biochemistry personal statement ucas

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Biochemistry Personal Statement Guide

Your personal statement is an important part of your application to university. It is your first chance to make a lasting impression on the admission tutors in the Biochemistry department.

Your statement provides an insight into your motivations for wanting to study Biochemistry, showcases your potential contributions to the cohort and demonstrates your determination and skills that will aid your success on the course.

Personal statement writing can appear to be a daunting process for many Biochemistry applicants, especially when trying to strike a balance between discussing relevant accomplishments and academic interests, whilst condensing it all into one A4 page.

To help you get on the right track, our Personal Statement Guide covers everything you will need to know to write an amazing Biochemistry personal statement:

Why are Personal Statements Important?
What Should I Include in a Biochemistry Personal Statement?
What Should I Avoid in a Biochemistry Personal Statement?

Advice on How to Start a Biochemistry Personal Statement

Advice on how to finish a biochemistry personal statement .

What Should I Avoid in a Biochemistry Personal Statement ?

It is important at all costs to avoid cliches and waffle, since it wastes your already limited character count and does not impress universities. Including statements such as "I love peptide bonds" or "recent developments in biochemistry are interesting" are vague and do not tell universities much about you.

In a similar vein, mentioning that you have "always known" that you wanted to study Biochemistry is also vague and adds no value to your personal statement.

For your Biochemistry personal statement, remember to be straight to the point, clear in your wording, and demonstrate your interests or points with evidence as opposed to just stating them.

Another key element to avoid in a Biochemistry personal statement is misspelling key terms or incorrectly identifying information about topics relating to Biochemistry. Life sciences such as Biochemistry require attention to detail and depth of scientific understanding; be sure to demonstrate this in using the accurate language in the correct places.

Starting a personal statement can be challenging, which is why it is important to remember its purpose: to showcase your interests and passion for the subject.

Before starting to write your Biochemistry Personal statement, consider making a mind map or list of the reasons you are interested in the subject. Reflect on what science experiments you have enjoyed at school, which books or science reports you have read, and interesting videos you watched.

Remember to focus on how each activity or resource has contributed to your interest in Biochemistry, and how you have considered the topics discussed at a high academic level. For instance, in studying organic compounds, what questions did it raise for you, and how have you explored the topic further? Your biochemistry personal statement should reflect the specific academic journey you have had with Biochemistry.

If you are struggling to get started, check out some of our recommendations for things to read, watch, and listen to. Hopefully something below might spark your interest!

Life Ascending by Nick Lane

Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley

The Seven Daughters of Ev e by Bryan Sykes

Why Chemical Reactions Happen by J. Keeler and P. Wothers

Documentaries:

Your Inner Fish (a PBS Series)

The Human Body

The Secret Life of Chaos

The Drive with Peter Attia, MD

Imperial College London Biochemistry Podcast

Journals/Publications:

Journal of Biological Chemistry

Nucleic Acids Research

Annual Review of Biochemistry

This is not an exhaustive list, and we strongly encourage you to research your areas of interest.

Concluding a Biochemistry Personal Statement can be just as challenging as writing the opening line. Our key piece of advice is to aim for simplicity . Your last sentence or two should encapsulate your academic passion for Biochemistry and your eagerness to delve deeper into the subject.

Remember that you have laid out your key interests and conveyed your motivation in the previous paragraphs of the personal statement, so you don't need to write everything again in your conclusion. Focus on leaving the admissions tutors with something to remember you by, ideally by highlighting the main theme of your statement.

What are some Tips for Writing a Strong Biochemistry Personal Statement?
How Long Should my Biochemistry Personal Statement Be?
What Kind of Extracurricular Activities Should I Include in my Biochemistry Personal Statement?
How Can I Tailor my Biochemistry Personal Statement to the Oxford/Cambridge Course?

The strongest Biochemistry Personal statements are the ones that demonstrate a clear interest in and understanding of what the course entails. Often, applicants include content that is more relevant to other life sciences, such as medicine. Although incorporating interests in general life sciences is acceptable in moderation, especially if you are applying for different courses at different universities, it is still important to demonstrate your passion for Biochemistry.

Successful applicants manage to explore their academic interests in depth while also covering what they have learnt from the content, why and how it interested them, and in doing so, demonstrate genuine academic interest and a passion for their subject.

