UCAS - Charity work and your UCAS application

Charity work and your UCAS application

If you do charity work, mention it in your Personal Statement.

If you are involved in charity work, you might want to think about mentioning it in your UCAS application. The Personal Statement is your chance to shine and sell yourself, so if you feel like your volunteering makes you stand out, include it in there.

It could be anything from running a children's club in your local village hall to trekking in the Himalayas for Cancer Research, or even supporting Children in Need like the UCAS team in Cheltenham. Young people are among some of the most active in the charity sector, so you won't be the only one talking about it.

The important thing to remember is to ensure you always relate your volunteering back to the course you want to study. While being philanthropic is a characteristic admired by admissions officers, they are ultimately looking for the right person for their subject.

Karen Martin, from the Admissions & Student Recruitment Department at the University of Dundee, explains: "Remember that your Personal Statement is the only piece of your written work we will see when selecting the best applicants.

"You should highlight the transferable skills you have learned from outside activities."

Some form of accreditation or recognition of your work should be mentioned, such as a WorldWide Volunteering Certificate of Volunteering Achievement, if you can. For this, simply log the number of hours you spend doing unpaid work - not work experience - and you will receive a certificate that is a solid record of your charity work. A bronze certificate requires 25 hours, while the highest accolade is a platinum certificate for 250 hours.

If the course you are applying to is heavily focused on a particular career, such as medicine, nursing or veterinary science/medicine, then volunteer work can prove particularly valuable in your application.

Ms Martin says: "Applicants must show a strong knowledge of the role of a professional in that career and explain why they have the skills required to be successful in that role.

"Examples of relevant work experience, work shadowing or voluntary work should also be included."

Charity or any form of volunteering is also something to consider if you plan on taking a gap year and delaying entry until 2013. You could combine volunteer work in an industry related to what you want to study with a part-time job. And this may do a lot more than just help with your chances of landing a place on a competitive course.

Becci Newton, senior research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, explains that a year out can also help reassure people that what they want at university to do is the right thing for them. "That gap year activity can help them have an insight their chosen career, or the career associated with the course they are considering pursuing," she says.

2011-11-25

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