Help DD's option choices have to be in tomorrow and getting nowhere fast

As a teacher:

Pysch is useless at GCSE and will not be needed to do the A Level.
Art is generally considered 'soft' by universities.

A language is a must, especially if she is likely to do well.

Either history or geography seems like the most sensible choice from those options, and are well regarded by unis. History if she is going for a more 'arts' based subject that involves lots of essay writing. Geography if she is going for a more 'science' based subject.

I don't know. He probably would but his interest is zilch atm! he does understand the issue but he has given up engineering which would take up 2 GCSEs in favour of 2 more trad subjects (geog and history) so i feel he should be allowed some leeway. Ooohh I don't know.

Going to school on Thursday to talk about it all.

Would he get a C in German? And could he work at it to pull his grades up? I'm of the view that for engineering, and for life in general, German is more practical than music.

Equally for engineering RM over art IMO.

Ok. What about this lot. Advice please as we are going round and round with it atm.

maths
english
sciences (hopefully 3 seperate ones but we won't know as yet)
history
geography
german or music (DS doesn't really want to do german and his levels aren't that good, music much better)
art or resistant materials.

For engineering. He has decided against engineering at GCSE as it narrowed things down too much.

Agree with TheSecondcoming.
Geography a better option than Artt, together with music. Goes well with the sciences too.

Art is a subject that can be easily picked up later on if that's where the interest lies.

DD flits between music and science career choices (in music mode currently). She will be choosing Music, French and Geography along with triple science.

You won't need psychology to do it at A level but you might need art if you want to carry on with that.

However, I would advise her to do either History or Geography and get the EngBacc. You never know by the time she gets to do any university applications, it may well be a pre-requisite.

Hi wangle, I think your DDs final choices look excellent and will leave doors open.

As a general point, I am an accountant and would say that there in absolutely no need or purpose to studying A level accountancy if you want to be an accountant. However, the double entry bookkeeping I learnt in O'level principles of accounts has stood me in good stead for the last 20 years.

Excellent choices, wangle, hope she enjoys them.

I think a lot of people don't, Wangle! Psychology isn't a vocational degree in the same way as medicine or dentistry or nursing. In those cases the government works with the NHS on setting numbers to be trained so that they bear some relationship to the jobs available when students graduate (I think). Psychology is more like law or accountancy. The first degree gives you a good basic grounding in the subject, but if you want to practise, you need a lot more training in your chosen specialism and there are far more psychology graduates than there are jobs requiring a psychology degree.

The majority of psychology graduates end up in jobs that are not directly linked to their degree studies. This is fine, but it's not necessarily what a lot of them were expecting when they chose the degree subject all those years ago.

I suspect if you do Psychology GCSE you'd find yourself repeating a lot of stuff at A level as most people wouldn't have done GCSE. If you then did Psychology at university you'd probably repeat quite a lot again. Same for accountancy.

Re Art - surely you need Art A level to get onto a foundation year?

Wangle, I would say that if your daughter is seriously interested in psychology as a career, she should invest a bit of time looking at the BPS website and getting straight in her mind what options are available at postgrad level. If she's thinking of clinical psychology she should be aware as early as possible that this is super-competitive. Some universities get over 1000 applications a year for not much more than 20 places per institution. There is no point in applying with less than a 2.1 unless you have a lot of other things going for you, and many applicants have an MSc and sometimes a Ph.D. as well. It's also necessary to have some relevant work experience (paid work - voluntary work would not be enough).

If you can get onto the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, you get a salary from the NHS during the three years of the programme, and an excellent chance of a good job when you finish, but getting to that point can take several years during which people usually subsist by taking fairly low-paid jobs, often on 1-year contracts, to get the experience. It's usual to do an MSc on the way too, which of course adds to the debt.

Sorry to sound discouraging, but I deal professionally with a lot of aspiring clinical psychologists and it always amazes me how many of them have got all the way to their final year of undergrad without finding this stuff out!

thanks senua and sorry wangle not to come up with any advice for your dd as we're in a similar position

the problem is he doesn't know what he enjoys more - although I think we've narrowed it down to between Latin and ICT

Sorry - first line should say 'with an eye on'!

