How do you give yourself the best chance of getting into University?

A personal statement should be tailored to yourself. It should be enticing as a University admissions team is probably bored of reading the same old thing. You should sell yourself to the University and highlight interesting facts about yourself. For example, I had a friend applying for an Anthropology course and she drew upon her experiences as a model to link this to the study of human beings. You don't need to be too different, just think of something you enjoy doing and link it to how this will help in your university studies.