This year’s university guide is out and Oxford has managed (finally) to overtake Cambridge and grab the top spot in the survey. The detail though, is where the interesting reading is. For example, Imperial College London is far and away the best Uni as regards graduates moving into graduate level jobs, whereas LSE and Bristol have the most applicants per place available.
With the huge demand for Uni places, what can be done? Not many Uni’s offer the opportunity for a face to face interview these days, so its largely down to your personal statement and history of performance. The personal statement is really important and should be completed with full details and ideally show good insight into who you are, why you’re applying for whatever you’ve applied for and your motivations. It’s really worth taking time over this and getting it right. Think of the kinds of things that may differentiate you from the crowd. Everyone else knows the personal statement is important, so the exercise of creativity and application of some personal branding approaches will be useful.
One of the best ideas is to think in detail of the skills you’ve accumulated to date, particularly when doing part - time or holiday work, volunteering or on a gap year. Proven discipline, evidence of real insight into the area you want to study as well as a strongly developed personal vision will all help. This sounds like quite a lot - I hear some of you say! Perhaps, but if you haven’t managed to get out of bed to do some volunteering or holiday work, you probably don’t deserve to be considered anyway. If you have, all you need to do is identify the skills you’ve accumulated.
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