Thoughts on doing 5 A-level subjects

I don't really see a clear upside to doing 5 but plenty of potential risk.

At this stage, you should have a point of view as to whether you want to do medicine or engineering.

If you want to do engineering, you don’t need biology.

If you want to do medicine or chemical engineering, you don’t need further mathematics.

The vast majority of universities make offers on 3 A-levels. Go to UCAS and look at their requirements.

I did five, including further maths.

Again over a decade ago. Workload wasn’t a problem - STEM subjects don’t have the same time requirement that essay subjects had.

I didn’t have A* to aim for in my day, but I’d say most of my further maths class would have got over 90% in most subjects. This was at a shitty northern sixth form.

But, and it’s a big but, you have to be confident you are at a standard where you work fast and hard, and can aim for top marks in everything.

It’s an amazing grounding, and certainly is a massive boost to University applications, but if you might struggle, then start off with a more manageable workload. For four years running, the only people to get into Oxbridge from by sixth form did five subjects.

Also my engineering course was fine with me not having Further Maths. It essentially gets taught in your first year at uni.

If you desperately want to keep both doors open, then drop biology. Your best bet would be to research and decide now between medicine and engineering. If you decide on medicine, then ditch physics. If you’re really good at maths, take further maths as a fourth. Ask your maths teacher for advice on your suitability for it.

I tried to do 5 - a decade ago now - but it was so much work I failed a couple of exams and ended up doing 3 in year 13.
There is a massive jump in difficulty & effort required between GCSE and A level. Don't underestimate it like I did.

Why do you want to do 5 subjects? Is it even possible on your school timetable? Don’t underestimate how much work you will need to do outside of lessons, and while other students will have study periods to do some of this in, you’ll be in lessons generating more work, all that will have to be completed in the evenings and weekends.

It’s not necessary to do 5, so even if it’s possible, what will you gain overall?
You might think that you are holding doors open by doing more, but as medicine is so competitive, you may find that you lose out anyway as people who are sure they want to do medicine will be busy doing work experience etc while you are sweating over the further maths books in case you want to do engineering.

You don't need biology for medicine.

The reformed A levels are now harder than previous years and at many schools, only pupils doing Maths and Further Maths are allowed to take 4 A levels. In my area this is the rule across both state and private schools. There are no As levels any more

I think you would be best to look at courses you want to do - e.g many engineering courses want further maths, but it won't be needed for Medicine. Biology and Chemistry are both notoriously content heavy and difficult subjects which i think would be very challenging to combine with 2 other A levels.

Have you someone at school that can advise?