A level Business, Media Studies & Sociokogy/Psychology

Although it was a very long time ago, I did media, English lang, sociology and psychology at A level and loved all subjects. They were new to me, I thrived writing essays and developing critical thinking and loved moving away from 'school' subjects. My degree was in law and politics. I've had a great career in journalism and communications and would encourage anyone to take this kind of combination of they want to keep their options open career-wise.

Yes OP , it's fairly typical for psychology to have slightly higher entry requirements (because STEM piggy grumbles darkly to herself..)

Many state comps only require 4s in English for most social science and hums subjects. At my school I managed to demand a 4 for maths as well.

@kimlek my ds is in year 12 doing Sociology and Business (plus Criminology) and he needed grade 6 in English for Sociology and in English and Maths for Business. I can't tell you too much about the courses as my ds is a bare minimum/leave it till year 13 type 😱He has said that Business is easy though and he likes debating so Sociology seems to suit him. His GCSE results were split between 6s and 7s, with one 8 (in Business).

My dd did Psychology A Level (with History and RS) and said it was the easiest out of the three. Lots to learn, but the Maths was very basic. She's doing the degree now and it seems that that is harder!

@kimlek I think it comes down to what you enjoy, on what’s harder. I loved sociology, and then did it at uni, so yes it was hard but enjoyable hard? If she likes a good debate, learning about society, and forming arguments, she’ll be ok. I’d say it’s pretty similar to history in skill set, but depends which she vibes with more. Sociology feels more current, though there’s lots of history and old theorists within in, so there’s crossover there. History and sociology complement each other

Those results are very high!

I'm sure psychology wouldn't be so keen to be branded a science if sociology were better respected, and if we weren't so stem obsessed at the moment. The OU psychology degree begins with a very broad social sciences module, not a whiff of maths or biology.

It's really odd this idea that people have that sociology is somehow new fangled!Maybe because it's tied up in ideas about 'wokery' ? But, yes, it's a proper, longstanding academic subject. Perhaps when it was more the domain if dead, white males it was taken more seriously...

Some sociologists argue that all other social sciences, including human geography and social history are subsets of sociology. It's the 'father' subject. Imagine if it had been listed as a 'facilitating' subject how differently it would be viewed....

Btw I looked up the experimental psychology degree at Oxford, so this is the most sciencey bit of psychology - maths A level is not required and they recommend 7+ at GCSE. So I'm sure 6/7 in maths will be fine for the A level.

It’s hard to gauge how mathsy psychol will be. I do know it’s a proper science and well respected. DC is interested in psychology but probably not the bio related aspects. Not very science oriented and struggles at all 3 - probs 6’s maybe a 5.

A couple of thoughts about psychology as DD is halfway through the A level and I am halfway through an OU degree.

I know psychology likes to think of itself as a science but at A level at least it doesn't really feel that way. You should have a look at the spec for your board, but in DD's course there is very little biology so don't worry about that, just some basic brain anatomy and a bit about the nervous system. Nothing like the detail and difficulty of A level biology or even GCSE.

The maths is easy and 6/7 at GCSE should be fine. It's mostly about understanding data, so mean/median/mode, interpreting various representations of data like bar charts, pie charts, scatter graphs, choosing which would be appropriate and why etc. There are various statistical tests but in DD's course it's more about understanding them and being able to write about what they mean than about doing complicated calculations. (They do have to work out standard deviation but it's not difficult.) Again nowhere near as hard as Y12 maths and because it's quite a small and specialised bit of maths, they can really practise and get good at the few things they might be asked.

But have a look, as the specs might be quite different - you could also have a look at some past papers to see how many of the marks are for mathsy questions.

Overall DD is really enjoying it - like many she finds the research methods bit quite dull but it's not hard. For her the hard thing is that there's a lot to learn (according to her, but I'm sure not as much as sociology!) and there are quite a few studies and references. But she finds the studies themselves really interesting and is glad she chose psychology.

Feel free to PM me if you want more detail on the biology and maths content.

Sociology is harder than history. Which noone expects because of the image of sociology as some sort of easy made up
subject, and history as ’proper’ academic. Sociology has more dates and theorists and arguments to remember, and more having to make your own good, critical arguments too.
Psychology has more maths than many expect too (so does sociology but mainly at degree level, if you do a BSc, which I did)

But sociology can sit well alongside media at forming a critical view of looking at things around you.

How do they do at writing and forming arguments?

Yes,I saw one that accepted media as an 'art' replacement subject. She will need to look at the different emphases of courses.

On the subject of theory, my colleague and I may be over enthusiastic, but we counted the number of studies students could do with knowing for sociology and came up with over 100!!

Interestingly , I looked the fashion marketing course up on the Uni Guide. Rarely mentioned on MN, this is a great resource as it tells you about entry statistics, including what A Levels entrants typically did, which is what you would like to know.

The answer: Business, psychology and sociology!
Here is the info

Don’t get me wrong, Media is a good course - for people who understand what it is and isn’t. Similar to Sociology, there is a lot of content. I can’t remember, but around 30 theorists to grasp and you need to apply them to both studied and unseen material to unlock the high grades. Loads of set texts. The practical work is very much meant to demonstrate your academic understanding of the subject through practical application, and that’s how it is marked. I do also think that students going into it should be made more aware that high grades are very hard to come by compared to other subjects.

@ssmooththecat will have a better idea of the dryness , to be fair! That's just what I hear from people who have jettisoned media in their school.

Well they all have some relevance to what she wants to do as a career (and my dd did very similar A levels and is in that career!)

This fashion branding course

is the one three of my students have gone on to by the way.

Just to pick up on a PP's point...media has coursework. Does she like that possibility?It's good to blend if possible coursework and exam subjects.

Just asked DS what he thought were his hardest /most intensive subjects:

sociology - huge amounts of content
economics - hardest conceptually
history- most pedantic about how to answer 'correctly'.

If potentially Comms in future , maybe English would be useful at A level. Psychology and Economics, and to a lesser extent Business will require an understanding of statistics.

I also have one heading for fashion design and branding.

Is graphics or fashion not an option?