Writing your UCAS Personal Statement using ChatGPT

This article was originally published on 4th July 2023. It was re-written on 14th November to add further information and reflection.

I’m writing this during a week when hundreds, if not thousands, of schools world-wide will be holding university application weeks for their year 12 students. Right at the centre of these events will be kick-off sessions for writing your UCAS Personal Statements. I wonder how many of these sessions will focus around how to make best use of ChatGPT, and how many will just conveniently ignore it?

(If you are reading this, and have just had such a session, I’d love to know! Just email me at jonathan@betterunichoices.com).

I expect most sessions will probably ignore the potential for using ChatGPT. The issues are just too complicated, and let’s face it, using AI for this sort of task is just cheating right?

Well yes, the issues are complicated, but that is no reason to ignore it. And at a time when doubtless many of you are already using ChatGPT and other AI tools on a daily basis to help with your homework, I thought it just plain common sense to have a look at it!

So what are some of the difficult questions?

Is using ChatGPT cheating? Is it unethical to use it?

Will a ChatGPT written statement be picked up by UCAS plagiarism software?
Will an admissions tutor recognise ChatGPT’s writing style?
Will I miss out on the valuable opportunity to reflect on my choices if I simply get ChatGPT to write my statement?
Can I at least use ChatGPT to proof my statements, just like using a spell checker?
Can I use it as part of my research, just like using google?

I thought perhaps one way to investigate was simply to have a go at using it myself, and see what it came up with. And so, putting myself back into the shoes of my seventeen year old self, I had a go…

My first attempt

In my first attempt, I simply said to ChatGPT: “Write me a UCAS Personal Statement for law.”

So how was the answer?

Well, firstly it was short, at around 3,300 characters out of the allowed 4,000. As you would expect from ChatGPT, it was pretty well written, though not really in the style of a seventeen year old. It used expressions such as “fervent belief” and “deep routed desire”, which are used by precisely zero teenagers that I know!

But the biggest problem was that with no real input from me, it simply made stuff up. It made up some relevant work experience, made up what I was studying at school, made up extra-curricular activities (mock trial competitions and voluntary work), made up areas of Law that I was particularly interested in, and yet gave no indication of where my interest in Law came from.

ChatGPT, you see, is essentially a pattern matching tool. It was able to produce a piece of writing that looks very much like a Personal Statement for Law. But the Personal Statement it wrote certainly wasn’t my statement! For me to use it would, in short, simply be a lie.

You’ll have worked out by now that simply asking Chat GPT to write a personal statement for you is not as clever as you might think. The moment you show it to your family, friends and teachers, everyone will know that you are lying. And even if you put it straight on UCAS there is a good possibility that two things will happen. Firstly, the UCAS plagiarism software will identify similarities with other personal statements, either because ChatGPT copied substantial elements of those available online, or because others used the same prompt as you and received very similar answers.

Secondly, an admissions selector will spot straight away that the writing simply doesn’t ring true, as the language of ChatGPT does not match the natural academic language of school leavers.

Additionally, if you have an interview based on the statement, you really are in trouble with the made up stuff, as you’ll have no way to talk your way through your own supposed experiences.

But ask yourself this: even if you don’t get caught, are you really OK with lying on your application by allowing ChatGPT to make things up for you? I mean, how would you feel if you found out the university you chose had been lying to you? I’m guessing the answer is that you’d be pretty annoyed! So actually, the ethics are pretty simple. It's a no go.

Surely ChatGPT can do better?

Well, let’s have a look at how to make some genuinely good use of AI.

ChatGPT, you see, is all about how you use the prompts. Given the main problem with my first attempt is that the statement it produced was in no way personal, I thought I’d give it a chance to redeem itself.

So I tried this: “In a moment I will be asking for your help in writing my UCAS Personal Statement. Can you ask me ten questions that will help you do this?”

Chat GPT actually then came up with an incredible list of ten questions and subquestions that I could answer. These were rather more detailed than the eight questions that I recommend in my Personal Statement book, but covered similar areas, such as “Why that subject?”, “What relevant skills have you demonstrated?”, “What extra-curricular activities have you done?” etc.

Initially, I thought that I’d just been schooled by ChatGPT on my supposed area of expertise. However, this list was pretty challenging and personally I’d still suggest my own eight questions are a better starting point.

Never-the-less, I ploughed on, and gave ChatGPT my best attempt at the sort of answers I would have given to those questions when I was seventeen. I spent around 15 minutes answering the questions. If you were doing it for real, I expect it would take considerably longer. I put in some of my extra-curricular activities, answered what had made me want to study law, what areas of law I was interested in exploring, and gave some of the skills I thought were relevant.

And then I asked it once again to write me a UCAS Personal Statement.

And wow! What a difference! It was still too short, using only 3,300 of the allowed characters, and it transferred across some of my wrong capitalisations. However, it was nicely written, reflecting back to me the relatively basic nature of the answers I had given, but saving me the endless task of coming up with all those sentences myself. In terms of structure, it was really pretty good.

The first paragraph had a decent ‘Trigger’ about why I wanted to be a lawyer (two reasons well connected by Chat GPT). The middle section had too many paragraphs (eight in all), which I would prefer to see slimmed to three or four, but otherwise it made the most of the fairly meagre information that I had given it. And the final ‘killer paragraph’ was an excellent conclusion, using the ‘future aspiration’ method for finishing a statement.

I’d say it was a pretty decent first attempt. It even gave me a reminder to modify it to make sure it reflected my own voice and experiences.

However… there was still a problem.

