What can I do to make my personal statement stand out?

The key thing is to make your personal statement give an impression of who you are and what makes you tick- if you don't do this what you say will sound generic and ungenuine. Instead of saying I ha ve a 'gold Duke of Edinburgh award', talk about what you got from volunteering on it, and make it link to the the subject you are going to do. If you were going to study languages you could say 'Volunteering at a homework club for children who are struggling helped me to learn new ways of communicating and engaging with people, which is a skill that will be vital as I explore new cultures and learn to express myself better in a language that is not my native language'. See how much better the second sounds. Frankly, the person reading about Gold Duke of Edinburgh won't be impressed, because lots of people have done it, they'll be far, far more impressed by the connection you made between volunteering and communicating, and it will show that you've thought about your subject beyond your verb tables. It's also far more important to show that you are genuinely interested in your subject than that you are some kind of super sporty, musical individual (those all show qualities of resilience but you need to need to explain why those skills are relevant). Just talking about what you've done in class also probably is not the best approach. You really need to talk about something you've done in your own time, like for languages watching a French film yourself and why it interested you for example, or the fact that you listen to French hip hop, and what it tells you about France is far more important. Universities are not looking for lacrosse players and people who can put up a tent, they are looking for people who enjoy their subject so much that they can be self motivated to study it for three/four years straight and who think critically about it, rather than just going through the motions.