Personal statements may very well play to the strengths of the middle classes – but the continued debate about them just reinforces a skewed middle class view of what is really going on in university admissions.
The debate on reforming personal statements is, for the most part diversionary. Let’s focus on the real issues.
Universities themselves and the schools they support conspire to hide the real dynamics of HE admissions from the applicant and parent community. Universities are afraid to reveal that their processes have become progressively impersonal over time. At the start of my career (only 25 years ago though, I admit, a life sentence), I wrote individual letters and emails to enquirers. I met them regularly for individual admissions consultations.
