Eva's Story

At just 18, Eva’s CV is already impressive: she’s a member of the Youth Parliament for Liverpool; she’s spoken in parliament and received a standing ovation; she’s campaigned against street harassment and championed girls’ rights in the UK; and, as if that weren’t enough, she’s just been accepted at Cambridge University.

Back in 2018, Eva travelled from her hometown of Liverpool to Villiers Park in Foxton, where she joined our residential course in English Literature.

“I’m very interested in literary theory, so doing Marxism or Feminism at 9 in the morning really appealed to me!” laughs Eva. “It was just like university. We had our own rooms, which were lovely. It was a little retreat!”

Passionate about politics, Eva was still unsure about what she wanted to study at university, but the course helped cement her love of English. She mentioned the experience both in her personal statement and at interview for Kings College, Cambridge.

“I was never certain about going to Cambridge University, but when I was at Villiers Park I visited it for the first time. I didn’t know what colleges were and how it all worked. I remember seeing Kings College and thinking, ‘Woah, look at that!’”

In a recent report, Plan International UK ??" the children’s rights charity of which Eva is a young ambassador ??" named Liverpool as one of the toughest places to grow up as a girl.

“If you’re from Liverpool that comes with a lot of prejudice from people, particularly when you go down south,” says Eva. "Applying for Oxbridge makes you realise you’re not the stereotypical applicant.”

She and her friend Nadia, who she met at Villiers Park, have both received offers to study at Cambridge: Eva at Kings College, Nadia at St Catherine’s. The colleges are next door to each other!

“I can’t get my head round it! It seems so far outside anything that I could have dreamed of, especially getting into Kings College. It’s on of the most competitive to get in to, but I did apply and I made it!”

Extra info:

Eva is a member of the Youth Parliament for Liverpool. Her campaign to stop street harassment, inspired by her own personal and upsetting experience, received national media attention. She talked about it on the This Morning sofa with Eammon and Ruth:

“It was fantastic! I got my first choice on the motion to prevent hate crime. I was able to call out Boris Johnson’s comments about letter boxes [a reference to Muslim women in burqa). I got a standing ovation!”

Eva is also a youth ambassador for Plan International UK

At college, Eva was Student President and successfully campaigned for free sanitary products in the toilets.

She was elected as debate lead for the North West which led to doing a three-minute speech at the Government Dispatch Box, chaired by the brand new speaker of the house Lindsay Hoyle. Watch it below: