Third A level - Sociology or something else?

You will never convince some people that sociology is a proper A level subject / rigorous academic discipline, even though it's taught at Oxbridge and all the other RG universities. Radio 4 has a regular sociology programme.

But no, it's a Mickey Mouse subject taken by thickos

I think she should look at the syllabus of each subject and go from there. As an aside, Dh was monitoring an economics teacher when it was online school (to check their behavior) and he got very into Economics. He said he wished he had done it at A level as it was so relevant.

@Piggywaspushed It was ever thus; the teeny-tiny common room was filled with eccentric postgrads and students who had swapped in from NatSci for Part II. (One of my own A-level physics students followed that route many years later.)

Oh, I see you mentioned that!

I think HPS can only be done postgrad, or as part of natural sciences tripos now.

The particular poster also assumed HSPS is the same degree... so a few misconceptions littered around.

I am really here because someone inadvertently mentioned HPS (History and Philosophy of Science), and I'm shocked to learn it was ever considered a joke subject; Cambridge's HPS department is world-class, and I spent a happy year there, 25 years ago, doing my M.Phil. The tiny department was home to Simon Schaffer, Michael Redhead, Peter Lipton, and Nick Jardine, all giants of the field. Completely different beast from HSPS, though.

I've studied a tiny bit of sociology in one of my degrees, and found it immensely interesting. Who wouldn't want to analyse social structures from an interdisciplinary perspective? Maybe that should be my next project (I'm addicted to taking courses.)

It's a shame that the independent school where I teach doesn't offer it, but we get enough stick for Film Studies (unfairly; it's Eng Lit applied to a different medium, and one which is far more influential today).

And she's from private school.

Wow.

Dd is reading Philosophy at a favoured MN University. She did not get all 9s. She did not do Greek, Maths or a MFL at A level. She got five good offers.

Of course you are an admissions tutor.

Isn't everyone?

According to that website my school offers Greek.

News to me!

None in my county. The one that does is fee paying (just over £15k pa)

One. One in our massive county that isn’t fee paying.

www.arlt.co.uk/resources/schools-that-teach-classics/

I wonder how many state schools offer Greek A level?
Maybe a large 6th form college? Even the local ofsted outstanding and very highly regarded 6th form college doesn't offer Greek. However, they do offer Classic Civilisation.

Massive ROFL @ preferring Greek A level

Because that’s available at normal schools 🙄

Does her school make her do that? Because, honestly, that's a lot of work. Depending on the board and the choices the sociology teacher makes, there is overlapping content between sociology and criminology that might even confuse your DD.

My daughter has decide to do 4 a levels she is going sociology psychology criminology an politics she needs to decide what feels right for her what career is she looking at

I'm struggling to take you seriously @massifcentral when you state that three A levels is insuffcient. I assume that you are an Oxbridge admissions tutor?

@RampantIvy

Do you do university admissions too?
The fact that someone would be put off by a subject because it's harder to get an A would be a very discouraging sign to me.

We admit a lot of students with A-levels in foreign languages from both state and independent schools. For our students it is not hard to get an A or, usually, an A*. That is why they are our students. We don't want to admit people who find A-levels difficult.

In reality, the standards achieved in modern A-levels are depressingly low. Many students with an A* in English struggle to write coherent English prose in essays.

Three A Levels isn't great?? WTAF?!

No one no one needs to do 4 + A levels.

God , it's no wonder my DS's abiding feeling of the Cambridge admissions process is that he was seen as the great unwashed.

@KittyMcKitty

Of course we (admissions is collaborative) are not favouring students from private schools. Quite the opposite!

And if someone goes to an academy in Tower Hamlets with no record of Oxbridge admissions, then we don't give a flying fuck if they've done sociology, art, and psychology for A-level.

If someone goes to a private school, it's different. Three A-levels isn't great. Sociology isn't great. I would look for mostly 9s at GCSE. (I would be very concerned about anything below an 8.) Remember that, all things being equal (which they never are, quite), we would prefer to admit someone from a state school.

I think the flaw in your argument @massifcentral is that due to a lot of native speakers taking MFL at A level it is very hard to get a high grade for those who aren't. Universities have much lower offer grades for MFL as it isn't a particularly competitive subject.

As has been pointed out a few times on this thread, achieving a high grade at sociology is likely to make it easier to get offers from a highly regarded univerity than a lower grade in an MFL.

HSPS applicants last year 1800 , offers 188...

In my opinion, the most useful subject by some way would be a modern language.

Someone who works hard at A-level and spends a significant amount of time either in the country of origin or talking to native speakers will be at a very good level, functionally fluent, by the time they leave school.

One way to assess how valuable a subject is at A-level is to ask how difficult it would be to master the same material in later life. Most educated adults without any education in the subject could get a passing mark in sociology or politics after a few days of study. The same would not be true for Spanish or Chinese (or maths or physics, for that matter). So the cost of not taking Spanish at A-level is much higher than the cost of not taking sociology.

Just checked. HPS an entirely different degree.

What do you think HSPS is?