Thinking about doing Maths A level, but not Further Maths - disadvantaged?

As a parent of a maths/further maths A level student now trailing around universities looking at courses here are a few things I've learned.

If you want to do a maths degree then further maths is the best way forward. All the good unis want it but can't make it compulsory as not all schools offer it. They can ask for STEP or other harder maths exams as an addition to maths for entry to make up for the lack of further maths.

If she is interested in doing a maths/physics/engineering type degree it will be really helpful to have done it even if it's not required.

If she doesn't want to do a subject like those above then do it as a fourth A level so she's got some flexibility.

It's HARD, my A A at GCSE (two maths exams in Wales) boy who 'enjoys' his A level maths syllabus has had to really work at it.

If she really loves maths she should go for it because it stretches them and makes them think (and makes the main A level maths look a lot easier!).

It’s a great subject to do. Not all STEM courses require FM at university so no need to do it. Plenty of humanities courses are helped with maths such as Geography and it wouldn’t be sniffed at for Law either.

www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm

For the year 2018...
98,000 students took A level maths,. Of these 41,000 got A/A*

16,000 took Further maths. If all of these get A/A, then that leaves 25,000 A/A grades for the remaining 82,000 students doing maths without further maths.

There are plenty of A/A* grades left over.

I did maths A level, without further maths, way back in the dark ages.
I got an A. So not all the top grades go to those doing further maths. But since the most talented mathematicians tend to do further maths, I would suspect there is quite an strong correlation between further maths as a subject, and maths with a top grade!