Advice please about dd's A level choices. (She's asked me to ask you- I'm not being helicoptery)

Hmmm, is there no way the school can timetable them? It sounds like she is academically very capable of doing all 4, and if she is enjoying them all it does seem a shame to drop one.

As others have said, drama schools don't require specific A Levels, so from that point of view she could drop Theatre Studies. However, it sounds like she's really loving it, and so I suspect she would be very unwilling to drop that one. Also, having studied it for AS there is a fairly good chance she would be asked in drama school interviews why she hadn't carried it on to A2. But ultimately they would neither accept nor refuse her based on Theatre Studies A Level - it is all about the audition and interview for drama school.

I'm wondering if there would be any mileage in her continuing one of the subjects outside of school? Either by paying a tutor, or finishing the A Level by correspondence? Obviously it would be less convenient, but I would have thought she'd be able to do most of the work for it at school during her free periods.

I could sob at all this by the way.

DD's ideas of university are fading slowly as she just wants to bloody go and join the army at 18 and it is too bloody close for comfort. She is very serious about it, is camping at Pen y Fan this week in some armed forces camp. I just want her to go back to being a third of my height wearing knee high socks. It was a lot easier then.

That's a real shame that they cannot timetable all 4 subjects - she sounds as if she is very able indeed and would be able to cope. Could you try and push for that? I don't know how useful that would be but it would be great if she could do all the subjects.

If she has to drop one, I would say English, History and TS would be the best combination, but if she really loves philosophy and doesn't like English, well I would go for that. The work is very hard, I think it is so important that she is passionate about all her subjects.

She is going to get As in all 3 which is marvellous, and also you say she has a lot of theatre experience, and I expect she has loads of other extra curricular stuff on her CV (she rides horses as well doesn't she). In any case she has a load of things going on for her, I am sure that she will have a good chance of being accepted with her brilliant grades and everything else. You must be very proud indeed.

Oh and for the record, it doesn't matter if Her A level drama group is shite- people in the same group can get A's and U's- but to get the A you have to work with others.

Right, the reality is that none of those subjects are 'bad' 'soft' or 'limiting'.

They show a range of skills and are complementary without being too similar.

She must do what she wants to do the most.

But for the love of God DON'T tell her she can do Drama in an extracurricular fashion- it's just bollocks. Joining the local am dram is not a substitute for A level drama.

If I regretted not taking (for example) History or English at A Level I could sit them in June in any given year via a distance learning course. A Level drama requires a group to work with- she won't get this opportunity again once she leaves school.

Philosophy wasnt counted as a weighty a level when i studied it 5 yrs ago x

Blimey that was either bad typing or terrible autocorrect skills from the iPad. Don't think not Dot honk

The history A level syllabus I did covered a gigantic range. Medieval right through to WW2. Both UK and European. But, you didn't cover the full range as a student, it was divided up into chunks, and you covered a chunk. So, at my school, one group did c1800-c1914 (ish) in both the UK and European paper, the other group (mine) did the English civil war and its run up (basically, elements of the reign of Elizabeth (mainly how she dealt with parliament)) and C17th Europe. And even within that, you could pick and choose your countries and still be able to tackle enough questions - I remember I was the only one in my group who opted to revise and plan to answer questions on the 30 years war and to give Spain and Russia body swerves, while all the others wimped out of the 30YW and embraced Spain and Russia with open arms.

I do t honk any of my theatre friends use their history qualifications at all in their professional or artistic lives. But I'm fairly sure that they are more interesting people because they know interesting stuff.

Yep, and Black Death, Feudal system, Industrial Revolution, Education, etc... Really interesting material, delivered in deathly dull style.

There's not a huge amount of variation in the style though Evil. The current specifications are narrow.

I'm pretty impressed at 639 years of History in five terms though - all credit! Though you do say British Social & Economic so I'm guessing wool trade and canals etc?

A very long time ago . Presumably there's still more than one syllabus though? My 6th form did two, even back then.

When did you sit your A Level Evil?

Yellow - my A Level History covered 1300-1939.... British Social & Economic.

I agree with those who say she should drop her least favourite subject.

She might be able to think of it as year 13 is really only two terms - and doing something she's less keen on but still really good at - is good practice for all the bits of whatever course (and career) she does that she's also 'less keen' on.

Save philosophy for late night coffee/alcohol-fuelled rants once she's at Uni!

My own view is drop Philosophy partly because of random marking and partly because English Lit bolsters Theatre Studies in a more robust and obvious way than Philosophy does.

I was having a bit more of a think and I'm swaying more towards 'drop philosophy' too. The course she's set on sounds like it might be highly competitive and I would imagine that if there's a chance she might have to look at a more straight theatre/drama/directing degree, then English would look better than philosophy.

I have a friend who's worked as a professional director, and has a directing degree from a good university, who has no A levels and got in via a theatre makeup/beauty therapy type NVQ (and lots and lots of amateur/semi pro experience). She now works in directing, event mgmt and design. There are lots of ways in.

I'm thinking she will need a 'safe' option for UCAS, though, which is much harder to judge for a 'vocational/creative' degree (they either like you or they don't) than for an academic one (go with one with lower grade criteria).

Pictures I don't think that A level History, given the narrow specifications, will be of particular use in 'understanding the historical periods plays may be set in'. Of course she might get lucky in the unlikely event that a play is set in Vietnam or Korea for example, or the NE during the 80's (Billy Elliot type of thing). But there's no grand sweep with A level History. I'd advise her to keep on History simply because it's a real alternative option.

Clearly the main problem here is that English is the one subject of most use both for History and for the Central course yet it's the one she likes least. But the marking of Philosophy can be very, very random and that's a real concern. History, English and Theatre Studies would be fine for History and fine for the Central course too.

Drop Philosophy.

It sounds like a great course, seeker. I sort of agree with BOF - I would completely agree with her if it wasn't for the fact that all the people I know working in the theatre at the moment who I knew before they were working in the theatre (ok it's only 5 but, you know... Obviously I know some of their friends too now) have history degrees. Most of the people they know did more vocational courses though and that's certainly what DD1 is thinking about.

I totally agree though that a degree related to they area if work where she will build contacts is far more useful than a general academic subject one.

I know I'm biased as dh teaches on theatre related degree courses but its true.

I don't think she "needs" theatre studies to get into that course as long as she has sufficient experience gained elsewhere. Dd aspires to a career in theatre but will be going to a school that doesn't even offer theatre studies a level.

I Would imagine that quite a few applicants would have art or design a levels though.

History is always useful. It means she will understand the historical periods plays may be set in. I also think English is a good a level blow ever I guess it's whatever she enjoys and wants to do.

Then as she's obviously going to achieve highly in whatever she does, she has lots of doors potentially still open for her. Good plan to speak to admissions tutors for the relevant colleges - she might be able to find time with the dropped 4th A level to build up some portfolio ideas to plug the gaps for her lack of creative/technical subjects. Did she do any of them for GCSE?

(How on earth can one make sensible A level or even GCSE choices if you don't know what you want to do? Ds (ok, only yr 7), swings between science and illustration/writing as career choices all the time - how on earth is he going to decide whether to do triple science or art vs graphics?)

Is English just her least favourite or also her weakest potential result?

I'd be inclined to keep TS and History (in case she changes her mind back to History) and then:

1. Ask if she can be put in for the Phil exams but maybe study in her own time/twilight, to keep all 4, or

2. Drop whichever is likely to be her weaker grade out of E and P.

I agree with pp that a degree with a specific career in mind is probably a safer choice at the moment than a general academic one...she can more likely reuse a Theatre degree to go into teaching or many other things than she can get into theatre with a history degree.