Studyzones personal statement review

[ijakings]

Ok, most people have probably sent off their personal statements by now, but if you’re still looking for a second opinion, you might find the Studyzones website useful. They have a work submission process which allows you to submit your personal statement and get it reviewed – similar to our own PSR on Studential.

The differences are, your statement is reviewed by an actual teacher or tutor and you’re given a grade afterwards. I submitted my own personal statement and – rather surprisingly was given a C grade and the comments posted below:

This has a promising start, and I particularly like the reference to the revision website, which is certainly unusual. The big drawback is that you are nothing like specific enough about topic areas and project work, and I have indicated in the draft where this should be added - in more than one place. I have also tidied up some of the wording, and hope you like the revised version.

The tutor is right, my personal statement wasn’t all that specific, but I would have thought I could have done better than a C!

Just a warning: for anyone who’s considering posting their personal statement on studyzones – the work does become public after you’ve uploaded it so you may not want to try it until you’ve sent off your Ucas form.

[StudyZones]

Hi Tom,

Personal Statements are made available after 1 year on from the upload. 2 years for coursework. 3 months for homework.

We are working on an option for those who never want to make their work public.

Thanks for the review.

Cheers,

Russell
StudyZones.com

[jay]

i used this for my personal statement and got some good advice

[Guest]

I just went through some of the personal statements in the "Sample Work" section of www.studyzones.com . Some of these statements have been uploaded in 2005. So, I guess the policy of publishing the statements after one year of uploading is not working

[ijakings]

You might want to be careful with any data you give to studyzones. It looks like a company but seems to have no obvious way of making money such as charging or sponsorship but seem to have a lot of teachers employed answering questions. I'd be interested to know more about thier business model.

[StudyZones.com]

Just a warning: for anyone who’s considering posting their personal statement on studyzones – the work does become public after you’ve uploaded it so you may not want to try it until you’ve sent off your Ucas form.

Ok here is what was happening. If a student clicked \"example work\" it will show all work older than two years. If you then clicked UCAS Personal Statements it would show all UCAS Personal Statements older than two years. However, if you then went on to click UCAS Personal Statements and a level, such as GCSE, if would show all UCAS Personal Statements. When I wrote the sql, it went along the lines of \"if coursework don't show for two years\". I have now fixed it to read \"if coursework or ucas personal statements don't show for two years\". This would have been discovered earlier but I only recently came back to this thread. I am sorry for this.

You might want to be careful with any data you give to studyzones. It looks like a company but seems to have no obvious way of making money such as charging or sponsorship but seem to have a lot of teachers employed answering questions. I'd be interested to know more about thier business model.

This is very upsetting. StudyZones has been marking homework and answering questions since 2001. We are a company, The Faculty Media Ltd. I started it after completing my A-levels and receive no moneys for my effort. If you would like to discuss our \"business model\" (it’s very simple: lose lots of money), please feel free to pm me for my phone number.

[ijakings]

Ok here is what was happening...

Well done for sorting this out - Studyzones is a great resource, though you don't seem particularly open about how you work, so it might be understandable that me and other students wonder how you work. A blog or forum might go some way into easing your users minds and encouraging a community.