The Student Room Group

Super curriculars for university (Oxbridge being the aim)

I really want to go to a good uni (Oxbridge) but am unsure of what supercurriculars to do. I’m doing three a-levels and an epq, as well as: started a biomedical society, preparing to go volunteer in Cambodia for a month, studying for French DELF, volunteering on Zooniverse, volunteering at a charity shop, volunteering to help year nines with their reading, volunteering to help a maths teacher with foundation year elevens, karate, signed up to a 5k charity run, extra reading, as well as being a young adult carer. Should I do an online course? I’ve signed up to the Balliol college frontier program but there’s a very slim chance of getting in and started a mooc but stopped as it didn’t really interest me. I’ve being contacting employers about work experience but haven’t heard anything back. I have a bronze DofE and Youth stemm award but apparently it’s pointless unless you get gold (Is this true?) and volunteered for the summer reading challenge for the last three years. Is there anything I could be doing more, I really, really want to study biomedicine/ biomedical sciences and Oxbridge have an amazing program but I dropped an a level due to sever levels of anxiety so I’m really scared that I’m not doing enough super curriculars (most of the stuff I’ve done isn’t specific).
(edited 4 weeks ago)
woah ! its incredible you've managed to achieve/juggle so much. i barely have any recommendations, except applying to more summer schools if that's what you want to do, and try a different MOOC [there are thousands out there, i promise there will be some that interest you more]. like you mention yourself, it might be best to do things more linked to biomedicine, so try and find courses/opportunites that relate to it. best kept secret is unifrog - type in 'special opportunities' into the search bar, then type in your field of interest, and it will give you a whole host of residentials/scholarships/activites. let me know if you cannot access unifrog and i can attach the opportunities here 🙂 seriously though, be careful and dont overwork yourself, it seems like you already have a lot on your plate
Reply 2
Original post by BookWorm578
I really want to go to a good uni (Oxbridge) but am unsure of what supercurriculars to do. I’m doing three a-levels and an epq, as well as: started a biomedical society, preparing to go volunteer in Cambodia for a month, studying for French DELF, volunteering on Zooniverse, volunteering at a charity shop, volunteering to help year nines with their reading, volunteering to help a maths teacher with foundation year elevens, karate, signed up to a 5k charity run, extra reading, as well as being a young adult carer. Should I do an online course? I’ve signed up to the Balliol college frontier program but there’s a very slim chance of getting in and started a mooc but stopped as it didn’t really interest me. I’ve being contacting employers about work experience but haven’t heard anything back. I have a bronze DofE and Youth stemm award but apparently it’s pointless unless you get gold (Is this true?) and volunteered for the summer reading challenge for the last three years. Is there anything I could be doing more, I really, really want to study biomedicine/ biomedical sciences and Oxbridge have an amazing program but I dropped an a level due to sever levels of anxiety so I’m really scared that I’m not doing enough super curriculars (most of the stuff I’ve done isn’t specific).

Presume you mean oxford so
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/course-listing/engineering-science
Cant find recommended supercurriculars on the eng dept page (very quick look), but they do mention a good maths/phys background so maybe look at those depts and cam has
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/files/publications/super-curricular_suggestions.pdf
This sounds quite different/more basic that what youre doing, which largely seems extracurricular stuff.
(edited 4 weeks ago)
Original post by checka888
woah ! its incredible you've managed to achieve/juggle so much. i barely have any recommendations, except applying to more summer schools if that's what you want to do, and try a different MOOC [there are thousands out there, i promise there will be some that interest you more]. like you mention yourself, it might be best to do things more linked to biomedicine, so try and find courses/opportunites that relate to it. best kept secret is unifrog - type in 'special opportunities' into the search bar, then type in your field of interest, and it will give you a whole host of residentials/scholarships/activites. let me know if you cannot access unifrog and i can attach the opportunities here 🙂 seriously though, be careful and dont overwork yourself, it seems like you already have a lot on your plate

