UCL Psychology Application

Kai Xiang will be reading Psychology in University College London

According to QS World University Ranking by subject, Psychology in University College London is ranked No. 9.  Kai Xiang is a proud offer holder to read Psychology in UCL.  Read about his application journey…

The application process for psychology was not the toughest part. The most difficult part was to gain my father’s support. Due to his lack of understanding regarding the course, he preferred me to choose other popular courses which have better prospects such as engineering, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and the list goes on.

I had to read more about psychology in order to convince him. I borrowed and read psychology books from the library, subscribed to channels pertaining to psychology in Youtube and consulted counsellors in college who are psychology graduates. It was a great achievement for me to finally gain his support after lots of heart-to-heart discussions.

The application part was not troublesome.  UCAS enables us to apply to a few universities simultaneously. Basically I just had to key in my details and personal statement before submitting the application. After that, some universities sent me emails to sign up for student portals or request for extra information. No interview is required for most of the psychology courses in UK universities (except Oxbridge).

Psychology is closely related to biology, which is one of the subjects I took in A-Levels. In my personal statement, I included my appreciation of the subject and how it links to psychology. Being a broad subject, psychology also covers the brain and the way it works. I wrote about the learning tips that I applied from Tony Buzan’s books about mind maps, which are related to psychology too such as the process of formation and storage of memories.

Apart from that, the experience of joining a research workshop in my college offered me an opportunity to conduct a research related to music therapy. I also represented my college to attend an international student research conference. The experience and exposure that I gained when performing research was written in my personal statement too.  I also included my experience of volunteering in a hospital with a charity organisation with my insights and its impact on my decision to pursue psychology.

I am a National Scholarship holder awarded by the Malaysia’s Government. Mentioning about the scholarship was another plus point.  I did not join a lot of club activities in college, hence I wrote about the ECAs I joined in secondary school. I briefly wrote about my achievements and elaborated more about some life lessons and good values that I had learnt.

I requested for my friends and lecturers to proofread my personal statement and asked for their opinions. Then I made amendments and repeated the process before submitting it via UCAS.

Undoubtedly, applying for a course in university seems troublesome for some of us. However, it allows us to learn something new and explore more about ourselves.

Lim Kai Xiang holds a conditional offer to read Psychology in University College London under the JPA scholarship. He always uploads photos of his pets in Facebook, unless he is meditating in the Himalayas.