How to Choose Super-curriculars for Oxford History

Introduction

A common mistake made by Oxford history applicants is to list off all the various super-curriculars they believe will make them seem more enthusiastic about their subject. This can lead to a dangerous dilution of argumentative writing, weakening the personal statement considerably in the process. The value of a super-curricular lies not in the activity itself, but in the historical questions it inspires you to ask and pursue. It is the purpose of this short article to emphasise how to choose which super-curriculars are worth advertising in the personal statement, and which are best to ignore. If you're looking for broader advice on what Oxford history tutors are looking for across the application, I've explored that elsewhere on the website.

What makes a super-curricular worth mentioning?

During my first year of university at Oxford, a friend of mine informed me that his younger brother was in the process of applying to Oxford for history. I was asked to review his personal statement and give any tips on how to improve it. There was one glaring issue that instantly alerted me. His personal statement contained a not inconsiderable list of various books he had read, which focused on history from many different periods and regions of the world. His hope had been to demonstrate a strong breadth both from a temporal and geographic perspective. However, this intention was lost for what he instead achieved was a distinct lack of argumentative depth. Moreover, he had been seeking to demonstrate passion through his breadth, yet his lack of exploration of any one of these works caused him to lack analytical depth. My advice to him at the time was to reduce the list considerably, instead discussing ideas he had after reading certain works, and how these ideas led him to read other books and articles. I advised him to show a line of reasoning and argument to strengthen his personal statement. The strongest super-curriculars are therefore not necessarily the most prestigious, but those which encourage you to investigate historical questions independently.

One particularly valuable super-curricular is independent research. The purpose of the personal statement is to show passion and analytical thinking about history. A list of books one has read achieves this far less effectively than a proper project that took time and thought to put together. This can range from independent research to work experience at a museum. I know one person who studied history at Oxford who once helped put together an entire exhibition at a small local museum in her hometown in rural France. She used this story in her application to show how she had long had a deep and personal interest in history.

Other super-curriculars one can consider include essay competitions or study programmes at institutions of higher education. These can often help applicants work on history-relevant skills. However, while these can be worth a mention, you should consider that many of your fellow applicants will also have taken part in such activities. You want to separate yourself by pursuing experiences that genuinely develop your historical thinking. An essay competition can absolutely achieve this if on a relevant topic. My own personal statement detailed only my research project, which included independent primary source research, as a standout super-curricular.

Following Historical Questions

Nevertheless, I ought to stress that you must not choose to discuss super-curriculars which are not of personal interest to you. For example, I have mentioned museums as a potential arena to embark on work experience that would enable you to interact with the history you love. A way this could prove successful for a personal statement is if an applicant interested in Roman history were to work at a museum with Roman coins. If political messaging on these coins suddenly attracted that applicant’s interest, that could then lead to a successful research project. The relevant passage in the personal statement could read something like: “During my work experience at my local Roman history museum, I interacted with coins of the Emperor Trajan. Seeing various buildings be depicted on his coinage inspired me to investigate wider architectural representations on Roman coins, and how these symbols of power were spread throughout the Roman world via this iconography. I drew from this ...”. This is just three sentences, yet it highlights this hypothetical applicant’s enthusiasm for their subject. Moreover, it is more than just reading a list of secondary sources about various historical events. This is an applicant with a refined interest that sets them out from the crowd, and it includes two highly valuable super-curriculars: museum work experience and independent research. This would be a very effective thing to include for an applicant who genuinely found such work invigorating. However, one should not mention super-curriculars that did not spark inspiration. If, for example, a reader of this article was to use precisely my example, while finding Roman coins dull and uninteresting, they would greatly struggle in the interview should this project be mentioned. Thus, if you should be able to secure museum work experience, aim to find a department in that museum that is of genuine interest to you, and see where that work takes you. Inauthenticity becomes very visible in an interview!

Although I have focused on independent research and museum work experience so far, I do not want readers to think these activities are inherently superior to all others. What matters is not the activity itself, but whether it encourages you to ask historical questions and pursue their answers. The best super-curriculars almost always follow the same pattern: you encounter something interesting, it raises a question, you investigate that question further, and your thinking develops as a result.

Finding Inspiration

Readers of this article do not need to worry about already knowing that coins, or art, or any other specific form of historical material is their personal niche. I used the coin example simply to display how super-curriculars can link together to create a strong argumentative personal statement. Inspiration can strike from any super-curricular, be that a podcast you listened to; an academic monograph or a popular history you read; a talk you attended at your school’s history society; etc. A common but effective super-curricular is indeed participation in one’s school history society. What Oxford wants to see is that you find history sufficiently interesting for it to be a hobby as well as a school subject. You should want to interact with history in your free time. Thus, it makes sense you would read books, listen to podcasts, and attend lectures. If you can’t get work experience at a museum, go to one and think about why it has been put together in the way it has. What do the collections of the museum speak to you? What thoughts do they provoke? All these various avenues should cause you to ask questions of history. Pursue those questions; seek their answers. The activities themselves are merely the starting point. It is the curiosity they inspire, and the arguments you develop in response, that Oxford is really interested in. It is this analytical thought that will transform your super-curriculars from a list that screams “look at me – I do things that are related to history – please give me an interview!” to a carefully selected and curated selection of activities that emphasise that you are a historian in the making. Don’t brag that you’ve read 14 books. Discuss only a few and how they led you to ask specific questions, which you then pursued through further reading. Don’t say “I’ve listened to every episode of the Rest is History!”. Instead, declare “After listening to the Rest is History series on the fall of the Aztecs, I decided to read Camilla Townsend’s Fifth Sun, as I became determined to see the Spanish Conquest from the Aztec perspective. This made me doubt the traditional narrative because...”. Again, I must emphasise, this is just an example which you should only consider if you have listened to those episodes, read Townsend’s book, and indeed drawn those conclusions.

Conclusion

Your super-curriculars should demonstrate not simply that you enjoy history beyond the classroom, but that engaging with history causes you to ask questions, pursue evidence and develop arguments of your own.

Don't read ten books on ten different things. Read two or three opposing arguments on the same topic and then impose your thoughts on the issue under debate. Explain those thoughts and you have yourself an argumentative, and thus strong, super-curricular-supported personal statement.