UCAS Personal Statement - over the limit!

[Mr-Trainor]

Ok so basically, my college UCAS deadline is tomorrow and my personal statement is complete. However, it was 4300 characters so I shortened it down by taking out the paragraph on my EPQ so that it was fine. But then.. I pasted it in to UCAS, and realised that the lines on there are shorter than the word document I was writing on, so now I'm 4 lines above limit and I don't really know what to do :S.

Of course, I could just keep shortening it, but I don't really want to take anything out. So I was wondering.. do you really need to have line breaks between paragraphs? The only problem is that you can't indent, so it wouldn't look great and does kind of look like a huge block of text! What did you do in the case of going over limit, or what do you suggest I do?

[lawrawrrr]

I'm pretty sure I didn't bother with line breaks... as long as it's clear, like if the sentences go:


blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

rather than

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah bla
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

as it's a bit less clear there :/

I only had 3 paragraphs - can you combine some of them?

[Mr-Trainor]

I'm pretty sure I didn't bother with line breaks... as long as it's clear, like if the sentences go:


blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

rather than

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah bla
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

as it's a bit less clear there :/

I only had 3 paragraphs - can you combine some of them?
Yeah I probably could combine some, I have 7/8 paragraphs and most of them are just 3/4 lines. I'll probably just get rid of the line breaks though, it might give me enough extra room to add back in the paragraph I took out :P.

[lawrawrrr]

Yeah I probably could combine some, I have 7/8 paragraphs and most of them are just 3/4 lines. I'll probably just get rid of the line breaks though, it might give me enough extra room to add back in the paragraph I took out :P.

Definitely, you don't need that many paragraphs, especially short ones!! But yeah a lot of admissions officers don't mind big blocks of text - if youi want to separate a bit you could always do 2 spaces before each paragraph starts?

[Mr-Trainor]

Definitely, you don't need that many paragraphs, especially short ones!! But yeah a lot of admissions officers don't mind big blocks of text - if youi want to separate a bit you could always do 2 spaces before each paragraph starts?
Yeah the 2 spaces is what I tried first, but it just automatically removes them when you preview it :P.

[Kardan]

Pretty sure mine was just a wall of text.

[-:Undertaker:-]

I don't recall having line breaks either.

[Shar]

Mine was just a wall of text too but I made it obvious as to where the new paragraphs were.

[Chippiewill]

An admissions tutor is going to be aware that you're in a tough spot when it comes to space so they'll make allowances for the block of text. Don't fret about it.

[Mr-Trainor]

Ok, thanks everyone :).