Free Tool
How strong is your super-curricular profile?
UCAS Question 3 asks what you have done to prepare outside of education, and why it was useful. This takes two minutes and tells you honestly how your answer would read.
Start the checkStep 1
What do you want to study?
Step 2
What year are you in?
Step 3
What have you actually done?
Tick only what is genuinely true. The tool is more useful the more honest you are.
Reading beyond the syllabus
Independent work
Structured learning
Experience and exposure
Why depth beats breadth
The most common mistake in super-curricular preparation is treating it as a collection exercise. Applicants assemble a long list of books skimmed, lectures half-watched, and courses started, then discover at interview that they cannot say anything substantial about any of it.
Admissions tutors are explicit about preferring the opposite. One book understood well, argued with, and connected to the rest of your thinking is worth more than ten titles in a list. That is why this checker weights a sustained piece of independent work far above the sum of several one-off activities.
It is also why UCAS Question 3 ends with "and why are these experiences useful". The question is not asking what you did. It is asking what it did to you.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as super-curricular?
Super-curricular activity is work that extends your academic subject beyond the syllabus: reading, independent research, essay competitions, olympiads, relevant online courses, lectures, and subject-related experience. It is distinct from extra-curricular activity such as sport or music, which demonstrates character but not subject depth. UCAS Question 3 asks specifically what you have done to prepare outside of education and why it was useful, which makes super-curricular work the natural answer.
How much super-curricular work is enough for Oxbridge?
There is no threshold, and any site claiming one is guessing. What tutors consistently describe wanting is depth over breadth: an applicant who has read three books carefully and can argue about them outperforms one who lists twelve. For the most competitive courses, sustained independent work such as an EPQ, an extended essay, or a research project is common among successful applicants, though never required.
Is this checker an admissions prediction?
No, and it should not be treated as one. It scores the depth and coherence of the super-curricular profile you describe, nothing more. Admissions decisions depend on grades, admissions tests, interviews, references, and the applicant pool in a given year. No tool, including this one, can predict an outcome.
I am in Year 13 and my score is low. What now?
Focus on articulation rather than accumulation. With limited time, the highest-value move is to take the strongest thing you have already done and go deeper on it: reread it critically, work out what you actually think, and be able to explain why it mattered. A well-understood single book beats a hastily assembled list, and it will survive an interview where the list will not.