By Isabelle Zeidler
According to ChatGPT, a personal statement should focus on convincing the reader of your opinion, an argumentative piece of writing. While this is true - you’re trying to convince the reader that you’re passionate for your subject - for me, it seemed like a daunting task making maths “an argumentative piece of writing.” So here’s some tips tailored to maths, coming from my own experience and other Oxbridge students.
When writing your personal statement, you should keep the following questions in mind:
Why are you interested?
It is not enough to say you have a “passion” for maths (in fact, the word itself seems to be banned in the personal statement world). Always back everything up with examples!
I find that the easiest way to show interest in maths is finding a smaller, more niche topic (e.g. I chose tropical geometry) and reading into this (as the topic is more niche, you may need to work through advanced papers… don’t expect to understand much!) Just pick out sections you find interesting and look into them in more detail… and continue this spiral.
You could then summarise your findings into a paper (which is an experience in itself! Using LaTeX, organising it with definitions and Lemmas, proving any claim you make) to show your meticulous research.
Remember it doesn’t have to be a topic with long scary words or famously impossible, it is the detailed research which shows interest.
Do your studies relate?
By this I don’t mean your school work. Instead, show any extra competitions, extra essays, extra books that you’ve done, independently from school.
An easy trap here is just listing olympiad scores or name dropping a book. Instead, choose a handful and go in depth! What have you learnt from doing this extra activity? What was your favourite question in the olympiad? It’s better to create a chain of activities e.g. A number theory question in an olympiad resulted in you reading a book on the topic.
Any other academic successes that you can relate to maths studies also work here, such as applications to Physics or Computer Science.
I would also advise looking at the specification of a maths degree and picking out a topic you are particularly looking forward to. Mention this closer to the end of your personal statement, along with some evidence of any research so far into the topic or why you’re interested in this topic. You’ve spent the whole personal statement showing that you’d be good for the degree - time to show the degree would be good for you!
Why would you be a good fit?
You want to ensure they can hear a person behind the text here. Especially at Oxbridge, the professors want to be able to imagine working with you in tutorials (which is also what they mainly test in interviews). Have you worked with other people in maths before? Done mentoring?
You can also briefly mention any other hobbies such as team sports or musical instruments. Link these to skills you will use in the maths degree - diligence, problem solving, innovation, teamwork…
Finally, anyone will meet challenges during the maths degree. They need to know that you can conquer these. Throughout your personal statement, mention any challenges you met at the start of a project and how you overcame these. Just as an example - perhaps it was particularly hard to find research papers on the topic so you contacted an expert in the field?
But most importantly - don’t stress about the personal statement. Especially for oxbridge but also other unis, their main priorities are your predicted grades and admissions tests. Throughout my three interviews, I got asked one question about my personal statement (about how I chose my topic for a talk). They’re not trying to catch you out, just hear your unique perspective and share your interest.
I hope you enjoy preparing for your personal statement and wish you all the best for your applications!
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