Oxbridge extra work submission?

For the subjects requiring extra pieces of work as part of the application, can you submit essay prize entries or must it be marked and graded by a teacher? And roughly how long should it be?
Thank you!!

(edited 3 months ago)

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

On the Oxford website, it states that it should be work that was marked by your teacher and submitted as part of your normal schoolwork, unless circumstances where this would be difficult apply, such as taking a gap year. The work you send in must be original and ideally have been produced during the course of your school or college work, marked by a teacher and not re-written or corrected in any way.

I have no idea about Cambridge but I expect it would be similar. From a quick google search I found on their website:

Check what the College is asking you to submit. For example, is it an essay or a portfolio. Make sure your work is:

marked by your teacher, with their comments included.

something you’re happy to discuss in an interview. It’s a good idea to keep a copy of it so you can read it again before your interview [...]

I think this indicates that essay competitions are not really what they are looking for.

Length-wise, mine were separately around 800 and 1000 words. Again, you can probably find this on the relevant websites — Oxford, at any rate, enforces a limit of 2000 words per piece.

Reply 2

purplefire3000

Original post by Anonymous

On the Oxford website, it states that it should be work that was marked by your teacher and submitted as part of your normal schoolwork, unless circumstances where this would be difficult apply, such as taking a gap year. The work you send in must be original and ideally have been produced during the course of your school or college work, marked by a teacher and not re-written or corrected in any way.
I have no idea about Cambridge but I expect it would be similar. From a quick google search I found on their website:

Check what the College is asking you to submit. For example, is it an essay or a portfolio. Make sure your work is:

marked by your teacher, with their comments included.

something you’re happy to discuss in an interview. It’s a good idea to keep a copy of it so you can read it again before your interview [...]

I think this indicates that essay competitions are not really what they are looking for.
Length-wise, mine were separately around 800 and 1000 words. Again, you can probably find this on the relevant websites — Oxford, at any rate, enforces a limit of 2000 words per piece.