How Long Should a Personal Statement Be?

What Is a Personal Statement?

A personal statement is requested from applicants as part of the requirements to study at a University, both as undergraduate and postgraduate level. In a personal account, students are expected to write about their expectations from the university.

They also write about what they expect from their chosen course of study. The personal statement also has the students stating the reason why they had decided to study at that particular university.

Technically, the personal statement offers the student their first opportunity to showcase their passion and knowledge of the course that they have chosen to study.

What Do I Write as My Personal Statement?

Your personal statement is naturally your first chance to let the university know you have applied and to know your expectations of them. Technically, in the personal statement, you are expected to include your career expectations and how your passion for the course developed.

The statement should contain any relevant course that you had done, which is related to the course you intend to study at the university. It is also expected to include the main reason why you were attracted to the university.

And lastly, it contains other critical academic passions as well as interests that show a positive personality and character.

Honest experiences demonstrating leadership and ambition, genuine work experience, or understanding a specific subject is a plus and a higher chance of making your personal statement sticks out fantastically. 

Whereas admission officers also search for any positive indicators of your type of character to know if it would end up as a useful trait the university needs.

Why Do You Need to Make Your Personal Statement the Right Length?

Writing a personal statement with the right length defines whether every part of your personal account gets read or if it will be skimmed through or if it would be dismissed quickly. 

These are some facts lots of university applicants must consider when struggling to write their school personal statements and is understandable. In an attempt to fully narrate a story or to try to explain a situation, lots of applicants end up having a lengthy personal statement above the allowable length.

However, it is quite frequent that lots of students write out the full essay, but only to realize later that they will need to cut off about a third of it to bring the essay within the requirements or count limits.

What if we tell you this particular situation can be avoided easily by planning carefully? This way, your personal essay is kept at the proper length.

Maintaining the length is extremely important to the admission officer.  With that said, brainstorming ideas for your essay, as well as creating a fundamental outline will help you create a personal statement.

The moment you know your word count limit for your personal statement, decide beforehand the amount of space dedicated to every paragraph and follow this process when writing the essay.

You Should Strictly Obey the Word Count Limit of Your Personal Statement

University programs are beginning to impose a strict limit in word count or character count, as the case may be for personal statements. Especially for increasingly centralized application systems.

This is also a fact if your school has not set any word count limits or character limits for your personal statement. Besides, several other university programs provide guidelines to be followed strictly.

Other programs still decide to offer ideal or approximate lengths for your personal account. These particular programs even allow you to turn in your university personal statement with a suitable range that has been chosen by you. 

Do not worry; your university application will never be rejected immediately if your personal statement is significantly longer. However, it is essential to adhere to guidelines for your program.

They are trying to allow you to make them understand how they can help in making your chosen course of study meet your expectations. 

This way, you should not see a personal statement with a lenient guideline as a personal statement where anything goes. However, do not write beyond 10% of the length that has been recommended by the school. 

If the program demands a single-spaced university personal statement with exactly one page, you should carefully think this over before handing the personal statement, which is over a page and a paragraph long. The school’s admissions board will be quite excited to read an additional section of a great essay.

How Long Should a Personal Statement Be?

Depending on the university which you are applying to, the length of your personal statement shall vary greatly. However, the standard width for the personal account of a student applying to a university at an undergraduate level is invariably about 400 or 600 words long.

It is estimated as a single page of an A4 paper. Or the length of the personal statement can be as long as 47 lines. However, some postgraduate level programs could need as much as a thousand-word lengthy personal statement, but, if this is required, it will be specified clearly.

Students are advised not to write beyond the stated character limit because the admissions officer generally has to go through lots of personal statements.

Therefore, if your personal account is written clearly and concisely, it has a high chance of standing out from the myriads of personal statements that the admission officer has to go through.

Conclusion

Each time that a university asks a student to write a personal statement as part of their applications, the student is tempted to write in different ways. It is either they turn in a short personal statement, or it comes in too long.

While a personal statement is meant to be quick and containing a snappy description, it is neither a cover letter nor a personal essay. Therefore, the right word count or length should be followed, as suggested by the guidelines.