UCAS - Size and presentation

Size and presentation

Structure and format

Think about the structure of your statement - it needs to look and sound good. A bad statement can say a lot, so make sure you check spelling and grammar as well.

A representative from Ulster Business School told us:

'The presentation of the personal statement is of critical importance to demonstrate use of English language and grammar at a standard suitable for entry to higher education.'

We've provided examples on this website to help you plan your statement, but the formats we've used are just suggestions; it's more important that the university sees your writing style than ours.

How to provide your personal statement

You can enter up to 4,000 characters (this includes spaces) or 47 lines of text (this includes blank lines), whichever comes first. You do not have to use all the space provided. When you save text, the system will tell you how many characters are still available or if you have used too many characters. You can preview your statement after you have saved it.

Please note that you cannot use italics, bold or underlining in your personal statement - the system will automatically remove these when saved. This will not disadvantage your application.

If you want to, you can enter some European characters that are not in the English alphabet in your personal statement. View more information about European characters.

We recommend that you prepare your personal statement offline using a word-processing package and copy and paste it into the Apply system. Whether you are typing your statement directly into the box, or amending a statement that you pasted in, you should click 'save' regularly because Apply will time-out after 35 minutes of inactivity. The countdown on the screen displays how much time you have left before it times out.

The character and line count in Apply may be different to a word-processing package, such as Microsoft Word - this is because formatting characters, such as paragraphs and tabs, are counted in Apply but may be ignored in Word. Please use the size as specified in Apply as the guide.

If you want to send more information, contact your chosen universities and colleges to check that they are happy to accept further details. If they are, send it direct to them after we have sent you your welcome letter and Personal ID. Do not send it to us.