The Student Room Group

How likely am I to be accepted into Royal Holloway for English?

Hi! I am Romanian and I am interested in applying to Royal Holloway next year to study English (maybe with American Literature as well). I am following the Romanian school system, where I'm part of a Humanities-Bilingual English profile and will take the Romanian Baccalaureate (Romanian Literature, Logic, History, English and Informatics). Beside the Baccalaureate subjects, I also study things like Universal Literature, UK & US History & Geography, Psychology, Sociology, Crossing Cultures (culture & civilization of the UK & US), Latin, French, Spanish etc., and my grades in all of these subjects have never been lower than 10, and my general grade for each year has never been lower that 9,76 out of 10 (first year), the highest being 9,96 (last year).

I've read a lot and I can talk about the books I've read (answering the questions that will replace the Personal Statement), but I have also participated in other activities, such as English competitions in the past 4 years, an universal literature competition in Romanian - text analysis and essays (OLAV), English-Romanian translation competition, workshops taught in English organized by an university from my town, book club at my school, poetry nights and I have an active literature Tumblr blog.

To me, these things feel like a lot, since here it's really hard to find activities that would benefit me in any way and I'm doing basically everything I can find that will give me something to add on my application. Still, I feel like if i compare this to everything the British students are doing, it's not enough. I'm really scared and I am desperate for an opinion about my chances of getting accepted. Is it enough? What else could I do?
(edited 3 months ago)
Reply 1
Original post by vevra
Hi! I am Romanian and I am interested in applying to Royal Holloway next year to study English (maybe with American Literature as well). I am following the Romanian school system, where I'm part of a Humanities-Bilingual English profile and will take the Romanian Baccalaureate (Romanian Literature, Logistics, History, English and Informatics). Beside the Baccalaureate subjects, I also study things like Universal Literature, UK & US History & Geography, Psychology, Sociology, Crossing Cultures (culture & civilization of the UK & US), Latin, French, Spanish etc., and my grades in all of these subjects have never been lower than 10, and my general grade for each year has never been lower that 9,76 out of 10 (first year), the highest being 9,96 (last year).
I've read a lot and I can talk about the books I've read (answering the questions that will replace the Personal Statement), but I have also participated in other activities, such as English competitions in the past 4 years, an universal literature competition in Romanian - text analysis and essays (OLAV), English-Romanian translation competition, workshops taught in English organized by an university from my town, book club at my school, poetry nights and I have an active literature Tumblr blog.
To me, these things feel like a lot, since here it's really hard to find activities that would benefit me in any way and I'm doing basically everything I can find that will give me something to add on my application. Still, I feel like if i compare this to everything the British students are doing, it's not enough. I'm really scared and I am desperate for an opinion about my chances of getting accepted. Is it enough? What else could I do?

Wow! Everything you've been doing seems amazing and you seem so passionate about it 👏 Trust me, you are doing way more than the average British student and I think you could aim even higher like the Russell group universities if that's what you want
Reply 2
Original post by Faathi
Wow! Everything you've been doing seems amazing and you seem so passionate about it 👏 Trust me, you are doing way more than the average British student and I think you could aim even higher like the Russell group universities if that's what you want

Thank you so much!
Original post by vevra
Hi! I am Romanian and I am interested in applying to Royal Holloway next year to study English (maybe with American Literature as well). I am following the Romanian school system, where I'm part of a Humanities-Bilingual English profile and will take the Romanian Baccalaureate (Romanian Literature, Logic, History, English and Informatics). Beside the Baccalaureate subjects, I also study things like Universal Literature, UK & US History & Geography, Psychology, Sociology, Crossing Cultures (culture & civilization of the UK & US), Latin, French, Spanish etc., and my grades in all of these subjects have never been lower than 10, and my general grade for each year has never been lower that 9,76 out of 10 (first year), the highest being 9,96 (last year).
I've read a lot and I can talk about the books I've read (answering the questions that will replace the Personal Statement), but I have also participated in other activities, such as English competitions in the past 4 years, an universal literature competition in Romanian - text analysis and essays (OLAV), English-Romanian translation competition, workshops taught in English organized by an university from my town, book club at my school, poetry nights and I have an active literature Tumblr blog.
To me, these things feel like a lot, since here it's really hard to find activities that would benefit me in any way and I'm doing basically everything I can find that will give me something to add on my application. Still, I feel like if i compare this to everything the British students are doing, it's not enough. I'm really scared and I am desperate for an opinion about my chances of getting accepted. Is it enough? What else could I do?

Hello there!

It's brilliant to hear how interested and passionate you are about studying English at Royal Holloway. It sounds like you've been putting a lot of valuable preparation into your application.

I would highly recommend doing two things to help reassure you are creating the best application you can:

Chat to Aminah, a current English student, where you can ask her any questions you may have about your application, the course, or Royal Holloway in general

Contact our Admissions team who will be able to advise on any specific and more general application queries you may have. You can chat to them online or via phone on +44 (0)1784 414944
Our phone lines are open at the following times:
Monday to Friday: 10am-4pm UK time
Saturday to Sunday: closed


I hope this helps - wishing you the best of luck with your application.

Best wishes,
Alexia
Royal Holloway, University of London

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