Does your child want to do a "XXXX Studies" A Level?

mumeeee - yes, of course it depends on what a student wants to do next and where they want to study. But a student doing the combination of A Levels this lad did was badly advised to apply for the high flying universities he did and to read English Lit which is a massively oversubscribed subject. TBH, these days three As is not as spectacular as it once was, and given he doesn't even have an A Level in Eng. Lit., I'm not surprised he didn't get offers from the places he applied to.

Students are always advised to have a scale of universities on their UCAS form - so maybe two 'on my best day' universities, two 'realistic' and one 'if it all goes tits up...'

I did Media Studies A-level along with History, English Lit, and Christian Theology. All As along with all As and A*s in my 12 GCSEs. I had a list of extra curricular as long as my arm, head girl, county honours in two sports, and still only got into three of the six universities I applied to.

And this was in 1999, so not the dire situation it is now. I was told later that I shouldn't have done Media Studies - I was very badly advised, and wish I'd done Maths or Biology instead.

It pays to think long and hard about subjects - they do count, and some will always be viewed as lesser subjects.

If his parents had sent him to the right school he wouldnt' have been allowed to make that mistake over A level choice because (a) drama and theatre studies and (b) combined English language and literature would not have been available.

But yes depends where you want to go and what you want to do. Although I suspect peoplw tih AAA in 3 proper A levels who to go Oxbridge and do a lot of drama there might find their acting career easier than drama at some other places.

I'm really fed up with people talking about proper A levels. It depends on what a young person wants to study at university and what they want to do afterwards,DD2 did Btech Performing arts/Musical theartre certificate for A level . She got double Distinction which is equivelent to " A#s and she also Did English A level which she got a C. She did not get to university the first year after finishing college despite having several interviews and auditions. The courses she applied for actually wanted her to have English A level and somesort of Performing Arts A level. She perservered and got a place the next year. She actually wants to do something Drama related and found that she needed a lot of experianxe in acting /dancing to get in. They don't just look at grades. She did several shows and also took extra Dance classes in her unplanned gap year. So if someone wants to do Drama/theatre studies and English lang/litDrama related or crative things then is a good thing to take, By the way DD2 works hard at uni and she has had a lot of essays to do as well as make a film and edited it.

Subjects too similar and he'd applied only to the prestigious universities. Perhaps he should lower his sights a bit.

Sorry , List A2 not List B.

Note though that Religious Studies is on the Trinity College List B - i.e. eminently suitable for those wishing to pursue an Arts degree. It's the other two A Levels that let the boy down by the looks of it. RS A Level is very demanding as far as I know - a friend of mine is Head of RS at the school I used to work in and she teaches philosophy, ethics, feminist theology, etc as part of the A Level course.

main mistake was applying for Eng lit degree with a lit and lang combined A level.
He doesn't say what he achieved at GCSE and this would have been important, not what he achieved at AS or was predicted for A2 - all could be very significant.
Looks as though he could have done with some help on his PS and choice of unis rather than choice of A levels maybe...

I did religious studies a level. I'd say about a third of my a level set went on to Oxbridge, to do degrees including theology, classics, PPE and English.

Religious Studies is not a modern invention and I don't think it is badly regarded by Russell Group universities.

I don't think anyone should put their children off doing it for this reason. It was pretty dull though, the worst of my 4 a levels!

One thing that RS does is teach people how to construct an argument and also how to write acurately and persuasively ,these skills are sadly lacking in many job applicants.most chemical concepts have limited use in life as would quite a lot of geography or maths for that matter.It is not what you learn but how and with how much rigour

Useful list, Gerontius.

Interesting that it appears science A levels are acceptable for Arts applicants - obviously enough, not the other way round.

This ought to be publicised - we badly need both more STEM skillef graduates, and more properly scientifically literate people in all walks of life in this country. Frankly, Religious studies may be 'proper' but its of limited use in the real world.

Just 3 A-Levels isn't going to walk him into a good Uni course these days, & Drama/Theatre Studies was a seriously dumb choice alongside the Eng Lang/Lit.

Anything '___ Studies' wants careful thinking, as does any combo award like Eng Lang/Lit. I think you can have one of these by all means - but not three.

He's not showing much in the way of rigour or breadth with those options, & I can quite see admissions being underwhelmed.

Agree that a good language pass at GCSE is becoming increasingly important.

Thank you gero - that's enlightening.

This list: www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=604

Ok, so what is considered "notaproper" A level then?

My eldest is 11 but I am forward-planning.

Religious studies is a "proper" A level though.

Thanks very much for that. Things are very tough at the moment and I think it will be like that for at least another four years.

My son will be choosing A levels next year and it looks like he is going to go for biology, chemistry, maths and geography or history probably dropping maths after AS...

I read a while back that after 2012 (I think) UCL will not consider anyone for any degree unless they have a language at GCSE.