The Ultimate University Survival Guide

4 Referencing texts: Your personal statement should absolutely, definitely reference several texts outside of the standard curriculum, which prove that you are an active student. What I mean by the word active is that you are engaged, astute and interested in that area of study: if you’re hungry to learn more, then you’re the perfect university candidate, right? Making reference to texts you have explored in your own time is absolutely vital – it’s called a personal statement because it’s about your personal passion for the subject. Also, texts don’t have to be books; they can be podcasts, TED talks, films, articles, blog posts or even songs. The more unique, the better. Also, don’t assume that academics are snobby about what texts you reference – as long as they’re utilised in the correct context, and balanced by scholarly material, they’re valid and relevant. Be careful not to simply reel off texts, though. You’re better off writing about a limited number of texts than sending off a shopping list disguised as a bibliography. Maybe focus on one or two primary texts, then refer to critical material surrounding it, and discuss your opinions and thoughts, as well as what you’d be interested to investigate further if given the opportunity. Hey – that opportunity could be going to the university! What a startling coincidence! Cut to the admissions officer rubbing their hands together in glee.

5 Actually read the texts you reference: You’d have thought this would be obvious, right? Still, it definitely needs saying. Don’t mention anything you haven’t genuinely listened to, watched or read, because you’ll only make yourself look more foolish than if you’d referenced nothing at all. It’ll shine like a strobe light in a nightclub if you haven’t actually done the work you’re claiming. Allow me to share a personal, rather traumatic, anecdote that should hammer this into your head. So, in my personal statement, I mentioned Nabokov’s novel Lolita. When I had an interview at Oxford University, the professor conducting the interview said to me that he had noticed this in my personal statement, since Lolita was a novel he had dedicated his life’s research to, and Nabokov was an author he specialised in and lectured on as a scholar. He proceeded to open the (conveniently placed) drawer of his desk and pull out his very own copy, which had – I am absolutely certain – been placed there specifically in anticipation of my interview for dramatic effect. He looked me in the eye and, with a smirk, asked ‘How does it begin?’ My heart racing like Mo Farah and my mind frantically rummaging through the filing cabinets of memories in my brain, I desperately tried to recall the opening scene of a novel I’d read years ago by the pool on holiday in Majorca. Thankfully, I had read the novel and did manage to recall the first scene, but if I had only read a SparkNotes overview, I would’ve been well and truly screwed. That was nearly a horror story the Saw franchise would’ve been proud of and was only narrowly averted. YOU HAVE TO READ THE BOOKS YOU REFERENCE.

6 This is a No-B.S. zone: Avoid exaggeration and hyperbole, and be realistic. So many people naturally feel the urge to open their personal statements by suggesting that the genesis of their interest in Biology was the moment they were plucked from the womb, screaming and crying only because they were so ecstatic to be entering a world where they would eventually have the opportunity to study this subject at university. By saying, ‘I’ve always had an interest in biology,’ you’re not really saying anything at all. It’s also just not true. I’m sure you didn’t give a toss about the structure of a leaf or the process of osmosis when you were three years old and needed assistance zipping up your own raincoat. Instead of declaring that you’ve always possessed a passion for fashion Biology, talk about why you’re fascinated by it now.

7 Link your degree to the other subjects you studied: Just because you aren’t taking your other A Level subjects further, it doesn’t mean the insight they gave you won’t be valuable to your degree. So, if you’re applying to a Geography degree but also took Politics at A Level, you could make your personal statement more interesting by focusing on a geopolitical discussion – a perfect fusion of the two. If you also took psychology, you could go on to discuss this in relation to the other two subjects as well, but always link back to the course you’re actually applying to study as the main emphasis. You don’t have to do this, but it might be a good starting point when you embark on the odyssey that is writing a personal statement.

