On the evening of 8 September, Mr Michael Nicholson, Director of Recruitment, Admissions and Participation at the University of Cambridge, participated in the YCYW University Guidance Webinar. He engaged in an in‑depth dialogue with Mr Nick Strong, YCYW CUGO (Careers and University Guidance Office) Regional Coordinator for the UK and Europe, about the latest reforms of the personal statement of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) for British universities. 

Mr Nicholson is Chair of the UCAS Council and has extensive experience in higher education admissions. The webinar attracted many parents and students, who actively participated for nearly two hours—setting a new record for attendance in this series.

From the 2025 Fall application cycle, the UCAS personal statement has changed from the traditional open‑ended essay to a structured question‑and‑answer format. Applicants must answer the following three core questions within 4,000 characters (including spaces):

Mr Nicholson said that the reform had been the result of three years of careful deliberation. UCAS worked with British universities to pinpoint the essential elements they seek in personal statements. These three key questions were the final result.

"These three overarching questions should help students identify exactly what we want to see. Students will not need to waste valuable space on irrelevant details that don't affect whether they get an offer," he added.

4,000 characters might seem ample, but only through meticulous planning and multiple drafts will applicants be able to present themselves clearly and purposefully. In the webinar, Mr Nicholson offered detailed guidance on crafting an effective personal statement for the new format.

Students should not approach the British system as if they were applying to Harvard or Yale. 

For US universities, applicants write an essay about what a wonderful asset they would be to the university or to their cohort. However, UK universities tend to see students applying to fairly specialised degrees. Applicants have narrowed down their choice. They're not applying for a liberal arts degree. They're applying to do a chemistry degree or a history degree. There's a much greater focus traditionally on wanting information about what the student's been doing to make them suitable for the course they are applying for.

"Super-curricular" is not a word that you'll find in any dictionary. It's a word that has evolved over the years. It emphasises activity beyond what we might have reasonably expected applicants to have studied in school for the subject that they are studying. Super-curricular activities should not to be confused with "extracurricular" activities, which would broaden you as a person—activities that show the development of hobbies or interests.

But there can be an overlap. For example, for students who are really interested in developing their programming skills, this might become a hobby for them. It might be extracurricular. It's not something that they're being taught in their school. It's something they're doing in their own time. They're reading extensively. They're engaging with online tutorials. But they are doing this for the purpose of applying to a computer science degree or a software engineering degree. Such activities would be seen as super-curricular.

So, there is no hard or fast line as to what is super-curricular or extracurricular. It's more about how a student engages with answering the questions about how the activities will make them better prepared for university, either in their subject discipline or their readiness to make the transition to university.

Writing that you are passionate about studying English literature would tell us nothing. What you are passionate about in the English literature might not even be taught in the course that you are applying for. What we're interested in is—and what would enable you to come across as being passionate—would be, for example, if you told us why you have an extensive collection of 18th century novels, and what it was about 18th century English novels that really fired you up and excited you. And I think that's where the passion is really demonstrated. It's what you do rather than just telling us that you are passionate.

For parents, teachers, and advisers: I think that one thing that you will often be able to do for applicants is to give perspectives. Students get very narrowly focused on trying to keep the answers down to the 4,000 characters. And occasionally something important might get missed because students did not think about it when they were doing their initial drafting. I think external eyes on a personal statement can be really helpful—this is actually just doing a sense check. It might be absolutely crucial about what the student has to offer, or what they've been doing. It can be quite easy to forget things that you did 12 months ago, and that might be a really relevant and important activity for your university application.