Take plenty of time to plan your statement and think about what you want to say before you start writing your personal statement. It should not be an autobiographical timeline of your life – it’s a statement of your reasons why you are applying for a specific course, your academic interests and your potential to successfully complete the course.
Why are you applying for this Masters degree?
What we're looking for is an honest and succinct narrative that tells us why you have chosen to apply specifically for this postgraduate course. We want to see some evidence that you have really thought about your selection and to get a sense that you are excited by what lies ahead.
If you're interested in a particular field, then tell us about it. If you’ve read something that’s stimulated your desire to study in a particular direction, let us know about that too. It doesn’t have to be something you necessarily agree with, just something which has stimulated you to study with us.
We look for a convincing statement where the course that you want to apply for feeds into your passions and interests and how you anticipate it will benefit your future career. If your chosen subject or field of interest has impacted in your life outside study, such as voluntary work or internships then this too, is something we want to hear about.
Tell us about you
It’s important that your personal statement reveals you. We can see your academic performance but what we want from your personal statement is an understanding of why this course would fit you.
Whilst we would expect good applicants to have reviewed our webpages prior to application, copying and pasting information from our website is not sufficient and will result in a delay to a decision on your application.
Your statement must be your own work and be about you. Please do not copy and paste information from our website or from someone else's personal statement.
Please bear in mind that if you are applying to study in the UK from overseas, your personal statement will be the document that will be used for your interview with the visa authorities, so you should be prepared to discuss the contents of your personal statement fluently.
