A level Business, Media Studies & Sociokogy/Psychology

@kimlek
I mean lightweight. Often recruiters are looking for academic performance, evidence you can write well, interpret sources, put forward arguments. The content of the course is secondary as it's mostly irrelevant to a workplace anyway.

As a hiring manager I would prefer a more academic subject than media which is seen as "easy."

For reference, I am a Marketing Director and I have a first class honours degree in history and a masters in history.

Some jobs do ask for A level subjects. Depends what you want to do. However in a business trainee type role, many firms would prefer work experience over having three A levels on the Cambridge preferred list.

My dd exactly the same. Got mostly 9s at GCSE. Doing Psychology, Business, and Media at college. Just starting her second year. She's very happy and enjoys the subjects. Wants a career in marketing/media

@kimlek The reference to “light” is because two of the subjects, Business and Media, are on the Cambridge list of “less helpful” A levels for studying there. Sociology doesn’t appear on the “best” A levels to take list either. It’s in a wilderness! However, please remember, your DC is not aiming for Cambridge or similar uni. So what these unis might think is irrelevant.

If he wants a marketing degree, it won’t matter. These degrees are not expecting very high grades in Maths, French and History (heavier subjects). For what he wants, get the grades in what interests him. Getting DDD ( not saying he would) does limit options. So looking at a decent combo for the degree he wants is perfectly valid.

My DS is applying for graduate jobs. He hasn't had to put in the subjects most times, just grades. The only time he has was for a TA job!

I work in this area

Business/Marketing/Digital marketing

I would say English Lit would be a better option over media studies which would be seen as more lightweight.

Many of the marketers I know did humanities degrees

@Piggywaspushed that's great to hear. Unlike my DD who has always had a passion for English Lit and new she wanted to do this at Uni, DS struggled to choose his A levels so hopefully his 3 options will work well for him. I will add that DD actually found the sociology and psychology complimented the english and helped give her insight into some of the texts.

Geography and sociology is one of the best combinations!

DD is going into Y13 so has done first Yr of A levels in Psych Soc and Geo. Geo was the only one she did at GCSE and got an 8 for.

Psych and Soc were new to her and Psych had more stretching entry reqs - 7 in Bio, 6 in Maths & English against Soc which was just 6 in English. It was definitely viewed as a “lesser” subject in DDs school which I think is insane and she is slowly realising is too! nice overlaps with Soc and Human Geo and also research methods for Soc & Psych which makes things a bit easier revision wise and also gives a certain breadth you’d not get easily otherwise. Also there is overlap at DDs school with a couple of teachers in Soc & Psych which we are finding works well too.

She is very pleased with her A level choices - having swapped Art for Soc at the very last minute.

My DD just completed her A levels Eng Lit, Sociology and Psychology. She plans to study Eng lit at uni but really enjoyed Sociology and Psychology which were new to her at A level. From what she said Sociology is heavy on the content, slightly more so than psychology but that's pretty heavy too. My DS will be starting college in September and has chosen Business, Geography and Sociology. He went to a taster day and said Sociology was the most enjoyable lesson. Both my DC seem to lean toward the essay based subjects over science - which is ironic as both DH and myself have science degrees.

They are excellent results for every subject considerably above national averages, so am guessing it's a high achieving school?

If those results are better than other similar ish subjects in the school ( eg Lang Lit, politics, history) they are obviously really strong departments and/ or attract very able students.

Re Psychology are they sure about those results - 2019 only 17% of students got an A or above!

Fwiw my dc did Psychology Biology and Chemistry.
She enjoyed Psychology and said it was easy alongside the other two she also said it wasn’t a proper science and the Biopsych stuff was very much Biology lite. The maths content at A level is really very easy. My elder child also did Paychology alongside Geography and Politics and again found it the easier or the 3.

@kimlek The whole process is computer aided design! Don’t think DD sketches much. She possibly could as she did Art A level but there’s a lot of using computer programs. She’s good at that though. DD works for a small company and has a lot of variety. Plus they definitely have wealthy clients! I would not say she’s ready to run a business but she’s trusted and respected by her employer.

Our skills lay elsewhere too! DD realised fashion was a dead end and retrained for interior design. Instant job and she is respected for what she can do. Early days though. I agree.

@kimlek With a dd who did a fashion course at LCF, (not design) please be aware jobs are very hard to get. Very. So I would strongly suggest she does plain marketing to keep options wide open. It does have a maths component. Fashion is so much who you know, it’s difficult to get anywhere. You are better off having transferable skills. Would she want to work in London post degree?

I teach Business A Level and he definitely doesn’t need the GCSE. Just needs to be aware that it involves quite a lot of essay writing skills, at least that is so with AQA. It is a useful A Level to do though.

Yes, definitely. Not many schools offer the GCSE. In fact, I think A level after GCSE can rehash all the same content. Students also have to learn a whole new way of writing, basically unlearning some GCSE stylistic quirks.