As summer comes to a close and school starts again, most year 13’s will be starting to think about UCAS and personal statements. Personal statements seem daunting and overwhelming but if you start preparing in advance, you’ll have nothing to worry about. Trust me, I’ve been in the same position that you’re in now.

If you are a bit nervous and don’t know what to do, I’ve prepared 5 tips to help you get started on your personal statement.

1.       Research universities and courses

Even before you even think about starting to write, you should do some research around the universities and courses you’re considering applying to. Do you want to do a straight economics degree or do a joint honour degree? What kind of modules would you want to study? Would you prefer a more essay based or a more maths-based degree? Thinking about these questions will help give a foundation for your personal statements and some ideas of what to write about. For example, if you know that the universities you’re applying to have similar modules, you can talk about them in your personal statement. Or if you know that you would a prefer studying a maths-based degree, you would highlight your mathematical competency.

2.       Do a short online course.

If you have an area of economics that you are interested in, why not learn more about it a little more by doing a free online course. Coursera, EdX and the Open University offer so many free short courses. These are available to do in a variety of different areas and normally only take 3 to 20 hours to do. You can learn about niche or broad economics concepts and when writing about it, you will be able to display your proactiveness and enthusiasm. I did a short course on Global Prosperity and GDP which linked environmental economics to classic economic theory and then I wrote about it in my personal statement. An easy trap to fall into is just listing things you’ve done which doesn’t tell the admissions team much. You should talk about why you chose to do that course, key takeaways from it and how it’s relevant to why you want to study economics.

3.       Read books and articles

This links very closely with my second tip. If you’re interested in a certain aspect of economics, read books and articles on it. Discover Economics has some amazing book recommendations and most university course pages have a recommended summer reading list, both great ways to discover books. Make sure to not be too basic with the books you talk about such as talking about how much you loved Freakonomics. It’s very overused and universities often favour originality. Like I mentioned previously, don’t list. Try to write in a chronological almost story like way. E.g. I am interested in X area of economics which lead me to read X book; where I particularly liked X part as it helped deepen my understanding of X; from this I am excited to study X further at university.

4.       Know current affairs

A major part of economics especially macroeconomics is to about what’s happening around the world which is why it can be useful to mention current affairs. However, not just randomly but in an economic context. Consider what has been happening in the news recently and read articles and listen to podcasts related to those events. A lot of the time, schools have free subscriptions to the Financial Times or the economist so ask your school. If not, there are plenty of other sources that can be used. Explain and link what you have listened to and read to economic concepts and theories. I talked reading an article on how prisoners dilemma can be used to figure out how to distribute Covid-19 vaccines because I was applying to university  straight after the pandemic. It wouldn’t make sense for you to talk about the pandemic now as it happened 4 years ago and is no longer ‘current’. Make sure what you’re writing about is relevant to what’s going on today.

5.       Reach out

Ask your teachers, friends, family for advice and guidance. If you know someone who is studying a course that you want to study, reach out to them and ask them how they went about applying to university. Some universities even do personal statement review sessions where you can ask for pointers and tips. Bearing that in mind, remember at the end of the day this is your personal statement and you don’t have to implement every piece of advice that’s been given to you. Everyone would have had a different experience with the university application process and you can choose what bits and pieces you want to take from their experience.

These tips aren’t the holy grail to writing a perfect personal statement but they’re a good starting point. If you’re unsure. And with that, enjoy the rest of your summer and good luck with the upcoming academic year!

Simran is a 3rd year economics student at the the University of Warwick. She is currently studying doing a year abroad at LMU in Germany.