How do I write a personal statement for multiple courses?
I wanted to apply for two different courses. How do I write a personal statement that covers two different subjects?
In the first place, we’d generally advise that where possible you choose courses in related subject areas. Many Admissions Tutors do use the personal statement as a key way of selecting applicants, so if part of your personal statement is about a completely unrelated subject area then you’re likely to be at a disadvantage compared to other applicants.
However, we recognise that many strong applicants may wish to apply for courses which are related but not exactly the same – and across different universities no two courses are completely identical anyway. In this case, we’d advise a topic-based approach, whereby you write about a topic/topics – maybe something in the news – which you can analyse from the perspective of the different disciplines of the courses you’re applying for. For example, there are many issues which can be viewed from both an economic and a political perspective, so you could write about e.g. Brexit, the Coronavirus pandemic, the US election, and many other topics from both these points of view.
In general we’d recommend avoiding dividing the personal statement into one half on subject A, the other half on subject B. Even for joint courses, we want to see how you can combine perspectives and apply your knowledge, so try to do this throughout the personal statement.
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