AIBU to worry Business Studies GCSE may affect future university choices?

Lots of schools do a gcse half course in R/S - that is not unusual

I'm still waiting with interest (genuinely) to find out which courses at which universities will not accept which GCSEs @Sashya

Or – light breaks – was your DC also at the private school that offered courses that were not GCSEs but that the school implied or claimed were? And it was these fake GCSEs that were rejected by unis?

If that's the case @Y9Options has nothing to worry about. Until someone posts a link I will continue to be deeply sceptical and suggest that business GCSE is fine. As is PE.

But that’s not true to say most academic schools don’t offer it. Kings Boys, Wimbledon Girls, G&L, Alleyns, Dulwich, to name a few, I could name many more, etc all offer it.

All the private schools do 11 GCSE’s, of course kids will choose some non-academic ones, they’ll have to as there aren’t enough traditionally academic ones to fill their timetable (had this problem with DS who is very academic but not arty, sporty, musically-gifted).

Those “popular” subjects you mention mostly are compulsory ones. They will all still have to choose other subjects such as art, drama, PE, DT, music etc to fill their timetable.

Plus GCSE PE is actually quite academic with something like 2/3 of the syllabus being biology.

No apparently they did half GCSEs etc at their school. The school should have been very transparent about this.

Oh crikey @Sashya Just because some schools don’t offer certain subjects does not mean Universities don’t accept them. They do. @Y9Options please ignore the nonsense spouted about the subjects you’ve listed not being acceptable. They absolutely are.

@jsku are you talking about other level 2 qualifications like BTECs, city & guilds, LIBF Finance certificates, music/LAMDA type things? They have GCSE equivalency.

Exactly.

For starters, pretty much all YP take maths, English and sciences so it's a bit much to claim that these are "popular" – we are talking about GCSEs here, not A levels.

So you are talking about history and languages. OK well DS2 took Spanish and history – and PE. I really hate the snobbishness about PE GCSE.

Tbh I don’t really care if Westminster offers PE GCSE or not. It’s not the only school in the world and it doesn’t have some kind of exclusive right over any university. YP with PE GCSE get into RG unis, from schools across the country, state and private.

You’re making the classic mistake of assuming the fact that they don’t offer it must mean that top unis don’t accept it. That’s wrong. It’s not a subject that it’s client group are demanding that’s all - they tend offer a much wider range of other subjects instead - far more languages than most other schools could offer for example. If Ox and Cam are happy with BS and PE for GCSE, which they are, it’s a bit stupid to say unis don’t take them.

I know Critical Thinking isn’t well regarded at AL, but god I wish it was compulsory for everyone! So little of it these days….

Yeah @jsku I agree with @titchy that's nothing to do with the system putting in unnecessary barriers. If a school pretended things were GCSEs when they were not then that's on the school.

Maybe you are not thinking of Westminster? Latymer Upper? St.Pauls?

Most "academic" selective private secondaries have no reason to offer PE as GSCE option. Those kids do sports - is really important to them.
But that is not the same as wanting to study PE as a subject.

Most of those kids aim for traditionally academic subjects and apply to highly selective universities. PE is not one of the most popular subjects. Maths, Sciences, English, History, Languages - are the most popular subjects.

And those subjects give the most choices when applying to Unis.
It's how the system works.

@MyOtherProfile DD3 did GCSE PE and yes there’s a fair bit of theory, anatomy & physiology etc - plus (obviously) the practical sports. She mostly enjoyed it at GCSE and got a very high grade but as she’s not very keen on biology she didn’t take it to A level. Too sciencey for her!

That’s not the system putting up barriers, that’s the school making false claims about the exams their students do.

I vaguely remember reading about it on MN actually - wasn’t the largely held view that the school had acted fraudulently?

Edit to add: Given that the unis presumably didn’t accept these ‘notes from the teachers’ as GCSEs I’d say that demonstrated that the system of uni admissions is indeed robust, clear and transparent

My DS loved PE GCSE and took PE A level. In fact he refused to consider any of the sixth forms we looked at that did not offer it.

He is a biologist tho as well as loving his sport so maybe that's why. I agree lads who think they will just be doing GCSE in playing footy get a bit of a shock.

Well - it only affected a small number of students and only at the very top choices.

Complaining at the time after UCAS applications were in was not going to change outcome.

And no - the school runs their own school directed versions of GCSEs like Computer Science, and several others, that exist as regular GCSEs in normal boards.

Granted - it only affected a few kids, and we all felt bad for them. But water under the bridge and all kids are in Uni now and I am sure will do great wherever they are.

Maybe I am scared by the experience of watching drama unfold last year - so offering words of caution that is not helpful.
Feels bad when kids work hard and then system puts in unnecessary barriers

I can’t think of a London private school that doesn’t offer PE as a GCSE subject. These schools are highly sports focused with amazing sports facilities and kids on sports scholarship who have chosen to go there because of their love of sports.

They all offer PE GCSE and it’s one of the most popular GCSE’s for private school kids.

PE is not what a lot of kids expect. I haven't known anyone actually enjoy it as a subject as it's often sporty kids who choose it but there's so much more theory than practice in it.

I just googled school-directed subjects and it seems they are things like Global Challenges and Creative Technology, assessed through presentations and portfolios. Did the schools tell parents these were actual GCSEs? Did they count them in their GCSE success stories and produce GCSE certificates listing them? That's a bit naughty.

(AI says they are recognised by universities btw but it may be lying. It's lied a lot to me lately).

OP - speak to a careers advisor or the relevant university. There is some well meaning but ill informed advise being given on the this thread

i say this as someone who studied economics and did business studies GCSE😊

I think mfl is slightly different to the ever evolving subject that is computer science.

It certsinly sounds fishy. How would you fit 13 GCSE subjects in the curriculum anyway?

Universities don’t care much about GCSEs so long as they have the maths, English and sciences. Dd did business studies and got uni offers for biological sciences from Bristol, Exeter, Cardiff, Royal Holloway and Reading. She’s chosen Reading because it has the course she wants that matches her interests and opportunities the others don’t offer. Her interests are a bit niche.

I remember mn telling me dd wouldn’t cope at ALevel biology with “only” a 7 at GCSE - she was 3 marks off an A* in her mocks last week. What I’m saying is, mn don’t necessarily know but I’m sharing my experience and business didn’t hold dd back (she did get a 5 in business and was truly shit at it because she has a science brain and not a business one 🤣)

your ds will need maths and maybe further maths, with good grades they really won’t care that he did business studies.

So the school pulled the wool over your eyes and told you they were taking GCSE Knitting but they weren’t and just got a school certificate? That’s outrageous behaviour from the school. I hope you complained.

So which unis? Which subjects? All STEM subjects? Please link as others have said. If this information is not on the website, even in the style "we prefer" or "most students have…" then that is not really fair of the unis.

And what do you mean by Schools that London private school kids would be applying to from schools don't offer PE as a GCSE option? That private schools don't offer PE GCSE? So what?

Pretty sure there is no uni in the UK that doesn't accept pupils from state schools – who may have been offered PE GCSE and done it?

And yes @jsku what are these "school-directed" GCSE subjects? Genuinely interested in all this. Unless they were things like general studies or critical thinking, which are often specified on uni websites as unacceptable A levels – but I haven't heard of a school offering them for many years anyway.

No - my DC were at one of the top academic private schools in the UK and took what they (and all of the parents) believed were actual proper GSCEs. But they were "school-directed" which we did not know didn't count for UCAS.