8 How do you begin a personal statement? Unfortunately, I don’t have a straightforward answer to this question, because the personal statement is unique to every single person. The opening line should definitely be eye-catching, to make the admissions officer – who, by the way, is probably on personal statement 104 of the day – immediately want you. Some people opt for a quote, while others pose a question, but the important thing is to then expand on this and keep drawing back to it. Don’t just chuck it in for the sake of it, because it’ll be startlingly obvious if that’s what you’ve done.

9 Don’t expect it to be perfect straight away. Just like any essay, the personal statement takes time. Except, in this case, you’ve never written a personal statement before, or been able to practise and hone your craft. Draft and re-draft … then re-draft again. Get feedback from subject-specific teachers. Ask your parents to read it to make sure it’s coherent and makes sense on a fundamental level. Get your peers to read it, too. And, most importantly, don’t be too protective over it. The first draft won’t be perfect, and all the feedback you receive will be completely invaluable. Don’t be offended if someone says they don’t understand, or if a teacher tells you that what you’re saying isn’t accurate – take it on the chin and see how you can improve what you’ve written. It’ll come together eventually, but don’t expect to master it straight away.

The extras

Not sure how to prove that you’re the perfect candidate? I get it; it’s difficult to prove your interest in a subject, and most of us are unlikely to have dedicated much time to it outside of school, because we’re too busy focusing on – well – school. Here are some ideas on how to improve your application right now:

 Look for articles online (for example on JSTOR and Google Scholar). To go deeper, or find something more appropriate, check the bibliography of an article as these can be gold mines for more refined essays that you didn’t spot on first inspection.

 Start a blog/podcast that discusses the subject. You don’t have to share this with anyone you know and can keep it totally anonymous. It just proves you have an organic interest in the subject, which you want to discuss and share. The easiest way to start a blog is by using WordPress.com.

 Search for some TED talks on the subject area. They’re short and concise but also investigate a complex idea in some depth. They’re also usually pretty easy to understand so (hopefully) won’t take too much deciphering!

 Ask your teachers for recommendations. They’ll be able to guide you towards something they know you’ll find interesting that isn’t on the curriculum – remember, they’ve probably got a degree in the subject themselves!

 Prove your interest in the subject by doing an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification)! Some universities will lower your grade entry requirements if you do well in your EPQ, but others will just take it as confirmation that you are an active researcher of the subject you have chosen. This could also be a great opportunity to combine your interest in your different A Level subjects, by writing an essay that incorporates all of them to some degree.

* This might be the first (and last) time someone brings up a Zac Efron film in a guide to personal statements, but I’m delighted that my book will have this accolade. Zac and I actually share a birthday – sadly the only thing we have in common …

10 tips to ace your A Levels

Before you go to university, you’ve got to earn your place there, and it’ll probably be one of the most intense periods of study you’ll ever have to endure. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light looks like a three-month summer and a whole lot of celebrating, so hang on in there. With a bit of determination and dedication, there’s nothing stopping you from achieving those grades, so put in the work today and you’ll be thanking yourself when you arrive at your dream uni in Freshers’ Week. Here are 10 things you can start doing right now to boost your grades …

1 Plan Your Revision: I used to make a timetable at the start of each day, which broke the time down into 15-minute slots. That way, I knew exactly what I needed to be doing and when – the more specific, the better. Examples would be spending 45 minutes making flash cards about DNA for Biology, then an hour making mind maps about each character in a book you’re studying for English, then 15 minutes spent going back over the flash cards you made on DNA. That’s two hours of focused work with specific goals that you can tick off. My plans always had columns for the time and the activity, and then a tick box. Ticking things off makes me feel so much more productive somewhere in my brain and motivates me to keep working and ticking away like a clock. Make sure you also tick off things like breaks, having breakfast or even just dragging yourself out of bed, because those are vital as well. Being productive doesn’t always mean working yourself to exhaustion – it means working yourself efficiently and effectively. With this in mind, also be realistic. For instance, if you get home from school at 4 p.m., you’re not very likely to want to start studying straight away, so give yourself some time to just chill.

