Personal statements

Your UCAS personal statement is your opportunity to impart specific information about yourself and that you feel it is important that we know.  This could be detailed reasons why you wish to study your chosen course at Cambridge, what motivated your interest in this subject, your hobbies and interests outside school, or your future aspirations, to name but a few.

It is important to remember that the person conducting the general interview at St John's will not be a Teaching Fellow in the subject you have applied for, and may therefore rely heavily on your personal statement in order to engage you in discussion of subjects about which you feel comfortable talking at length and in some depth.  Therefore, if you have just watched your brother abseiling once or twice, you don’t want to list it as one of your hobbies!  Equally, it is not a good idea to list as “favourites” books that you have every intention of reading, or quote as a favourite author someone who has published 20 books, but you’ve only managed to read one so far!

In general, we find that the majority of personal statements are made up of two-thirds information of a more academic nature, and one-third information about extra-curricular interests.  However, that being said, the whole idea of a personal statement is that it is personal to you… it is your statement and your chance to communicate to us the things about you that you would like us to know.