evidently long-considered (as pointed to by the UCAS-conducted report of over 1,200 students, 170 teachers and 100 schools), is met with general positivity. With 83% of respondents to UCAS consultations describing the process of writing a personal statement as one of excessive stress, this change may also serve to reduce some of the pressure felt by A-level students, for whom the presence of an additional and essential essay deadline during the course of their exams can seem a difficult and unnecessary demand.

Yet students are likely to feel somewhat blindsided by the rapid change, and many may be frustrated by the removal of an opportunity to explore topics of interest independently and represent oneself to a university of choice with total creative freedom (albeit with a maddening word limit). Although 79% of those surveyed agreed that writing a personal statement is difficult - particularly without support - a near 72% expressed positive sentiments about the process. Russell Group Universities, among them the University of Cambridge and University of Liverpool, welcome the reform as a step towards accessibility, but make little mention of the devaluing of academic research (a skill undoubtedly encouraged and strengthened through the writing of a personal statement) which takes place as a result.

If university admissions officers come to focus solely on the grades of students and their tangible achievements rather than on the passion for learning which drives academic research in the long term, UCAS’s efforts to broaden the doors of higher education may result in a narrowing of opportunity instead - particularly since it is likely that private schools and tutoring programs will continue to look for ways to afford their students a higher chance of success. Perhaps the change needed is not a simplification of the application itself, but a reevaluation of the way that students in disadvantaged areas are given tools to pursue academic success, whether this be through government funding, localised scholarships, or other avenues of support.

The consequences of the reforms remain yet to be seen, and their significance for both accessibility and creativity are ambiguous as of yet; as a student in my final year of school, bearing both a fondness and a bitter hatred for the personal statement long-gone, I can only wish the following years good luck in hope that the uni application process will progress in a constructive direction.