geography uni application supercurriculars

hi! im thinking of maybe doing geography at uni (im more interested in human but both are interesting) and was wondering if anyone who does geography at uni or has done has any advice for supercurriculars to put on my personal statement for this or ideas of extra wider reading/book recommendations/podcast recommendations.. or competitions i could enter? anything would be appreciated ty also just want to find out more about which bit of geography interests me most so really anything even slightly related will help

Hi. I'm in Year 12 and I'm also looking to do a Geography Degree (with a slight preference for Human Geography.) I recommend competitions by the RGS could be good to enter and my school also has subscriptions to Geography Review (A Geography Magazine for A-Level Students.) Just out of interest what other A-levels do you do (if you're in Year 12)?

thanks for the ideas. im doing french and english as well as geography what about u

hi! im thinking of maybe doing geography at uni (im more interested in human but both are interesting) and was wondering if anyone who does geography at uni or has done has any advice for supercurriculars to put on my personal statement for this or ideas of extra wider reading/book recommendations/podcast recommendations.. or competitions i could enter? anything would be appreciated ty also just want to find out more about which bit of geography interests me most so really anything even slightly related will help

Hiya, I'm a year 13 and I've applied to study geoegraphy BA and human geography at university for 2025 entry. In terms of supercurriculars, I did a 2 week work experience placement at a private urban planning firm in London which taught me so much about how planners try to fight against spatial social inequalities. I linked this experience to a book called 'The Faces of Contemporary Urban Cities' by Davide Ponzini (which mentioned about how globalisation has standardised the design of skyscrapers in cities, as well as Permasteelisa designs which have made radical new building designs).
I used my geography NEA as a supercurricular as well; my topic is about commuter settlements so I talked a little bit about how planners influence the connectivity of places and in turn how this impacts their identity. I also mentioned my EPQ (which was a mix between economics and geography) and about a documentary which I had watched in respect to completing this.
Because I'm applying for a mix of human and physical geography I also mentioned another book that I had read ('Disaster by Choice' by Ilan Kelman) and how this reflected the relationship between human and physical geography, and I debated a bit about what I thought this signified.

this is all so useful thank you so much! the books sound very interesting I may buy one. I am also interested in spatial social inequalities and the idea of urban planning so out of interest what kind of topic was your EPQ on? I'm trying to find a topic for mine at the moment but can't seem to find anything not in the AQA spec... have you got any advice on finding an EPQ title relating to these topics or tips on how you found yours? no worries if not, and thanks again for all the detail!

this is all so useful thank you so much! the books sound very interesting I may buy one. I am also interested in spatial social inequalities and the idea of urban planning so out of interest what kind of topic was your EPQ on? I'm trying to find a topic for mine at the moment but can't seem to find anything not in the AQA spec... have you got any advice on finding an EPQ title relating to these topics or tips on how you found yours? no worries if not, and thanks again for all the detail!

No worries glad it was useful! My title is 'Are all-inclusive resorts economically detrimental to the Caribbean'; I investigated into the enclave model of all-inclusive resorts and how this stagnates economic development due to a lack of tourist expenditure within the local community. I looked into the hostile representation of Caribbean communities and how this deters tourists from leaving their resorts, and also how planning policies such as the resort villages of Punta Cana in the DR have ensured that the public don't want to leave their resorts because of the lack of developed infrastructure within the main residential parts of the city. I also conducted my own independent investigation into the effects of all-inclusive resorts through submitting a survey online which asked tourists how much money they spent outside of the resort on their holidays and whether they booked activities through independent local businesses, and I correlated this to the rest of my investigation to create a final conclusion.
I'd recommend choosing a very niche area of geography/planning that you're particularly interested in because generally the nicher it is, the less likely it is to feature on the spec. I do OCR geography which may be slightly different for the spec, but I know that there's very little thankfully about this area of geography which made it a lot easier to choose my topic.

Thank you for all of this! Out of interest do you do economics as an a level (I don't but am now thinking it may have been useful ..)?

Essay competitions (e.g. Uni of Exeter) can be a great thing to distinguish you as well. Of course, reading beyond the syllabus is great and I’d recommend ‘Border Wars.’ After each book, perhaps write up a paragraph or so asking yourself why it is significant to you, the world etc and connect it to different geographies (perception of place/inequality…) which will help you when writing your PS.

hi! im thinking of maybe doing geography at uni (im more interested in human but both are interesting) and was wondering if anyone who does geography at uni or has done has any advice for supercurriculars to put on my personal statement for this or ideas of extra wider reading/book recommendations/podcast recommendations.. or competitions i could enter? anything would be appreciated ty also just want to find out more about which bit of geography interests me most so really anything even slightly related will help

Hi! I’ve got an offer for BA Geography at the University of Cambridge. I didn’t really read a lot of books, but the main 3 things I wrote about were the Turing Scheme, work experience with the British Antarctic Survey and my EPQ.
Turing Scheme = this was something my college did, we got funding to travel to Singapore for 16 days. We visited places like the Singaporean Housing Commission and the Cambridge Uni CREATE campus which was super helpful and easy to link to geography, so if your school does anything of the sort/trips etc you could link to geography it’s worth it. I understand I got super lucky with this though, it’s not commonplace generally.
BAS = this was a super super great opportunity the British Antarctic Survey does every summer. It lasts 6 days and is fully online, there’s lectures from experts in the field. We got to work in teams and experience presenting at a virtual conference, gaining research skills and problem solving. I would 100% recommend for this year.
EPQ = I want to specialise into seismology so I chose to do my EPQ on earthquake prediction. I was asked a lot about this in my Cambridge interview and the research skills I gained from this have been super helpful in developing my interest in the subjects I’m interested in. It’s time consuming but worth it if you value the research skills.
I also generally read the news and scientific articles I’m interested in, which is definitely useful in geography. I hope this helped, let me know if I can help with anything else!!

Hi! I’ve got an offer for BA Geography at the University of Cambridge. I didn’t really read a lot of books, but the main 3 things I wrote about were the Turing Scheme, work experience with the British Antarctic Survey and my EPQ.
Turing Scheme = this was something my college did, we got funding to travel to Singapore for 16 days. We visited places like the Singaporean Housing Commission and the Cambridge Uni CREATE campus which was super helpful and easy to link to geography, so if your school does anything of the sort/trips etc you could link to geography it’s worth it. I understand I got super lucky with this though, it’s not commonplace generally.
BAS = this was a super super great opportunity the British Antarctic Survey does every summer. It lasts 6 days and is fully online, there’s lectures from experts in the field. We got to work in teams and experience presenting at a virtual conference, gaining research skills and problem solving. I would 100% recommend for this year.
EPQ = I want to specialise into seismology so I chose to do my EPQ on earthquake prediction. I was asked a lot about this in my Cambridge interview and the research skills I gained from this have been super helpful in developing my interest in the subjects I’m interested in. It’s time consuming but worth it if you value the research skills.
I also generally read the news and scientific articles I’m interested in, which is definitely useful in geography. I hope this helped, let me know if I can help with anything else!!

I've got an offer for Geography at Cambridge too! Hopefully see you in October x

Thank you so much 🙂 I also study sociology and economics!

Well Done to the both of you. with your A-levels. Out of curiosity what are your other A-levels?