2 Plan Your Answers: For written answers, which occur in pretty much every subject in some capacity (including more sciencey subjects), planning your essay or answer in advance will make it so much more concise, accurate and coherent. Before exam season rears its ugly head, make essay plans or check past papers to see what wording is always referenced, and mirror it in your answers. Mark schemes for subjects like Biology, Chemistry and Physics are usually looking for you to reference very specific words and specialist vocabulary, so practise using them and plan your potential answers. For humanities subjects, making practice essay plans for potential questions makes you realise where the gaps in your knowledge are, and can help perfect the structure of your arguments. Also, write out a basic version of the plan on your exam paper and keep referring back to it as you answer the question. I remember my history teacher (who was an exam marker) saying that whenever she opened the exam paper of a random candidate and saw a plan, it made her instantly think that person was organised, well prepared and focused. So psychologically she was already expecting the answer to be good. This could really work in your favour and wow the examiner straight off the bat. Honestly, just trick them into thinking you’re clever.

3 Set Short-term Goals: Having the goal of ‘revise for this exam’ is great, but you can break that down much, much further. Grab an A4 sheet of paper and bullet point a list of all the things you want to do before that exam to revise for it, being as specific as possible (make mind maps on the process of mitosis; create flash cards to make sure I remember the names of each step; draw a big diagram so I can visually remember it, etc.). Instead of saying ‘make notes from the textbook’, divide up the book into blocks of 10 pages, so every time you make notes on a set of 10 pages you feel like you’ve actually achieved something. It’s like building a skyscraper and feeling a sense of accomplishment for each new floor that is built, rather than only celebrating once it’s 500 metres tall. I also find it useful to focus on individual topics for a week at a time, so that I really focus on them, instead of having my finger in more pies than Paul Hollywood.

4 Block Your Distractions: You’re not a revision robot who can just turn on ‘focus mode’ like Buzz Lightyear’s Spanish setting – you’re a human being. So, realistically, distractions will arise. However, there are ways of preventing this. There’s a phone app called Forest, which grows a tree for the amount of time you’re aiming to study for, and if you use your phone during that time then it kills off the tree. This sounds silly, but, trust me, it’s tree-mendous. Alternatively, there’s an application you can download to your computer called Self Control, which blacklists websites for a set time period – meaning you won’t even be able to load up social-media sites. If you can’t stop playing your Xbox, give your parents the remote and tell them you’re going to revise – because the pain of having to admit that you’ve been defeated by temptation and want the controller back will be far worse than just doing the revision. I definitely believe in the maxim ‘Out of sight, out of mind’, so if my phone is physically far away from me (my most common hiding spot is inside a box of cereal) then the effort of going all the way downstairs to retrieve it just to check my Instagram feed (which always turns into at least half an hour of mindless scrolling) just isn’t worth it.

5 Condense and Condense Again: Create your own revision resource by condensing down all your research and notes into your own folders or notepads, and then condense that down again into just the vital information you need to memorise. One thing I did that really helped me out was to make an ‘information bank’ – and this can be used for most subjects. This breaks down a whole textbook into just the vital bits you need to lodge into your brain and makes it all feel a lot more manageable. This technique is particularly good for exams that require you to learn quotes or case studies, such as Law, Politics, Psychology or English. I’d create a table on a Word document, which has different columns with the headings: Source/Person, Quote/Idea, Theme and Analysis. Always make sure you add in that section at the end for analysis, so you’re constantly encouraging yourself to think critically, as this is what will boost you into the top tier of grades. Then, turn these crucial bits of info into flash cards, index cards and mind maps to help you remember them.

