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How to provide your personal statement

Think about the structure of your statement - it needs to look and sound good. A bad statement can say a lot, so make sure you check spelling and grammar as well.

You must write your personal statement in English unless you are using the Welsh version of Apply and you are applying only to training providers in Wales. You can enter up to 47 lines of text (including blank lines) with a maximum of 80 characters (including spaces) in each line. You do not have to use all the space provided. When you save text, the system will tell you how many lines are still available.

We recommend that you prepare your personal statement using a word-processing package and then copy and paste it into Apply. After pasting it in, click on 'Save' before making changes to it.

Whether you are typing your personal statement directly into the box, or amending a statement that you pasted in from a word-processing package, you should click on 'Save' regularly - the Apply system will time-out after 30 minutes of inactivity.

The character and line count in Apply may be different to a word-processing package, such as Microsoft Word - this is because formatting characters, such as paragraphs and tabs, are counted in Apply but may be ignored in Word. Please use the size as specified in Apply as the guide.

You will not be able to change the presentation of your personal statement by using features such as bold, italic or underlined text. If you use these types of formatting, they will be removed from the text when you paste it onto your application and save it. This will not disadvantage your application.

If you use European characters (such as á, ë, õ) in your personal statement, a message will appear on the screen in GTTR Apply to explain what you need to do.

When you are happy with the information you have entered, tick 'Mark section as Complete' and click on 'Save' at the bottom of the screen.

If you prepared your personal statement using a word-processing package and pasted it into Apply, you may find that any paragraph spacing that you included is not displayed. Don't worry - your chosen training providers will receive the original formatted version.

Providing additional information

If you want to send more information, perhaps a CV, to your chosen training providers, you should wait until you receive your Welcome letter. This letter will tell you which training provider is considering your application. You should send your additional information to this provider only. Whenever we tell you that we have sent your application to a different training provider, you should send your additional information to this provider. You should ensure that all documents you send to training providers contain both your full name and Personal ID. Please do not send any additional electronic or paper documents to the GTTR.