UCAS Classic mistakes part 1
There are perhaps two ways you can learn something. In schools and colleges up and down the country teachers try to show you the perfect answer to problems. That way you learn by understanding, applying and replicating the best techniques and answers. There is of course another way, you can watch something that is so clearly wrong that you realise the answer is to do the exact opposite of the demonstration. So today I want to have some fun with you and give you a list of all the things you really shouldn’t do on your UCAS form.
First of all your email address will be requested by UCAS and used by the website and universities to contact you. The email address that you choose should not be ‘verylazyboy@163.com’ or ‘futuremurderer@163.com’ - universities will see these choices and make their own inferences. At worst they will decide that you lack the maturity and professionalism to deserve a place on one of their oversubscribed courses. At best they will question your sense of humour and your initiative since you had plenty of time to create a simple and neutral address such as ‘first name.second name@163.com. I have seen Chinese students put odd email addresses on their UCAS forms forgetting that the university will see this and draw their own conclusions about the quality of the candidate.
Next mistake comes from choosing courses that you have little chance of being accepted by. This shows a lack of research on your part. For instance if you want to apply for Mathematics at university you will need Maths A level or a similar demonstration of your prowess. If you want to study Art you will need a portfolio. These are the minimum requirements. Likewise if you are applying to highly competitive courses they will expect good iGCSE results and if yours are not strong you will need a convincing reason to explain this in your Personal Statement or it is likely that the university will reject you automatically.
Now onto Personal Statement mistakes, of which there can be an almost infinite number of ways of failing to present the best image of yourself. One common mistake is to submit it without running a comprehensive check on spelling, punctuation and grammar. If you are Chinese they will not expect you to write perfect English, in many ways they might be suspicious if they think it lacks any mistakes or has a tone that seems too English. However I have seen multiple examples of Chinese students applying to very good universities but with their personal statement littered with spelling mistakes. You would think this would be obvious given that in ‘word' and similar word processing packages any mistakes are shown using red and green underscoring of the text. Top universities do not want to give places to students incapable of showing a thorough appreciation of written English so be sure to read through your work carefully and get advice on your command of the language to avoid disappointment.
Another classis cultural difference between the Chinese mind and the British admissions tutor is the relevance of the parent in the application. Many Chinese students are rightly proud of their families, their city, their country and most of all their parents. This is quite right of course. However I would recommend that you are careful how you present the role of your parents within your personal statement. In the UK we hope that students are expressing their own personal wish for their future in their course choice not something that has been imposed upon them. So I would recommend that you make less emphasis of the role your parents play in the decision making, even if it is the truth. So if your father said – “I am not paying for you to study films, I pay only for Accountancy” my advise would be to say to the university that you want to study Accountancy because of the skills you have, the experiences of your life so far and your hopes for the future. I wouldn’t tell the truth about why you are applying for the course because it is unlikely to help you gain the place that you want!
In the next article I’ll give you even more things not to do so until then, keep working hard at school!
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