6 Efficient Revision Is More Important than Time Spent Revising: Why spend two hours reading from a textbook, when you could spend 30 minutes making, and then revising from, flash cards? The latter will be so much more productive and time efficient, and your brain will be much more active – and therefore more likely to absorb the information rather than merely skimming over a black hole of words. One way to use flash cards effectively is to sort them out into different piles, depending on how well you know them. Initially all of them start in a ‘revise every day’ pile. If there are flash cards that you’re consistently answering correctly, they move up into a ‘revise every other day’ pile. If you’re getting them right every other day, they move up into ‘revise once a week’, and then eventually ‘revise the night before the exam’. If you get a flash card wrong – even once – move it all the way back to the beginning, so you’re revising it every day again. This means you’re spending more time focusing on the things that aren’t quite sticking, rather than wasting time going over flash cards you know like the back of your hand. Work smarter, not harder.

7 Not Everything Has to Be Neat: As a self-confessed ‘neat freak’, I know full well how many of us like to have our revision notes looking tidy. However, let that go for a minute, because it could be tripping you up and causing you to land with your face in the dirt. And that dirt looks very much like ‘not knowing the answers in the exam’. Get a blank scrap of paper, make a mind map, pick a subject, and then just scrawl everything you know about that topic. Draw arrows, make connections, make it scruffy, and give yourself time to just think. Eventually, everything will click into your brain. In your exam you need to be critical and analytical, identifying connections and contrasts between ideas – so practise it now! Once you’ve had this initial brain dump, make a neat version where you consolidate everything. Just call yourself Hannah Montana, because you’ve got the best of both worlds, my friend.

8 Find Your Study Space: I know for a fact that I can’t work in my room because I’m just not as efficient or productive there. Instead, I use local libraries because I like to work in silence to really focus, but a lot of my friends find the buzz of a café a healthy working environment, too. Working in a location where lots of other people are studying is incredibly conducive, because the general atmosphere of hard work all around you encourages you to do the same. Even the act of leaving the house and going somewhere to revise gives you purpose, and once you’ve put in that amount of effort, you might as well put in the work to make it worthwhile.

9 Teach Yourself as You Go: The main difference between my first and second year of sixth form – aside from slightly more facial hair and a lot less sleep – was that I did a lot more independent learning and research in my second year. Your school will probably have ample resources both in their library and online, but I’d particularly recommend the ‘review’ journals (Geography Review, Physics Review, Politics Review, etc.), which are specifically targeted at an A Level-student audience. Check out local libraries, or request that your school subscribes to these magazines, as they’ll be super useful. Also, when you do this work, make notes on it for future reference. Even though you think you will, you won’t remember everything you read, so make bullet-pointed lists to refer back to. Not only will this improve your time in lessons because you’ll have interesting thoughts or opinions to share, but it’ll also be incredibly helpful and time efficient when exam season comes over the hill.

10 Look After Yourself: You need to make sure that you’re doing okay before you even think about pushing yourself to work for another hour. Your life doesn’t have to stop just because of exam season, so take time out for yourself and continue doing the things you love. Running, climbing or swimming are great because time spent doing those activities is time where your brain is completely focused on something outside of revision. Take days off, and don’t push yourself to the point of burnout – because that’s actually less productive, even if you are spending hours slaving over your laptop. Work hard, yes, but look after yourself, too. You’ve got this and it’ll all be over soon, I promise. Good luck!

Preparing for results day

Judgment Day is here, and it’s time to face the music. Lots of people will tell you to bubble-wrap yourself in positive energy and soak yourself in good vibes because ‘don’t worry, there’s nothing you can do about it now’ – like, yes, Karen, I know that … and the fact that I can’t do anything about it is what’s freaking me out.

If you, like me, find results day very daunting and intimidating, then you’ve probably got your excuses in early: I accidentally wrote my paper in blue ink so they refused to mark it; oops, I wrote someone else’s name and candidate number; maybe someone copied my correct answers and we both got disqualified …? Either that, or you’re going to attempt to convince your parents that D stands for ‘Definitely have a bright future ahead of you’, F stands for ‘Future looks bright’ and U stands for ‘University is your next step’.

