Students urged to show restraint in Personal Statements

In advice to applicants who intend to study English, Southampton University has told students to avoid “frantic self-advertisement” and says they are “applying to the English department, not The Apprentice”. Linda Ruth Williams, a professor of film studies at Southampton, said: “Some personal statements suffer from hyperbole, it’s media-fuelled. We want to hear their own voice, not a self-aggrandising voice.” Alan Carlile, head of admissions at Sheffield University, said: “Confidence is great, veering into egotism is not. It is amazing when you read personal statements, which are simply lists of superlative accomplishments, students could not have had the time to accomplish all the stuff they list.” He gave examples of a psychology applicant who wrote: “Thomas Edison made fantastic discoveries, which changed his life and this world for ever, and by reading this personal statement you are doing the same”