Size and presentation

How to provide your personal statement

You can enter up to 4,000 characters (this includes spaces) or 47 lines of text (this includes blank lines), whichever comes first. You do not have to use all the space provided. When you save text, the system will tell you how many characters are still available or if you have used too many characters. You can preview your statement after you have saved it.

You will not be able to change the presentation of your personal statement by using features such as bold, italic or underlined text or foreign characters, such as á, ë, õ. If you use these types of formatting or foreign characters, they will be removed from the text when you paste it onto your application and save it. If you are an international student, we know that you may want to give correct titles of some things in your own language but universities and colleges are aware that accents and certain characters will not appear as they should.

We recommend that you prepare your personal statement offline using a word-processing package and copy and paste it into the Apply system. This is because Apply will time-out after 35 minutes of inactivity. When you enter your personal statement directly into Apply, you must save it to prevent your work being lost.

If you want to send more information, contact your chosen universities and colleges to check that they are happy to accept further details. If they are, send it direct to them after we have sent you your welcome letter and personal ID. Do not send it to us.