Please outline your most significant achievement to date and how this was achieved? The example you choose can be from within or outside your academic career. (250 words)

My most significant achievement is achieving the Mathematics progress award in senior school. Mathematics was an area I considerably struggled with at school to the point where teachers thought entering me for the higher tier paper was a risk at me not gaining a GCSE in Mathematics.

I was determined to do better so I started devoting an hour after school every day for the entirety of my GCSE years. I was working through topics of weaknesses by attempting past paper questions as well as problem-solving questions to improve the application of understanding within topics. As I started to do this, I was witnessing an improvement in both confidence and grades. I was fortunate to have teachers who appreciated my hard work and that is when they suggested entering me for the higher tier examinations, making me the only student in my cohort who was moved from foundation to higher tier examinations. 

With the additional content and workload of the higher tier, I continued to apply the same method, staying back after school, working and self-teaching myself on particular topics. Subsequently, I very soon saw my grades reach from 4's to 6's in the mock 3 months prior to my exam.

In my final examination, I achieved a 7, which led me to achieve the Mathematics progress award. I also continued pursuing and challenging myself in the subject by undertaking the nationwide Senior Mathematics challenge during lower sixth, achieving a bronze certificate in the nationwide Mathematics challenge.  

Our thoughts

Positives

• The applicant immediately answers the question in paragraph 1, which is a great way to start.
• The applicant also adopts some of the wording from the question (“most significant achievement”), which demonstrates that they are answering the specific question set, rather than copy/pasting the answer from elsewhere.
• The answer explains why the achievement constituted a significant achievement, which is important in light of the question. For some people, a Maths award wouldn’t necessarily be a “significant” achievement, for example if they are naturally good at Maths, so this explanation is key.
• The applicant also explains how they secured the achievement, which is another key component of the question. 
• I like that the applicant clearly explains the positive outcome at the end, and gives an insight into how they continued to take on related challenges – this shows a strong desire to learn and improve. 

Potential points for improvement

• The answer could have been better written in places. For example, “…teachers thought entering me for the higher tier paper was a risk at me not gaining a GCSE in Mathematics” doesn’t read well. It could instead have read “…teachers were concerned that I would fail my GCSE if they let me take the higher tier paper”.
• Perhaps they could have given more examples of what they did to improve at Maths, for example regularly approaching teachers for advice and insights, reading specific books etc.