Thank you, my school isn’t signed up to unifrog but I managed to sign up to one of the webinars.
Original post by BookWorm578
I really want to go to a good uni (Oxbridge) but am unsure of what supercurriculars to do. I’m doing three a-levels and an epq, as well as: started a biomedical society, preparing to go volunteer in Cambodia for a month, studying for French DELF, volunteering on Zooniverse, volunteering at a charity shop, volunteering to help year nines with their reading, volunteering to help a maths teacher with foundation year elevens, karate, signed up to a 5k charity run, extra reading, as well as being a young adult carer. Should I do an online course? I’ve signed up to the Balliol college frontier program but there’s a very slim chance of getting in and started a mooc but stopped as it didn’t really interest me. I’ve being contacting employers about work experience but haven’t heard anything back. I have a bronze DofE and Youth stemm award but apparently it’s pointless unless you get gold (Is this true?) and volunteered for the summer reading challenge for the last three years. Is there anything I could be doing more, I really, really want to study biomedicine/ biomedical sciences and Oxbridge have an amazing program but I dropped an a level due to sever levels of anxiety so I’m really scared that I’m not doing enough super curriculars (most of the stuff I’ve done isn’t specific).

Over anything in an application, Oxbridge values academic ability. It looks like you do more than enough extra curricular activities, which, in all honesty, have very little significance when writing an Oxbridge personal statement. From now until your application I would spend time building your academic ability and super curriculars. So read books and articles that explore your interests within your subject. Since you are applying for a STEM subject I would include practical research opportunities and science experience within the super curricular umbrella. Overall, your aim should be to make yourself as academically competitive as possible, showing interest and ability within your subject.
Original post by scarlet-paddle
Over anything in an application, Oxbridge values academic ability. It looks like you do more than enough extra curricular activities, which, in all honesty, have very little significance when writing an Oxbridge personal statement. From now until your application I would spend time building your academic ability and super curriculars. So read books and articles that explore your interests within your subject. Since you are applying for a STEM subject I would include practical research opportunities and science experience within the super curricular umbrella. Overall, your aim should be to make yourself as academically competitive as possible, showing interest and ability within your subject.

Thank you. Does this mean I should drop an activity and replace it with a more related one? If so which one would be best? Also, where do you get research opportunities?
Original post by BookWorm578
Thank you. Does this mean I should drop an activity and replace it with a more related one? If so which one would be best? Also, where do you get research opportunities?
Yes I would probably recommend dropping multiple activities, not sure which would be best, that is up to you. I applied at Oxford for a humanities subject so I don’t know anything about where to get research experience, but I would try to find work experience, do science courses (which I am sure you can research online), conduct any of your own research/ experimenting (not sure if this is silly or not as again I am not a STEM student but I am sure past applicants have done this), and I would read books and research articles about areas of your interest and then develop interesting opinions about them, this will be great when writing your person statement. Best of luck.
Reply 7
Original post by BookWorm578
Thank you. Does this mean I should drop an activity and replace it with a more related one? If so which one would be best? Also, where do you get research opportunities?

Pretty much all your activities listed in the OP are extracurricular, not supercurricular. Oxbridge are fairly explicit that extracurricular stuff will not help you on your personal statement. They expect you to write about your supercurricular stuff.

Id have a look at the cambridge supercurriculum stuff as a starting point. Its more about doing harder stem stuff yourself. So maths/physics/biology stuff, biomedical stuff, ...
(edited 4 weeks ago)
Original post by BookWorm578
I really want to go to a good uni (Oxbridge) but am unsure of what supercurriculars to do. I’m doing three a-levels and an epq, as well as: started a biomedical society, preparing to go volunteer in Cambodia for a month, studying for French DELF, volunteering on Zooniverse, volunteering at a charity shop, volunteering to help year nines with their reading, volunteering to help a maths teacher with foundation year elevens, karate, signed up to a 5k charity run, extra reading, as well as being a young adult carer. Should I do an online course? I’ve signed up to the Balliol college frontier program but there’s a very slim chance of getting in and started a mooc but stopped as it didn’t really interest me. I’ve being contacting employers about work experience but haven’t heard anything back. I have a bronze DofE and Youth stemm award but apparently it’s pointless unless you get gold (Is this true?) and volunteered for the summer reading challenge for the last three years. Is there anything I could be doing more, I really, really want to study biomedicine/ biomedical sciences and Oxbridge have an amazing program but I dropped an a level due to sever levels of anxiety so I’m really scared that I’m not doing enough super curriculars (most of the stuff I’ve done isn’t specific).
this sounds incredible! unfortunately though, a lot of these are extracurriculars which you honestly will only be able to mention like two of (I applied for oxford biomed and my only extracurriculars mentioned were tutoring, volunteering at a charity shop and gardening). You honestly won't have space to write about your 5K run (even though that's amazing well done to you). Like most people have said I'd do more supercurricular stuff. Sign up for virtual study days or virtual work experience offered by unis or companies. I know GSK offers placements sometimes, check out other big companies too. Go to lectures and exhibits. Have discussions. Do research.

