Students’ common misconceptions – and how to tackle them

As university counsellors, we become familiar with our students or their parents telling us things like:

• LSE will reject me if I apply to Oxford too.
• I will only get into medical school if I do lots of extracurricular activities.
• I should start my personal statement with a meaningful quotation, preferably by Einstein, Gandhi or Elon Musk.
• I don’t need to prepare a personal statement as I’m applying to Australian universities.
• My predicted grades/scores are high, so I’m bound to get into Cambridge/Harvard.

Some of these ideas are handed down from year group to year group, some originate from parents who “have a friend whose daughter got into Yale”, and many come from internet chat rooms or social media.

I’ve chosen the above examples because they all have roots in the truth, but what has been lost in translation is context – and it is that context that we have to be clear about when discussing applications with our students and parents.

Getting personal

It is true that many students who apply to Oxford get rejected by LSE (and vice versa). But since LSE gets significantly more applications than places available, it is also the case that many of those rejected did not apply to Oxford.

This is also true for other top-ranked universities, not just the pair that I have used as an example.

The first point to note is that for UK Ucas applications, universities only see the applications for their own courses, and so they do not know which other universities the candidate has chosen.

But there is a grain of truth in the statement because both universities (and again, this applies to many top-ranked institutions) provide very detailed and helpful information on what they recommend students address in their personal statements, and so a statement focused on university A might not tick all the boxes for universities B, C, D and E.

This doesn’t, of course, mean that students should only apply to one of these universities, but simply that care must be taken to write a personal statement that would be acceptable to all the universities on the application form.

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it

The personal statement is also fundamental in the second misconception above.

Yes, most successful medical-school applicants tend to be able to demonstrate a range of accomplishments and qualities alongside high academic potential, but it is not the number or type of activities they are involved in that matters – it is how these demonstrate relevant personal qualities such as communication skills, empathy, leadership and teamwork. So the personal statement needs to explain what the student has learned from these activities and why these skills or attributes are important.

A medical-school admissions tutor is unlikely to say, “This candidate seems entirely unsuited to becoming a doctor, but she does play the violin, so we will offer her a place.”

But explaining how being part of the school orchestra has developed teamwork and time-management skills and why these are important for potential medics can make a difference in an application.

He said, she said

Continuing on the theme of personal statements or application essays, I fight an annual battle with students who want to open their statements or essays with a quotation – I think it is often their parents who suggest this.

I am forever emphasising that it is a personal statement designed to convince an admissions department of a student’s suitability for a course or university. So it should be about them, rather than something Mother Teresa or Steve Jobs said.

Word limits are also important. In an application where there is a maximum amount of space available, every word is valuable, and so wasting it on quotations, superfluous adjectives or other non-essential content could make the difference between an offer or a rejection.

Interestingly (to me, at least), AI-generated personal statements or application essays often contain quotations or overused metaphors.

A lecturer at a London medical school who was also involved in selecting applicants told me that at the end of a day of teaching she regularly took home a pile of Ucas forms to assess. After enduring the rain and London buses, preparing supper for her children and dealing with a sick puppy, she would work her way through the personal statements. And so what influenced her decisions were clear and concise information on the applicants’ preparation and suitability for a medical course, rather than flowery language or second-hand thoughts designed to impress.

A land down under

Moving on to Australia – yes: most applications do not ask for a personal statement.

However, the new (March 2024) Genuine Student (GS) visa-application process requires students to explain why they have chosen the course and Australia as a study destination. So it is in effect a personal statement or essay comparable with the UK, US and other countries’ application requirements.

More information can be found here.

You’re the one that I want

Looking at the final point on my list, any university or course that has fewer places than applicants has to have selection criteria.

These would certainly include predicted or achieved grades/scores, but can also encompass personal statements, statements of purpose, essays, the subjects a student has studied, reasons for choosing the university or course, entrance tests, evidence of required personal qualities, interviews and many other factors.

A considerable amount of research into selection procedures is an absolute requirement before deciding on final choices, rather than simply looking at data on standard or indicative offers. 

Careless whispers

I’m sure that as counsellors you have your own experiences of guiding students through the minefields of rumours and misconceptions. It would be interesting to hear about your own lists of commonly encountered misinformation or misunderstandings.