Cambridge Supercurricular Resources: HE+ and the Subject Lists

Cambridge runs two official supercurricular systems and most applicants find only one. Its per-subject lists organise material by course and then by resource type; HE+, written by Cambridge students and academics, covers 32 subjects and groups them by curiosity rather than by department. Neither is organised like Oxford’s hub, which starts with your age. Cambridge also answers the question everyone asks: reflection beats quantity.

Which Two Systems Does Cambridge Run?

For 2027 entry, both are live and unchanged in structure. The first is easy to miss because it sits inside a page about something else. Cambridge’s “Improve your application” page carries per-subject suggestion lists that run from Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic to Veterinary Medicine, each broken into Books, Journals and articles, Websites, Videos, Podcasts and Extra resources.

The second is a separate site. HE+ describes itself as bringing “supercurricular resources created and written by Cambridge students and academics including challenging activities, engaging videos, reflective questions and much more”, aimed “at school-aged students looking to go beyond the school curriculum”. It covers 32 subjects.

They are connected rather than rival: Cambridge’s own subject entries link out to the matching HE+ page. But nothing on either tells you which to start with, which is the practical question.

Why Cambridge and Oxford Sort Resources Differently

This is the part worth internalising if you are applying to both, because the two universities have chosen genuinely different mental models and a candidate who assumes they match will keep looking for pages that do not exist.

Read across that table and the difference is not cosmetic. Cambridge asks what you want to study; Oxford asks how old you are. Cambridge’s structure assumes a candidate arriving with a course in mind and wanting material for it. Oxford’s assumes someone who might be eleven, and works down from there to a broad area and only then to a course.

Both are defensible and they serve different readers. What matters practically is that a Cambridge applicant looking for Oxford-style “which course does this interest lead to” guidance will not find it in Cambridge’s lists — and an Oxford applicant looking for Cambridge-style per-course reading will not find it in the hub. Our guide to the Oxford Supercurricular Hub sets out that side, including the nine broad areas and the Oxford courses each one feeds.

The HE+ Routes, Which Nobody Else Reproduces

HE+ has a feature the Cambridge lists do not, and it is the most useful thing on the site for an undecided candidate. Alongside its A–Z, it groups subjects under five plain-language questions.

These are worth taking seriously rather than treating as decoration. A candidate who knows they are interested in how societies work, but not whether that is Anthropology, Geography, Law, Politics or Sociology, has a genuine problem that a subject A–Z cannot solve. The routes are a map from an interest to a set of courses — which is exactly the job Oxford’s broad areas do, arrived at from the opposite direction.

The overlaps are informative too. Economics appears under both “how does society work?” and “a passion for numbers”; Geography under that route and the built-environment one. If your interest keeps landing you in the same overlap, that is a signal about joint courses rather than indecision.

Five Criteria Cambridge Publishes for Applicants

All of this material exists to produce evidence of something, and Cambridge publishes what. In your personal statement and at interview you need to show that you:

— “have your own thoughts and opinions, critical thinking and analytical skills”
— “can consider different points of view and arguments”
— “are curious about the world and open to new ideas”
— “feel confident that you’ve picked an area of study that’s right for you”
— “are passionate and enthusiastic about your subject”

Notice that four of the five are about what you do with material rather than how much of it you have consumed. Only the fourth is about the choice itself. A reading list that produces no opinion, no disagreement and no change of mind has failed against four criteria out of five, however long it is. For the Oxford equivalent, our page on what Oxbridge interviewers actually mark sets out Oxford Law’s published criteria and the mark scale behind them.

Inside One Entry: Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic

Descriptions of these lists are common; worked examples are not. Cambridge’s entry for Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is representative, and it shows what depth to expect before you click.

Under Books it names the course’s own introductory reading list, plus two Very Short Introductions — one on the Anglo-Saxon age, one on the Vikings. Under Websites it gives the department’s own site, the matching HE+ page, two ASNC project sites and two period blogs, plus an English Heritage introduction to early medieval British history. Under Videos, the Cambridge ASNC Society’s YouTube channel. Under Podcasts, Radio 4’s In Our Time. And under Extra resources, a pointer to the History and Languages sections of the same page.

Three things follow. The lists are departmental rather than generic — the first book is the course’s own reading list, not a publisher’s bestseller. They are deliberately mixed in format, so a candidate who does not read quickly is not disadvantaged by the recommendation itself. And the Extra resources line does something no reading list normally does: it tells you which other subject entries on the page are worth raiding, which is how a candidate for a joint course finds material for both halves.

That last habit is worth copying whatever your subject. Cambridge’s framing is that you “should explore the subject that you’re interested in beyond what you’ve learnt at school, sixth form or college” — and the neighbouring entries are usually the fastest route out of the syllabus.

How Many Supercurriculars Do You Actually Need?

Cambridge answers this in one sentence, and it is the sentence to hold on to: “When you talk about these activities in your personal statement, your experience of them and your reflections are more important than the number of different activities.”

It also says you may explore as many options as you like, and that some will be more or less relevant depending on the course. There is no target and no threshold. Three things you can argue about beat ten you can only list, and the published criteria above are why.

Cambridge draws one further distinction that guides routinely blur: “Super-curricular is different to extra-curricular.” Supercurricular work extends the subject; extra-curricular work is everything else you do. Sport, music and volunteering are worth doing, but they answer a different question unless they touch the subject directly — which is why Cambridge’s own list includes “volunteer, or get some work experience that’s relevant to your course”.

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Which Activities Count as Supercurricular?

Cambridge lists eight, and the list is broader than reading: books, specialist magazines and journals; subject websites, starting with departmental ones; museums, exhibitions and galleries; films and documentaries; podcasts; seminars and lectures, online or in person; volunteering or relevant work experience; and academic competitions or projects.

Two of those repay attention. Departmental websites are named first among websites, and they are where the reading lists Cambridge points at actually live — the ASNC entry, for instance, sends you to the department’s introductory reading list rather than to a generic recommendation. And academic competitions appear on both universities’ lists; Oxford calls entering one “a good way to demonstrate your supercurricular learning”, and it is one of the few forms of this work that produces a dated, external outcome.

Turning Cambridge Resources Into Interview Answers

The last step is the one neither system covers. Cambridge tells candidates that its interviewers “are interested in how you work out your answers and how you think” — and no amount of reading rehearses that, because reading is silent.

The mechanics of December are fixed: the main interview period runs 7–18 December 2026, most applicants have one or two interviews totalling 35 minutes to an hour, and a winter pool round follows in mid to late January 2027. Somewhere inside that half-hour, something you read in the autumn will come up, and what happens next is a conversation rather than a recitation.

So read for the argument rather than the conclusion, keep one sentence per resource saying what it changed in your view, and get someone to disagree with you about it before December. Our guides to thinking out loud in an Oxbridge interview and running a mock interview at home cover that last part, and Cambridge interview format by college tells you whether your conversation will happen on a screen or in a room.

Frequently Asked Questions