You see, all Chat GPT had done was to use the information I gave it. It hadn’t really critiqued my input. In fact, this statement, decently written as it was, would simply not have been good enough for the top Law schools. It lacked any depth in its examination of the areas of law I was claiming to be interested in. There was nothing in my extra-curriculars that gave a strong indication of motivation to study law, and the attempts at showing relevant skills were weak. Any admissions tutor would see that I simply had not done my research on what is in a Law degree, and would therefore question my commitment.

Getting ChatGPT to critique itself

So I gave it another chance, and asked it for feedback on how to improve its own work: “Can you look again at the Personal Statement above, and tell me whether you think it is strong enough for entry to a highly competitive degree course. Is there anything that is missing, or are there areas that I need to give more information about?”

And boom! Now we are talking! It gave me four areas where the Personal Statement was strong, and four areas for improvement, including: Further emphasising the transferable skills gained from my work experience, and relating them to the course. Finding more extra-curricular activities that show commitment to Law. Providing concrete examples of my personal attributes. Saying more about my academic interests and areas of study that I want to explore.

Now… while I could have made some changes and added some of these elements fairly easily, others would have been pretty difficult. For example, I simply didn’t have any more relevant work experience or extra-curriculars, and so couldn’t just magic these up. ChatGPT had pointed out weaknesses in my application that neither it, nor I could remedy. And actually, that’s perfectly fair; a good university counsellor would have done the same. They’d have told me that I didn’t really know enough about the course, as I didn’t have enough to say about the specific areas I wanted to study. In the real world, I’d have either had to do a whole lot more research and relevant super-curricular activities, or reconsider my choices!

What have we learned so far?

Well, if used badly, ChatGPT is capable of giving you a terrible statement that is completely unusable. However, if used thoughtfully and intelligently, then with your input, Chat GPT can actually help you reflect on your choices, your experiences and your suitability for the course.

Once you have done so it can certainly draft you a decent statement that is absolutely personal, reflecting you, your interests, your motivations and what you have done.

Not only that, if you ask it, it will happily review that very same work and give you tips on how to make it better. And if you are not really there in terms of having made a good, informed choice, it is capable of working that out for you too.

For me, this is a game changer! ChatGPT is capable of acting like a well informed university counsellor. If you are willing to ask.

The ethical dilema

The big question that remains for me is the ethical question. Is it OK to get ChatGPT to actually do your writing for you? The jury is still out on this in the wider world.

There are many who will say it is simply cheating to get any kind of AI to write for you. They’ll say that it's a matter of academic integrity, as you cannot really claim to be the author if you don’t actually do the writing.

I, however, am not so sure. I find it difficult to find a clear line between using ChatGPT and having a good consultant/parent helping you draft/re-draft and edit your work. I find it difficult to draw a clear line between ChatGPT and a spelling and grammar checker.

To my mind a personal statement is about showing your ability, motivation and your suitability for your chosen course, and so provided the experiences and reflections are all your own, surely it’s OK for ChatGPT to do the write-up.

However, mine is not the only view.

Official UCAS advice

The UCAS line on the use of ChatGPT is available here, and I think one of the key paragraphs is this:

“Generating (and then copying, pasting and submitting) all or a large part of your personal statement from an AI tool such as ChatGPT, and presenting it as your own words, could be considered cheating by universities and colleges and could affect your chances of an offer.”

They then go on to suggest a handful of ways that you can use ChatGPT:

Brainstorm ideas: Just like my ‘Ten Questions’ prompt, UCAS suggest this is a legitimate and helpful use of ChatGPT
Help with Structure: I didn’t specifically try this in my exercise, but there is no doubt that the structures ChatGPT came up with for my statement were decent.
Use it for checking readability: Rather like a spell checker or grammar checker, only more advanced.

Do universities check for use of ChatGPT?

I’m afraid that publicly, the jury is still out on that too. There are websites such as GPT Zero which seem to be pretty adept at recognising text produced by ChatGPT.

I have heard stories that some admissions tutors make use of this, but I have been unable to find definitive statements from universities about how they do this.

What I can refer you to is some clear rules and regulations that a number of universities have about academic misconduct. Just one example is the University of Cambridge, where they make it quite clear that content produced by AI is not considered to be the student’s own work, and therefore submitting it as such would be considered academic misconduct.

I think it is safe to say that they would take a similar view of a Personal Statement written by ChatGPT and could well simply reject you for it.

In summary, what can you take from this?

Firstly, if you are going to use ChatGPT to help you, then make sure you tell it in advance what you want it to do, and ask it what it needs from you in order to do it well. Then give it as much information as possible that is personal to you, your motivation and your experience. The more information and reflection you give it, the better the response will be.

Getting ChatGPT to ask you questions is a great way to brainstorm ideas.

And asking it to help with a structure based on your ideas is also super-helpful.

From that point on, you have two options:

Get it to do the heavy lifting by writing the first draft. Only do this if you feel it is genuinely necessary to move forward, AND if you are willing to take the risk that it could be read by someone who can recognise ChatGPT content, and who thinks it is cheating!
Alternatively, write your own first draft, based on the answers to the questions or any other brainstorming that you do, and the structure ChatGPT suggests.

After that, ask ChatGPT for feedback on the statement, and ask it for help on how to improve it. This really is no different from asking a friend or adviser.

You can ask this in stages, starting by asking it to point out errors, and then asking it more generally if it reads well, and finally whether it is strong enough, and how it could be improved.

If you do this, there is a decent chance that with ChatGPT’s help, you can reflect on your choices, skills and experiences, and create a great draft statement.

The one thing, however, that ChatGPT can never truly replace, is your family, friends and teachers. Your family and friends will know you better than ChatGPT ever could, and can help you by suggesting things you’ve done that you’ve missed. Your teachers will have seen strengths in you that you are unaware of, and will remember some of the great work you did that you’ve already forgotten about.

For that personal feedback, from those who know you well, ChatGPT simply cannot compete!