Three or four A-levels where one is Further Maths?

Oh and hi, @titchy, didn't spot you were on this thread, though of course you would have been.
People she is the mutt's nuts when it comes to this stuff, go against her advice at your peril!
(And yes, @titchy, I really will get off MN as promised.)

Edinburgh will usually stress qualifications in one sitting. This is because Scottish applicants can take an exam diet over S4, S5 and S6 (equivalent to years 11,12, 13) and they want to ensure that the applicant is able to cope with a rigorous breadth and quantity of exams.

For Scottish applicants in S5, they normally require five Highers in one sitting to whom they may give an unconditional offer. If the grades are slightly lower, they may require additional qualifications (Advanced Highers or additional Highers) in S6. Edinburgh seems to be very exam results focused when handing out offers.

Disclaimer: I am Scottish and my DCs and many of their friends have had offers from Edinburgh.

I have a DD who is yr 12 and doing 4 A levels, Maths, FM, Physics and MFL. She loves the MFL and would be loathe to give that up, if she had to drop a 4th A Level. She's hoping to do Maths at university, Cambridge and Imperial are her hopes.

Start with 4 and drop one along the way if necessary.

Edinburgh, I think.

I had a look at entry requirements for half a dozen top physics courses - as far as I can see they're all happy with just maths, physics and FM, but one explicitly specified they must have 3 a levels done in the same sitting. Which isn't the same thing at all as not counting maths and fm as two full a levels.

I think it depends on how it's done. Some schools do A level maths in Y12 and then Further Maths in Y13. Others do Maths and Further Maths alongside each other in Y13.

Oh I didn't think you'd remember

Hi Atila. Yes it was for physics. I can't remember which places because we went to a lot!

" It's also increasingly hard to do well in MFL A level unless you are native speaker (fewer are doing it and the native speakers that are push the grade boundaries right up)"
@derbur17, as an MFL teacher for 34 years I would argue most strongly that any prevalence of native speakers, of which there isn't that much, would make little difference. Especially as their grammar knowledge and written accuracy is often worse than that of British national languages students. Do you have any empirical evidence to back up this statement?

And was that for a physics degree?

Which places?

DS is currently at Oxford studying Physics. Those without Further Maths are at a disadvantage.

At the Imperial open day a couple of years ago they said that they wouldn't ask for further maths as not all schools offered it but most of their students have FM A Level. There is an option to do Physics with a year abroad. They learn the language on a Wednesday pm I think.

I'd check but several places that we visited didn't count Maths and Further Maths as two A Levels.

If you have read other threads on this topic you may well have come across me before. My advice remains the same as on other similar threads.
A/ check with individual unis what they are looking for and go with it.
B/ stick with getting excellent grades in 3 A-levels and view a 4th as just a bonus but NOT necessarily one that will sway admissions tutors, they are looking for different stuff.
C/ if your DC has an undying interest in a 4th subject, he/she can always carry on with it later, or indeed even at uni.
I had quite a few students in this dilemma and the advice of only going for the 3 excellent A-levels was followed and paid off. They all got top grades and ended up in RG unis, and they then carried on with their fourth choice, French, at uni. Which parallels what you are talking about, or Chemistry if she prefers.
Do not be afraid to email individual unis to see what they think, it is in their interests to tell you the truth.

Ds2 has just started sixth form doing maths, further maths, physics and computer science. He got 9s in all of those at GCSE except FM as his school didn't offer it, but he is not a spiky profile child either achieving mainly 9s.

He has 5 hours of teaching per week per subject, so for maths he has 2 teachers and 10 hours of maths. You really have to love it.

He was told if he was considering physics at uni then FM would help as the first year of physics covers a lot of FM content. It just makes it easier.

They have said that if a child struggles with doing FM then they just drop down to 3 A levels at the end of year 12. Ds is looking to do computer science at uni and the ones he is looking at say they don't care about your EPQ. He isn't doing one.

I would echo PPs to keep options as open as possible by doing 4 A levels including FM at least until the first half term of year 12. The start of year 11 is far too early to know for your DD to know for sure that she would like to do physics degree rather than for example natural sciences. It is not enough to be interested in the concepts of physics to enjoy a physics degree at Oxbridge or Imperial or similar, in fact the FM A level probably gives the best idea of what those type of courses will entail for many of their modules. It is a shame that many sixth forms don’t teach the maths and FM A levels in parallel in year 12 as that would be a faster way to discover preferences and aptitude’s.

Echoing advice re contacting admissions - DD emailed a few at the end of yr 11 when she wasn't totally sure about her A level choices, she got some extremely nice replies. It should be pretty easy to find the contact details in uni websites - and, of obviously , their current course requirements. Cambridge (not sure if the same applies to Oxford) is a little more complicated as the precise details may vary between colleges but finding all the info shouldn't be beyond the capabilities of a kid bright enough to be thinking of applying there.

(He didn't apply to either of them, but did get offers from all his choices, including Cambridge, after he'd dropped physics. Started uni this year, so this is last year's information - as up to date as you can get.)

Just email the admissions people.

I emailed Imperial and Oxford's maths and computer science departments when ds was considering dropping physics. All 4 replies said maths, FM and one other would be fine.

So maybe start with 4 if she wants, and do some research to reassure yourselves that dropping to 3 won't be a disadvantage.

@Teensruletheroost if he did go to Cambridge, he wouldn't be able to do Chem Eng in the first year anyway - that starts in year 2 with a mix of people who've done 1st year Engineering or 1st year NatSci - which is the beauty of the Cambridge tripos system in that it's flexible and people often end up doing something different to their first intention!

Sixth form applications that is.

Thanks Errol and Weathergirl, I’d best actually look into this sooner rather than later I guess.

I think he will be ok with the four as he works hard and actually loves maths. I am pretty sure he doesn’t want to do chemical engineering.

Will look into it further before he has to make final applications.

@Teensruletheroost contact the Cambridge admissions office to check up to date information. They really are there to help with this sort of thing 👍

If he wants to do the Cambridge MEng or maths, those are great subjects but if it's too much he almost certainly should keep the FM and drop the chemistry. They need the fm, they don't need chemistry at all. (Unless they want to do chem eng which is a different thing and from what I've heard the top courses for that are very mathsy too)