Young Enterprise OR Extended Project Qualification

Why not both?
This year, I was part of the YE team, and I'm doing the EPQ too.
YE was a mixed experience. Our business was web development, which by YE standards, is quite out there. This meant we weren't going to make a huge amount of money, and we had to do something else, which meant we did valentine's day cards, sweets and roses too. If you are in a team with friends, then you should have a fairly good time, not to mention you most likely end up friends with most people in the team regardless, as I found myself.
We came runners up in our area, and won the best presentation award twice at the area and regional finals.

I'd recommend doing YE purely because it's more vocational, but the EPQ is looked upon more favourably by academics, because it emulates university coursework in the form of a dissertation.

hey - I did young enterprise. What happened with us was that we were paired with a neighbouring girls school (mine is all boys) and we were split into two teams of 5 girls and 5 boys per team (not that important).

The idea is that you meet up outside school hours, and think of a good/service to produce and sell (either buying and selling for profit, getting people in china to make it cheap and then sell it for a profit, hand-make it and then sell it, etc...). As a team, you'll designate a team leader, head of marketing, IT, finance, and so on - its almost exactly like in The Apprentice. You'll have to market, sell, research, make, package, and pitch your product. You get invited to fairs where you sell your product, and eventually to competitions, where there are prizes for best presentation, best report, best product, etc.

As you progress the competition gets tougher and the teams you are up against will have some pretty decent products which you may even think of buying! You get invited to some serious venues (we went to Google HQ in London) and teams get knocked out if they don't do well or make enough money.

I'd say that, although I don't know what the EP qualification is, I would definitely do young enterprise - we had some negative experiences because we didn't like the girls and they didn't like us, and our product was handmade candles which, although they sold OKish, took forever to make, so make sure you've got a great product and a great team

PLUS (and this is a big plus) any money you make you get to keep (after tax is deducted) and share between your team - we made around £1000 profit, which, after taxes, meant that each of us received around £85 cash (not to mention that you can also put it on your CV/UCAS form).

I am going to sixth form next year and we have to choose one of these along with four subjects. If you have done either please explain your experiences and give me advise on which to choose! Thanks

young enterprise is the biggest waste of time, especially if your team is ****. epq looks waay better on your uni app

Young enterprise at my school was complete ****. EPQ is much more useful and interesting

There's not point in doing Young Enterprise unless everyone in your team actually wants to do it; I don't know how your school will allocate teams or whatever but I suggest you only do it if your team wants to do it as oppose to not choosing the EPQ. I did YE last year, it is fun but at times can be stressful especially towards the end, if you get far enough. Your team will have to write a company report and present if you end up in the top 8 in the borough (I think) but by this time you'll be needing to revise for exams; this is what ruined our team! Only 2 out of 10 members were able to present for our team because of revision/exams. We still made it to the top 8 and won the Most innovative product award though

During the competition you will also need to sell your product at trade stands, this will develop skills such as being able to approach members of the public and attempting to sell them your product.

All in all if you execute it right YE can be useful regardless of whether or not you get far into the competition and will let you talk about "skills you've developed" on your personal statement but again do not do it if the people on your team are only doing it to escape doing the EPQ. Oh and if you do the exam at the end there's up to 40 UCAS points available for an exam you don't even need to revise for

I think ill stick to EPQ then. Whats the exam like?

Easy, you just answer questions about how your company operated and there's a case study too which is easy to analyse. But I think doing the EPQ is more useful especially if you do it on a subject related to your chosen degree/career, it's good to talk about during uni interviews. Also worth more UCAS, 70 for an A*, 60 for an A and so on, but there is arguably more work needed compared with YE

Why not both?
This year, I was part of the YE team, and I'm doing the EPQ too.
YE was a mixed experience. Our business was web development, which by YE standards, is quite out there. This meant we weren't going to make a huge amount of money, and we had to do something else, which meant we did valentine's day cards, sweets and roses too. If you are in a team with friends, then you should have a fairly good time, not to mention you most likely end up friends with most people in the team regardless, as I found myself.
We came runners up in our area, and won the best presentation award twice at the area and regional finals.

I'd recommend doing YE purely because it's more vocational, but the EPQ is looked upon more favourably by academics, because it emulates university coursework in the form of a dissertation.