What can I do to boost my chances of getting into a good uni?

See if there are any essay competitions you can enter

Oxford has suggested subject resources; it has some advice for english lit students (however the advice is quite broad) so it could give you some inspiration on what super curriculars to do

Hi! I really want to go to Oxford university (and a handful of other highly regarded unis) for English literature. However I don’t know what to do in order to boost my chances of getting into them. Like what super curriculars/activities could I do? So far I’ve only come up with reading as many types of literature as I can, writing a concise but detailed think piece on each of them, listen to as many podcasts about literature and tutor my younger sister. The problem is I don’t know what else I could do, I mean for medicine it’s more straight forward (shadow someone and have work experience in a hospital) but where I am there aren’t really any huge literature establishments and stuff. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Hi! I really want to go to Oxford university (and a handful of other highly regarded unis) for English literature. However I don’t know what to do in order to boost my chances of getting into them. Like what super curriculars/activities could I do? So far I’ve only come up with reading as many types of literature as I can, writing a concise but detailed think piece on each of them, listen to as many podcasts about literature and tutor my younger sister. The problem is I don’t know what else I could do, I mean for medicine it’s more straight forward (shadow someone and have work experience in a hospital) but where I am there aren’t really any huge literature establishments and stuff. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Yeah, if only medicine work experience is so easy to get hold of and that straight forward.......no wonder so many people including myself wishes to pursue medicine
For humanities - essay competition is always the best route.

If your school has its own editorial or journal, offer to help! They could probably write you a reference letter for this later on. If there are any intern roles at companies that publish articles, magazines or any sort of writing available, it would be great to apply there. Also, for your A-Levels, if your school offers EPQ, Literature schools will love it. Lastly, surprisingly enough, it wouldn’t be a bad idea taking part in debates (whether this is an in-school event or an outside event such as MUN) since I’m sure your Lit admissions officer would love to see that you have engaged in spoken discussions and arguments too, and not just in written ones! 😇 good luck with everything!

lmao no medicine definitely is super tricky, I just meant that for some reason I can think of more super curriculars and stuff for medicine than literature for some reason. And my sixth form just gives constant programs and opportunities for medicine and never humanities, maybe my sixth form is just biased tho.
But yeah I definitely have to get back on the essay grind (sadly), thank you for your suggestion!

Thank you so much! This was so helpful, I’ll look into all of these. As for EPQ sadly my school doesn’t really offer that (it’s very rare they do) and so I’m stuck doing Welsh baccalaureate. Do you think that still would impress the unis?

Nah, no harm done at all. My 6th form is pretty bad in medic support but strong in humanities.
I have a school friend who is thinking of humanities at Oxbridge, he write newsletters for the care home I currently volunteer at. I roped him to the care home and it helped in some way.
All the best for you!

It doesn't really matter whether its EPQ, Welsh baccalaureate etc. Neither of the Oxbridge weigh them much, at least for the course I am applying to. But its the what one learnt from the whole experience - thinking outside the box that matters and possibly impress on them.
You can go to Cambridge website and sign up for their webinars from different colleges, mostly free. I found them extremely beneficial over the past year.