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Shall I resit EPQ?

I did the EPQ in Year 12 and was awarded a B but only 2 marks off an A. My project is yet to be moderated but I doubt it’ll go up. My project title was ‘To what extent is human impact responsible for the demise of the Great Barrier Reef in the last 20 years’. This is no where near linked to my degree choice (English Literature and Spanish).

Should I do it again and this time base it on my degree choice so I can actually use it resourcefully in my personal statement and to achieve a higher grade. I know exactly where I fell and that’s in the essay which was too scientific and thus not the debate they were looking for. I don’t know why I chose to focus on science because if I’m being honest I really dislike STEM. The Great Barrier Reef has just always been a keen interest of mine.
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Avatar for ilycreer
ilycreer
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To be honest most universities ask for a B minimum in EPQ so you would still be fine if you wanted to use EPQ to lower your entry grades. It would probably be good if it did link with your degree to show your interest I'd imagine but just doing the EPQ probably still shows some valuable skills.
If you were to retake it then maybe come up with possible titles and see if you can get multiple different views to ensure the 'debate'?
I'm not an expert in EPQ or anything but this is just what I think personally. I did EPQ this year and got an A* (somehow). I would advise just to look at the markscheme. :smile:
Original post by Josh5718
I did the EPQ in Year 12 and was awarded a B but only 2 marks off an A. My project is yet to be moderated but I doubt it’ll go up. My project title was ‘To what extent is human impact responsible for the demise of the Great Barrier Reef in the last 20 years’. This is no where near linked to my degree choice (English Literature and Spanish).

Should I do it again and this time base it on my degree choice so I can actually use it resourcefully in my personal statement and to achieve a higher grade. I know exactly where I fell and that’s in the essay which was too scientific and thus not the debate they were looking for. I don’t know why I chose to focus on science because if I’m being honest I really dislike STEM. The Great Barrier Reef has just always been a keen interest of mine.
@Josh5718 Hi there! I totally understand your situation! I did my EPQ this year and my focus was antibiotic resistance. When I produced my first draft my supervisor and my school's general EPQ co-ordinator warned me that it was too detailed and too descriptive. Given the Assessment Objective criteria, I would not have been able to score higher than AO3 at best. I thought of postponing it until next since it was a lot of work but my all teachers advised against it because next year I will be in the second and final year of A-Levels. This means that an EPQ would be extra pressure in addition to revision, uni applications and of course the A-Level Exams.

Now, applying this to your situation, I assume next year you will be Year 13. I know that it can be annoying to be close to the boundary of the A but wait until the moderation is completed - you never know, it COULD go up! I would generally advise against taking an EPQ during Year 13 BUT given that you already have substantial experience with the EPQ and its general criteria I would say that if you wanna give another shot then go for it! But, before doing so, please consider the following:

1. Will you be able to cope with all the pressure that the second year of A-Levels presents. You have a LOT of things to do next year you need to consider whether your time would be better spent on revision, drafting your personal statement, attending lectures/ extra reading to help you stand out and preparing for any admission's test. Would a better grade on your EPQ really substantially improve your chances of making a competitive application when there are more effective things you could do?

2. Are you going to redo your EPQ on the same topic (I am not sure that doing an EPQ with the same essay title and content is allowed?). If you are gonna choose a new topic then this will require a lot more work as you have to start from the beginning, do all your research, literature and activity log, all of which will eat up a significant amount of your time. If you are gonna do a new EPQ, make sure it links to your future career/uni degree!

3. If you are gonna redo the EPQ and you are committed to producing a very good, A* quality piece of work than I would highly advise that you start NOW - during the summer. In fact, you might be able to avoid all the pressure that an extra EPQ brings by getting out of the way ALL the research, introduction and abstract and 85% of your literature review and activity log.

My personal opinion: I would say that MOST unis probably will not care that much about whether you got an A or B in your EPQ. You can always put a positive spin on your EPQ experience in your PS and reflect on how it helped you to develop and master your ability to critically analyse a range of sources, explore arguments in depth and draw a meanginful and unbiased conclusion. Also, you can talk about how doing the EPQ enabled you to improve on your organisational, planning and time-managing skills. BUT if you are applying to very competitive unis such as Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL then they will look more towards the grade rather than the fact that you just did and EPQ. Having said that, they will, of course, be very interested in what skills you gained/improved/developed by doing an EPQ.

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