Submitted Written Work
Students applying for certain subjects will be asked to submit examples of their written work in advance of the interviews. If your subject is not listed on this page then you do not need to submit any written work. After you have submitted your application the College will contact you by email with further instructions on how to submit written work. The deadline for submitting written work is typically in early November but this will be confirmed in the mail sent to applicants.
In most cases submitted written work should be essays or pieces of coursework you have produced in the course of your current studies and that has been marked by a teacher. It should not be written specially for your application. More information can be found below and on individual subject pages.
Only those applicants applying for the following subjects need to submit written work:
Anglo Saxon, Norse & Celtic (2 pieces)
Archaeology (1 piece)
Architecture: see https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/architecture
Classics (2 pieces)
Design: see https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/design
English (2 pieces)
History (2 pieces)
History and Modern Languages (2 pieces) *one piece should include a modern language if studied at A-Level or equivalent
History & Politics (2 pieces)
Human, Social & Political Sciences (2 pieces)
Modern & Medieval Languages (2 pieces) *one piece should include a modern language
Music (2 pieces)
Psychological & Behavioural Sciences (2 pieces)
Theology, Religion & Philosophy of Religion (2 pieces)
Further information on individual subjects can be found on the subject-specific pages on this website.
General guidelines for submitting written work
- Written work should normally be written as part of your routine studies at school and marked by a teacher. It can be in the form of complete essays or selected sections of extended projects or coursework. It must not be specifically written for your application. For this reason, we do not give suggested word limits, but please avoid sending entire extended pieces of work and in general written work should not exceed more than 2500 words (unless otherwise stated in the subject-specific requirements).
- Written work should be submitted as scanned copies of the original essays and not re-typed or re-written.
- The work should be representative of your academic writing abilities, so pick work that you are pleased with and that you would be happy discussing.
- The content of your work may be discussed at the interview, so you should choose topics that interest you and which you are prepared to discuss. It is worth keeping a copy of anything you send us so that you can read it again before coming to the interview. You will not be 'tested' on its content, but you should be reasonably familiar with what you have written.
- In most cases you should choose work from subjects related to the subject you are applying for or that is in an affiliated subject. If you do not have written work that relates to the course you are applying for then choose something that best reflects your academic writing abilities rather than writing something specifically for Cambridge.
- Unless stated otherwise, submitted work should be submitted in the English language. If English is not your first language or you have been studying in another language then work can be translated into English (and then verified by your school or a suitable third party).
How to submit written work
Following the UCAS deadline the Murray Edwards admissions team will be in contact to give you more details of how to submit your written work to the College. You will be sent a blank cover sheet that you will need to complete and attach to each piece of work that you submit. You can upload your work via a link that we will send to you following your application remembering please to merge the cover sheet with each piece of work.
You can find the cover sheet and more advice on how to compile and submit written work here.
Deadline: Monday 4 November 2024.
FAQs
Written work allows us to assess your academic writing and get an overview of your writing ability more generally. If you do not submit the requested amount of written work or none at all you will not incur any specific penalties or be disadvantaged, but we will not have this overview of your writing to incorporate in our assessment of your application.
If you are on a gap year then please just submit work that was completed in your last year of schooling.
We would prefer to receive two essays focused on a specific question or text that you have formally studied. However, if you would like to submit a source or unseen literary comparison piece then you must also include the source/texts that are being commented on.