Full-time undergraduate applicants to English universities must apply via the University and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS). By analysing the UCAS statements of 15 undergraduate applicants this article attempts to develop a critical understanding of the role that the personal statement has in applicants' formation of themselves as subjects within higher education. The article explores how UCAS's advice around the personal statements draws on discourses that frame higher education as an investment in human capital. Through a textual analysis of applicants' statements, the article explores how applicants come to present themselves as competitive subjects within their personal statements, and suggests they adopt this position not because they are preparing themselves for the unlimited number of student places in higher education, but for the limited number of graduate jobs that await afterwards. The article suggests there is a 'cruel optimism' to this element of the application process, linked to structural inequalities.