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UCAS Personal Statements Are No Longer "Personal"
UCAS Personal Statements Are No Longer "Personal"
Richard Riddell, a former teacher, has begun writing personal statements for prospective undergraduates, as a spin-off from his existing tutoring business. Using his website www.examconfidence .co.uk to advertise this, he is fraudulently and unethically cheating people into university.
Graffham,
England,
United Kingdom
(prbd.net)
23/09/2011
A UCAS personal statement should be just that, personal. The Oxford Dictionary defines this as “belonging to a particular person rather than to anyone else”. This is clearly not the case if one opts to use the services of Richard Riddell, creator of Exam Confidence Ltd, where statements are commissioned by students, and then written and edited by his company to their specification. Teaching is an admirable profession, and evidently something that Mr Riddell is good at, as he runs a sizeable private tutoring business which coaches students in exam techniques (www.examconfidence.co.uk). Why then, has he decided to expand into the much less admirable, somewhat unscrupulous, domain of writing and altering personal statements?
As a teacher he must know the UCAS university application process better than most, and therefore presumably knows the punishment enforceable upon those who cheat. Aside from this, to be remunerated for editing a student’s work on their behalf is entirely immoral, unethical and devious to say the least. It calls into question the integrity of a man who spends his days cultivating the minds of children and young adults.
To make matters even more distasteful, his expansion has required additional helpers. And who might these “experienced reviewers” be? Merely some more teaching chums and apparent upstanding members of the educational fellowship - Chief and Principal Examiners no less.
The fabrication of a personal statement misrepresents the potential undergraduate, thereby leading universities to enrol an unknown quantity, and thereby possibly overlooking a more sincere candidate - just because they haven’t used Richard Riddell’s disgraceful UCAS Review Package. This, in times where university places can be equated to hens’ teeth, is completely unjust.
Repetition is no doubt rife amongst these falsified statements and I don’t dare to wonder the number of untruths they contain. Making oneself look their best in a personal statement is part and parcel of the application process, but it is highly unlikely that an editor is going to distinguish between exaggeration and fiction.
It is shameful that a teacher should profit from such illicit practices and is somewhat a reversal of the expression “poacher-turned-gamekeeper”. Richard Riddell and his unethical conduct besmirches the teaching name.
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It is shameful that a teacher should profit from such illicit practices and is somewhat a reversal of the expression “poacher-turned-gamekeeper”. Richard Riddell and his unethical conduct besmirches the teaching name.
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