Although you're making GCSE choices, you have to do this with an on A-levels, and there are some A-levels she won't be able to do unless she has done them at GCSE, such as a language.

The top universities have just confirmed what many of us have always suspected - that they view certain subjects as 'soft', and therefore if anyone applies to university with some/any of these, they are less likely to be offered a place.

From memory, the key subjects that they are interested in are:

maths
sciences
English Literature
history
a language

On that basis, I would definitely advise your DD to include French.

Don't do psychology. It's seen as a soft subject at A-level, and you can go to university to study it without having studied it at school.

IB is equivalent to A-levels. Students take 6 subjects, typically 3 at Standard level and 3 at Higher. There are 6 groups and students take a subject from each group. Group 1 and 2 are languages, group 3 is essentially humanities/social science, group 4 is experiemental science, group 5 is maths/computer science and group 6 is arts but the arts subject can be replaced by a group 1-5 subject allowing people to take a 3rd language or second science. It is worth, if your DD is going to be doing that, considering the impact that will have on your GCSE choices as it is much broader than A-levels and requires a very solid foundation in a range of skills.

EB is the standard abbreviation for the European Bacc, probably not relevant to you.

EngBacc as has been explained is the new measure introduced at GCSE level in England covering the 'core' subjects.

Accountancy is a complete waste of an A level. Music on the other hand is highly regarded as a very academic subject chide at both GCSE and A level.

I think history.

EB and EBacc are really bad abbreviations, IMO, as the European Baccalaureate is also abbreviated to EB or European Bacc. The European Baccalaureate has been in existence for about 50 years and is a well-recognised school leaving qualification that British universities know well.

IB is a proper qualification, at sixth form level.
EB (at GCSE level) is not an actual qualification. The Govt league tables assess schools on how their kids perform. It used to be '5 GCSE at grades A-C'. It then became '5 GCSE at grades A-C, and two of those 5 subjects are Eng and Maths'. Their lastest benchmark is 'at grade A*-C we want Eng, Maths, double science, a MFL and either Hist or Geog'. This is rather a large column-header for the tables so they have abbreviated it to 'EBacc'!

wangle If your DD doesn't know what to do, then chose options which keep doors open for as long as possible. The EBacc does this - the subjects needed are listed here.

Does she have to do the Music GCSE as part of normal timetabling? Is there any chance of doing this as a twilight subject, thus freeing up another choice?
French is good: it ticks one of the EBacc boxes.
It would be nice if she could do History or Geography.
Again, does she have to do an Art GCSE? Can she keep her interest via an out-of-school club and come back to the subject in the sixth form.
I agree that Psychology is not a good idea at GCSE. Save it for sixthform, if that. You do not need psychology A Level for a psychology degree; a few Uni stipulate a science A Level. Horse's mouth here

basildon Your first ten choices look good - cover all the bases, as you say. I think the last choice doesn't really matter, he can choose it for whatever reason appeals to him. Latin has kudos; ICT is a bit meh but everyone has an ICT qualification these days so it might look strange if he hasn't got one; don't know about Art Graphics but does it mean a lot of work (art subjects seem to take up a lot of time).
If he is thinking of applying for a popular course in years to come, then choose the subject that he is going to get the best grade in!

IB she needs to do a humanity at GCSE to prepare for the compulsory group 3 although she can choose psychology there. Psychology GCSE however, is pointless IMO. Why can't she fit in history?

You say her school does IB so what will her choices be there?

I'm assuming English A1, French B, Maths (HL for psychology?), Biology? Then possibly psychology group 3?

Does she have to continue music to IB diploma level? If so that takes up her group 6 choice. What is she looking at doing at Higher level and what at Standard?

As an aside, I wouldn't recommend anyone taking A level art if they ultimately want to do a fine art/graphics/fashion/other creative subject degree.

Foundation courses are required for degree course entry in these subjects, and the student who is accepted on their A level portfolio alone is a rare exception.

Of course, things might have changed since my day now that the local tech can call itself a university.

eh, she wanted to History but cant fit it in, but it is on the list of options she can chose from?

Totally confused now OP!