We advise that you use as much of the UCAS limit provided as possible, to maximise the opportunity to showcase your potential to be a fantastic Biochemistry student to the universities. While 4000 characters or 47 lines (whichever is reached first) may appear plenty, exhibiting your enthusiasm and mentioning your key areas of interest will rapidly take up the available space!

There are a wide range of extracurricular activities that you can cover in your Biochemistry personal statement. These can be activities focused either on academic relevance or demonstrating skills and experiences relevant to studying Biochemistry at undergraduate study.

Examples might include laboratory research projects, contributions to science, robotics or maths competitions, or volunteering in hospitals, clinics or research labs. When talking about your extracurricular activities, it is important not just to list them but to explain and elaborate on what you gained from each activity.

Tailoring a personal statement to any university will be difficult, as it is best to avoid mentioning any names of universities or course details in your personal statement to avoid losing out on a place at other institutions.

Ultimately, the key part of tailoring your statement for an Oxbridge application lies in the amount of academic content you choose to incorporate. Oxbridge tutors are keen to hear as much as possible about your academic interests, therefore we recommend aiming to focus 80-90% of your statement on academic content, whilst the remaining 10-20% talks about your extracurricular activities.

Book your Biochemistry Personal Statement Package

You can contact our Oxbridge-graduate Consultants on +44 (0) 20 7499 2394 or email [email protected] to discuss our personal statement packages.

If you’d like to know more about Biochemistry, we have admissions test guidance and interview preparation readily available.

Our Oxbridge-graduate consultants are available between 9.00 am – 5.00 pm from Monday to Friday, with additional evening availability when requested.

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Biochemistry has the power to unlock key mysteries of the physical world with the potential to improve the quality of life, offering to explore the inter-relationship between Chemistry and Biology which I noticed in my first term of biology: as water was said to be a polar compound, I was able to prove this with my knowledge of Chemistry because the difference in electronegativity between the hydrogen and oxygen, causes polarity.

During the course, I set out to try to understand biology with Chemistry leading me to learn more on the correlation between these two subjects. This has helped me improve my biological insight, as I would always seek a way to prove biological findings with my chemical theory, therefore each learning step would help me advance in both the subjects I love.

Eager to comprehend complicated DNA diseases with Chemistry, I started reading 'Junk DNA' by Nessa Carey, which has given me greater knowledge on how slight mutations to DNA through repetition, can cause diseases such as myotonic dystrophy. It creates an unstable chain of repeated codons; my knowledge is limited to only understanding the simple aspects to this disease. However, I want to further understand the cycle at a microscopic level, where the DNA's mutation begins to affect the transcription and translation stages, to where the proteins formed that will cause muscle stiffness and cardiac defects.

The desire to learn more, pushed me to attend lectures at King's College London and UCL, in which I would note down all I could on Oncology, Micro-biology and also Psychology. These subjects drove me to research more about the Chemistry of these subjects and whether I could implement my knowledge of the atoms from the periodic table and their tendencies to make sense of the information on the causes of cancer and the miniscule chemical reactions which result in the defected phenotype. Reading 'Growth of the world's first biolimb,' in the New Scientist has intrigued me, as scientists have now created a rat's forearm within a petri dish. Reading about how scientists keep finding unique and new discoveries to this day, gives me hope that I too will use my research and revolutionise the world of Biochemistry.

After four years of rowing in lower-school and taking part in my school for the second XV in rugby, I appreciate how to balance my work with my free time and recognize the importance of having a sport to help sustain a healthy studious environment. In addition to the physical sports, I needed to vary my normal routine by creating a table-tennis club with my peers after school. This has given me a sense of both leadership and organisational skills whilst still enjoying the sport.

For the past year, I have been attending the Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability where I help the patients getting from different wards and it also gives me plenty of time to talk with them and doctors to get a greater understanding of the complicated diseases. When I return home, I would sometimes research the diseases of the patients I looked after. The most common disease was Parkinson's and through research, I have more knowledge on how it works to kill the dopamine-generating cells in the substantia nigra and it helps me understand the chain reactions which cause these neurological diseases. Through work at the hospital, I have acquired many skills which range from being organised, being able to collect the right drugs and at the correct volume needed for the patient. It has improved my technique in the labs within both Biology and Chemistry. It has made me understand how vital the accuracy of my research and experiments must be.

The switch from A levels to Biochemistry will include vast amounts of work and be very challenging, however I will use all the experience I have acquired with my capability to learn, the research collected and my fascination with the subject, to overcome the difficulties and meet my desires to succeed in university.

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