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English Literature @ Oxford Uni

I'm just wondering if anyone knew of any supercurriculars I could get involved in if I plan to study English Literature at Oxford University. I'm already doing the Downing Scholar's Award Program with Cambridge, and know that UNIQ & Sutton Trust open their applications soon, but does anyone know of any others?

Thank you!

Reply 1

s_kh3

This isn't for oxford specifically but I went to an open day at UCL and one of the professors that ran the English taster lecture told us to just read as much and as widely as you can, and find literature of a genre or time period that you really enjoy so you can talk about it in your PS and interview. They also said to enter essay competitions and creative writing competitions because they're good to talk about even if you don't win! Hope this helps a bit :smile:

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 2

Stiffy Byng

Original post

by s_kh3

Yep: read, read, read. Then read some more. Then do some reading. Read!

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

As above just read widely across genre and time period. As old and middle English and their associated literatures are compulsory at Oxford you may want to specifically also explore this a little since as I understand it's underrepresented in the A-level syllabus.

Reply 4

Stiffy Byng

Try these for fun -

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/60328/lips-and-ledges-the-writings-of-john-carey

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/september-2020/who-let-the-dons-out/

https://www.newstatesman.com/long-reads/2020/04/john-carey-last-public-critic

Reply 5

jasmineva3128

Hi. I'm in S5 (equivalent of Year 12 in Scotland), and I also want to apply to uni for English Literature, so I'll share some of what I've been doing.

I've been trying to read a wide range of literature, from plenty of time periods and genres to getting in more plays and poetry. From what I've heard and from some of my own research, lots of English applicants nearly exclusively mention novels in their personal statements. By showing admissions tutors that you engage with multiple forms of literature, you can help yourself stand out. You could also do this by comparing reading a play to how it is performed on stage, or from comparing a piece of literature with its film adaptations or retellings.

Additionally, I've been reading books about literature. One that I've found really useful was 'Much Ado About Numbers' by Rob Eastaway. It was a bit waffly at times (which I always hate to say as I've met the author and he's absolutely lovely), but the book's general point that there can be many (often unconsidered) influences on a writer's work is something that was interesting to explore. I'm sure there are plenty of other books out there that explain this in a bit of a better way, however.

Having a bit of a theme for your personal statement is good. E.g., "I read Eastaway's 'Much Ado About Numbers' and I learnt .... This lead me to read .... ect" Obviously, that's simplified, but having one activity lead on to another is something that you will ideally need to do in your personal statement.

One thing that really helped me when trying to figure out what supercurriculars I should do was looking into how to write a personal statement and making a 'plan' based on what I had already done. This let me see what I still had to do, allowing me to be more focused in my supercurriculars instead of doing everything under the sun.

When people say "quality over quantity" for supercurriculars, I find that that's not very helpful in understanding how much you should do. Think about it in the sense that you'll want around 4 paragraphs (it can be a bit less or a bit more, depending on what you want to say) about English across questions 1 and 2. Within each of these paragraphs, you're going to want to link/show progression between at least 2 activities, however I have seen some advice saying that 3 linked activities per paragraph is optimal.

I hope this helps, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask me. 😊

Reply 6

Scotney

Keble college is running taster days and applications are open now.
Apply herehttps://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=G96VzPWXk0-0uv5ouFLPkcxMsM2mk1FMhwznMuhIeA9UOEZOQTJRVDUwWkpESUMyR0kwVUFCNk9FVi4u&route=shorturl

Reply 7

amycartlidge

Original post

by rileybridge

english offer holder here! i applied for english and french so this may not be super useful, but read lots of books, plays, articles (they like classics and shakespeare but it's not necessarily everything). try and enter essay competitions too if you can. apply for university study days (oxford offers these for some subjects although they're selective), and if you're doing an epq, make it relevant to your studies. hopefully this helps and good luck!!