In my statement I probably only had the space to mention maybe 5 supercurriculars (and talk about them too)(this also meant having to cut out a lot of my other experiences) and then my 3 extracurriculars AND how they related to my subject. I went onto this cambridge personal statement talk and they said that they didn't really care about your extracurriculars because 'your tennis club doesn't make you a better engineer'. Keep it relevant.

Also in terms of DofE, I did silver and honestly I had so much other stuff to write about I completely forgot to even mention it but no I don't think bronze is worth talking about. So many people do it for their uni applications that it's not really special anymore.

Good luck though, you sound like a fabulous applicant!
There is some good info here about supercurriculars for biomes at St John’s college, Oxford: https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/access-and-outreach/our-programmes-sjc/study-days/2022-medicine-and-biomedical-sciences-study-day-follow-up-resources/

Also, if you are at a UK state school, try applying to the Oxford uniq summer school. It counts as a great super curricular, and is a great experience. https://www.uniq.ox.ac.uk
Original post by BookWorm578
I really want to go to a good uni (Oxbridge) but am unsure of what supercurriculars to do. I’m doing three a-levels and an epq, as well as: started a biomedical society, preparing to go volunteer in Cambodia for a month, studying for French DELF, volunteering on Zooniverse, volunteering at a charity shop, volunteering to help year nines with their reading, volunteering to help a maths teacher with foundation year elevens, karate, signed up to a 5k charity run, extra reading, as well as being a young adult carer. Should I do an online course? I’ve signed up to the Balliol college frontier program but there’s a very slim chance of getting in and started a mooc but stopped as it didn’t really interest me. I’ve being contacting employers about work experience but haven’t heard anything back. I have a bronze DofE and Youth stemm award but apparently it’s pointless unless you get gold (Is this true?) and volunteered for the summer reading challenge for the last three years. Is there anything I could be doing more, I really, really want to study biomedicine/ biomedical sciences and Oxbridge have an amazing program but I dropped an a level due to sever levels of anxiety so I’m really scared that I’m not doing enough super curriculars (most of the stuff I’ve done isn’t specific).

One thing that you could do (just a suggestion) is look into oxbridge applicant’s LinkedIn pages - it gives a good insight in what people did to get into the college.
Reply 11
Original post by BookWorm578
I really want to go to a good uni (Oxbridge) but am unsure of what supercurriculars to do. I’m doing three a-levels and an epq, as well as: started a biomedical society, preparing to go volunteer in Cambodia for a month, studying for French DELF, volunteering on Zooniverse, volunteering at a charity shop, volunteering to help year nines with their reading, volunteering to help a maths teacher with foundation year elevens, karate, signed up to a 5k charity run, extra reading, as well as being a young adult carer. Should I do an online course? I’ve signed up to the Balliol college frontier program but there’s a very slim chance of getting in and started a mooc but stopped as it didn’t really interest me. I’ve being contacting employers about work experience but haven’t heard anything back. I have a bronze DofE and Youth stemm award but apparently it’s pointless unless you get gold (Is this true?) and volunteered for the summer reading challenge for the last three years. Is there anything I could be doing more, I really, really want to study biomedicine/ biomedical sciences and Oxbridge have an amazing program but I dropped an a level due to sever levels of anxiety so I’m really scared that I’m not doing enough super curriculars (most of the stuff I’ve done isn’t specific).

if you dont mind me asking, how were u able to volunteer in cambodia?
Original post by lovezc
if you dont mind me asking, how were u able to volunteer in cambodia?

Through the school, a teacher set up a program so that every year (last year was the first year) a group of yr 12s can go out there to help teach English in rural Cambodia to improve the children’s job prospects and potentially help them obtain scholarships/ bursaries.
Original post by BookWorm578
Through the school, a teacher set up a program so that every year (last year was the first year) a group of yr 12s can go out there to help teach English in rural Cambodia to improve the children’s job prospects and potentially help them obtain scholarships/ bursaries.

Sounds really interesting, but you must realise it will add little/nothing to your oxbridge supercurriculars?
I would read broadly or new books and have life experiences relevant to the degree choice

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