So here, I want to give you some more practical tips about preparing for results day, and to have a proper, honest chat about it.

First and foremost, it’s important to remember that no matter what happens or what numbers are printed on that sheet of A4 paper, you have achieved something. You have survived a really difficult, mentally taxing year and made it to this point. You have achieved your grades and the qualifications they provide you with. Don’t you dare forget that.

The thing about results day is that it’s really just results morning – or results five minutes if all goes to plan. However, there’s a lot of horrible anticipation in the build-up, so I think it’s important to make sure you have a good plan for the day. Organise to meet with friends in the evening or do something with your family, so you have plans you can actually look forward to. Also, don’t cut out your normal habits just because results day is happening – give yourself a sense of normality by keeping your routine as ordinary as you can. Have the same breakfast you’d normally eat, go to bed at your usual time the night before. Give yourself some sense of normality among the chaos.

Think about what grades you will be satisfied with, because ultimately this day is about you and no one else. Social media will always be saturated with success stories, and there’s always that one pair of gleaming twins on BBC Breakfast who have somehow done seven A Levels each and got A*s in all of them. Make sure you know what you’re hoping for, and what you’ll be pleased with before celebratory Instagram posts start to litter your timeline. It’s not about what your best friend got, or what your older siblings got, or what your mum’s cousin’s hamster’s previous owner’s son-in-law got. It’s about you.

Also, be mindful. What you might consider a ‘fail’ or a bad mark could be someone else’s dream grade. Everyone is on their own path and striving for their own goals, so there’s no need for comparison. Focus on yourself, and let others do the same.

One thing I would recommend is conjuring up a contingency plan. I know it sounds a bit like tempting fate, but I’d really recommend making an account on the UCAS Clearing page, downloading the Clearing app and writing down the phone numbers for your prospective university’s admissions office. You don’t want to be frantically googling alternatives at 9.05 a.m. after the results come out, so make sure you know who you need to contact if anything goes slightly awry.

Equally, make sure you know what your alternatives are. Could you retake your exams and defer your application? Would you be interested in taking a gap year and reapplying next year once you know what grades you’re working with? Would your skills be best utilised in a more practical environment? Now is the time to think about it!

Maybe you’ll find that you actually did really well in a subject you weren’t expecting. Know that results day isn’t too late to have a change of heart and change universities or even courses. One of my friends decided to change what degree she was going to study, from economics to fashion, and has been thriving on her course ever since. You’ve got to make sure you’re doing what makes you happy and utilising your unique skillset.

When it comes to opening the envelope of terror, make sure you open it in an environment you feel comfortable in, among people you feel comfortable with. Have a good support system around you, where there’s no sense of competition, guilt or unwarranted stress.

Above all, good luck! I hope results day goes exactly the way you’re hoping it will, and if not, then I promise everything will fall into place for you eventually. I’ve got everything crossed for you.

Dealing with rejection (spoiler alert: it’s going to be okay)

One of life’s cruellest lessons is that sometimes not everything works out in the picture-perfect way you planned in your head. Not everyone will recognise the potential you know you have, the commitment and dedication you know you can provide, or the gift you know you possess. And that’s tough, even heartbreaking, so let’s not pretend for another second that it isn’t.

When I was rejected by my dream university, I collapsed into myself, like a wilting flower or an expectant hand recoiling after someone aired my high-five. I felt like a failure, like I’d let everyone around me down, that I’d embarrassed myself for even trying. That I deserved rejection, or that karma was finally coming to bite me in the arse for not forwarding on that chainmail in 2011. I had it coming, right? I needed a reason, or an excuse, and couldn’t find one that existed outside of the four walls of my own capabilities. So I just deflated like a balloon and wallowed in a swamp of self-pity and introspection, feeling stupid, hopeless and just a bit silly, really. But then I decided that I had to be okay. Because there was no other option.