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English Literature Extra / Suppercurriculars

I want to apply to Cambridge for English Literature (I'm in Year 12). I am predicted A*A*AA in English Lit, History, RS and Drama but I am unsure what extra / super curriculars to do to boost my application that a university would look for directly related to English.
Any advice?

Reply 1

Wendy Judge

How about entering the Newnham college Virginia Woolf English essay competition? That would be a good thing to include on your PS. Also is there any college enrichment activities that you currently do that you could include, something like writing for the college paper or a member of the debate team?

Finally are you doing your Year 12 work experience in the next few months? Maybe you could see if you can get some work in a library, book shop, local newspaper etc?

https://newn.cam.ac.uk/admissions/access-and-outreach/woolf-essay-prize-2024/

Reply 2

natsslanguages

Hi! I am in Year 13 now and I received an offer for Linguistics at Cambridge, so something slightly different, but I can tell you about my experience.

I am particularly interested in the history of English and in how languages develop, so I got my hands on some books on Old English. I quickly realised that most of the resources we have to learn about Old English are poems, so after doing some more reading I came up with a short introduction to the Old English language, and gave a presentation on the art of Old English poetry to my school's poetry club, complete with a crash course in Beowulf. This was one of the things which I wrote about in my statement.

I will say that it's definitely not enough to just have done the things - you have to have interesting insights about them. In my statement I did talk about the experience of researching and presenting, demonstrating that I had a real passion for the subject, but I spent more time discussing observations on the Old English language that I gained from the experience. I talked about the phonology of Old English, how it was similar or different to Modern English, and then linked this to other research that I had done during my EPQ. In this way, I was able to take an experience that I had had and elevate it into something unique by showing that I was thinking about the language in a more in-depth and complex way, and that I was able to draw links between different areas of linguistics.

I hope that this is helps, even though I'm not studying the same subject!
Good luck with your applications!

Reply 3

jilliams44

Original post by Wendy Judge

How about entering the Newnham college Virginia Woolf English essay competition? That would be a good thing to include on your PS. Also is there any college enrichment activities that you currently do that you could include, something like writing for the college paper or a member of the debate team?
Finally are you doing your Year 12 work experience in the next few months? Maybe you could see if you can get some work in a library, book shop, local newspaper etc?
https://newn.cam.ac.uk/admissions/access-and-outreach/woolf-essay-prize-2024/

I run Amnesty International but I can't find a relation to English.
I'll definitely look into the essay thankyou!

Reply 4

jilliams44

Original post by natsslanguages

Hi! I am in Year 13 now and I received an offer for Linguistics at Cambridge, so something slightly different, but I can tell you about my experience.
I am particularly interested in the history of English and in how languages develop, so I got my hands on some books on Old English. I quickly realised that most of the resources we have to learn about Old English are poems, so after doing some more reading I came up with a short introduction to the Old English language, and gave a presentation on the art of Old English poetry to my school's poetry club, complete with a crash course in Beowulf. This was one of the things which I wrote about in my statement.
I will say that it's definitely not enough to just have done the things - you have to have interesting insights about them. In my statement I did talk about the experience of researching and presenting, demonstrating that I had a real passion for the subject, but I spent more time discussing observations on the Old English language that I gained from the experience. I talked about the phonology of Old English, how it was similar or different to Modern English, and then linked this to other research that I had done during my EPQ. In this way, I was able to take an experience that I had had and elevate it into something unique by showing that I was thinking about the language in a more in-depth and complex way, and that I was able to draw links between different areas of linguistics.
I hope that this is helps, even though I'm not studying the same subject!
Good luck with your applications!

Thankyou! This helps so much!
If you don't mind me asking, what were your predicted grades? I really love Cambridge but it seems a bit daunting with the exam and high grades etc.