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What should one consider when choosing an EPQ subject?

I'm going into year 12 next year and will most likely do an EPQ. I know there's still some time left before I have to make a final decision on my choice of topic, but I have a question which I'm hoping someone can help me with:

When considering a subject, should I ideally choose something related to what I want to study, or would it be okay for me to do it about something unrelated but interesting to myself?
Namely, medicine or classics? Classics is my passion (which I would totally love to study instead, but... y'know... parents), and I would love an opportunity like this to partake in some extra study, but I'm worried that when it comes to applying for medicine an EPQ in a different field might look bad, or at the very least not help my application. Especially in the case of applying to Cambridge, where the competitive environment will mean that every little thing counts. Does anybody know whether this is the case, or if the fact that one has done an EPQ of any sort is more relevant than the topic itself?
Original post by Börk Börk
I'm going into year 12 next year and will most likely do an EPQ. I know there's still some time left before I have to make a final decision on my choice of topic, but I have a question which I'm hoping someone can help me with:

When considering a subject, should I ideally choose something related to what I want to study, or would it be okay for me to do it about something unrelated but interesting to myself?
Namely, medicine or classics? Classics is my passion (which I would totally love to study instead, but... y'know... parents), and I would love an opportunity like this to partake in some extra study, but I'm worried that when it comes to applying for medicine an EPQ in a different field might look bad, or at the very least not help my application. Especially in the case of applying to Cambridge, where the competitive environment will mean that every little thing counts. Does anybody know whether this is the case, or if the fact that one has done an EPQ of any sort is more relevant than the topic itself?


Many universities do not even care about EPQ. It does not enhance your application in many cases. Thus doing it in a topic unrelated to medicine is absolutely fine.
If classics fascinates you, do an EPQ related to it, definitely. It will look good on an application, even if you end up doing something else (but especially if you do classics). Don't listen to your parents too much - top universities will only give you a place if you're genuinely interested in the subject, so classics seems (from an outside perspective) like the degree for you.

Saying that, if you're trying to apply for medicine (and you become 100% sure of that) go for one in medicine.

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