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

Interesting thread. We have been debating the three or four A levels thing as DS would ideally like to do maths or engineering at a top university (Cambridge in his ideal world, I am less sure).

After some thought, DS is planning on doing maths, further maths, physics and chemistry. The option is there to drop the further maths if the workload is too heavy.

I had also heard anecdotally that some unis do not count further maths as one of the three but haven’t looked into it.

Re EPQs, if you've got a 'spiky' ie asymmetrically talented STEM type kid who doesn't much like essays, they might want to do an 'artefact' of some sort.

I would stick to aiming for A*/A for Maths, FM and Physics.

Languages at A level require an enormous amount of work. DS is doing two and the other two, one of which is Maths, are far less time consuming and enjoyable. 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). Better to do an EPQ in something related to her University choice imo.

Place marking as my son is looking for similar advice.

My DD took Maths, FM, Physics and Chemistry and went on to do Theoretical Physics (graduated this year). Her opinion was that having the FM made the first year of uni much easier.

Argh... I used a * for 'times' and mucked up bolding.

An offer by return might have been slight exaggeration, obviously the likes of oxbridge and Imperial interview. (and elsewhere might interview but from DDs experience, they'd be in 'recruit' mode for an applicant with good predictions for 2*maths +physics)

But the idea FM isn't counted as a full a level by the courses for which it's highly desirable/required if the school offers it is simply wrong.

The OP asked about Oxford and Imperial. They are not representative of the “national picture”. They are very competitive courses. No admissions tutors there needs to bite anyone’s hand off to get them onto their courses!

Excuse erroneous apostrophe

what world are you living in haha. top unis dont give out offers willy nilly.

I didn't say they did But nationally physics is undersubscribed and admissions tutors are delighted when student's with physics maths and FM applies with the right predicted grades for their institution. They certainly don't sneer and regard FM as only worth half. Physics and Maths bods would generally prefer FM as the third over say History. In fact they'd probably think Maths, FM and super-duper-Yet-More-really-hard-Maths were the ideal three A levels if the latter existed! Plus step at some.

Physics and Maths admissions tutors are used to students with spiky, or one sided profiles - it goes with the territory.

However the advice to start with four is solid - many a sixth former has had a change of heart between deciding subjects and applying to university.

I have been told with A levels now moving over to linear in the past couple of years, they have become harder and even the top universities are happy with 3 good grades. Dd was advised that if she wanted to consider Oxbridge to do 3 rather than 4. This is because 3 excellent grades would be better than 4 not so good grades.

As dd is adamant she wants to do 4, one of which is FM, I would appreciate some info on if there has been a recent change in what top universities are looking for.

@titchy what world are you living in haha. top unis dont give out offers willy nilly.

Titchy is the horses mouth when it comes to top-end uni admissions - she is to be trusted on this, if anyone says anything she disagrees with she's almost certainly correct.

I have heard of FM only being accepted as a 4th subject (though a desirable one) at one or two of the top London unis but for Economics - not for physics, maths and engineering.

DD is doing engineering at Cambridge with physics, maths and FM A levels, though was fortunately in the last year of the old formats so did comp sci to AS and also a relevant EPQ.

But taking just physics, maths and fm from the outset is a risky strategy - you do hear of people who find A levels that much harder and it does limit options if they change their mind about what they want to do at uni. Much better to start 4 and see how it goes.

I did two different Further Maths as well as 3 normal A-levels. I didn't find it too hard. I adore maths. I'd do chemistry as the third because you need practicals in a lab. Do French as an extracurricular. Join a conversation club or something alongside duolingo. It will look good on applications (and be more useful irl later).

Yes Oxford does single honours physics (which was the deciding factor for me - didn't want to do any more chemistry).

I suspect the maths with a physics option route at Cambridge pretty much locks you into doing theoretical physics (n'owt wrong with that, it's what I do, but experimentalists get to play with toys, and I must admit to suffering toy envy when I see their big shiny bits of kit).

I did maths, f maths, phys, chem (and general studies) for A levels. It was a reasonable amount of work but significantly less than maths at Cambridge. That was much much harder. And from what I could tell from friends, Nat Sci is a similar work load to maths - if not more.

Actually - that is a thought - unless it has changed in the last (blush) 22 years, to do physics at Cambridge there are two ways in. One is the Nat Sci route (Natural Sciences) - where you would need two sciences and would spend your first year doing three subjects (physics, chemistry and materials science was the common combination). The other is via maths and physics in your first year. But she would then need to convince a maths admissions tutor that she worshipped on the god that is maths.

I think Oxford may have a “just physics route” though. (They had a “just chem route” when my mum was looking into it for my brother but he refused to go anyway on some principle that he can’t quite remember now.)

but I think an admissions officer looking at maths, further maths and physics would think "two and a half A levels" rather than 3

More likely they'd go 'woo-hoo someone with the perfect subjects wants to do my course' and send an offer by return!

Physicist here. I'd definitely recommend a 4th A level - further maths is conceptually harder, but I think an admissions officer looking at maths, further maths and physics would think "two and a half A levels" rather than 3 (at least that's what they'd have thought back when I was at the applications stage), so a fourth A level would help. You could do physics without further maths, but it would be bloody hard work - you'd effectively be starting your degree with one hand tied behind your back.

Just had a quick look at the current AQA syllabus (just as an example) and it's all bread-and-butter stuff you would need to know in order to do physics - either you learn it in the 6th form, or you try to play catch-up in the first year of university, but whichever way you cut it, you'll have to learn it sooner or later.

So keep the further maths - she really will need it, and add a fourth A level. I did chemistry and found it intensely boring, though I will admit it proved useful to me later on in my life (was relevant background for my PhD, is tangentially relevant in my current job). Having said that if I were doing it again, and had your daughter's interests and choices, I'd opt for French.

physics is literally maths. if she doesn’t like maths in its own right, she wont like further, and it will either take up lots of studying time which could go to physics or will leave a bad grade on her predicted. what did she get in GCSEs? i say this as someone who got 3A*s and an A at a level in maths further physics and chemistry, the A being in Physics, and is now doing physics at university.

If she's up to doing Further Maths, she should find the single maths straightforward enough that it won't be a full 4 A-level workload.

Fourth A level - do a bit of checking out of potential universities and what they ask for. In particular, I know that at Cambridge, physics is part of "natural sciences", and having chemistry would probably be a good idea as they don't just study physics in the first year (www.natsci.tripos.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/admissions). (Some students do start on "maths with physics" instead, then switch to physics in the second year.) However other universities may be quite happy with French as the fourth, and it sounds like there are some arguments for it.

Can't remember which Uni open day it was (Durham maybe??) but they said that if you do FM, they basically ignore the Maths A level, so they were looking for a total of 4, simply because they wanted 2 different subjects as well as the FM (i.e. Maths and FM were counted as the same subject not two!).
Not Durham. Dd's there studying maths with maths/Fm and one other. her friend got into Oxbridge with the same combination.
It does mean that the maths offers tend to be higher because they assume A in maths is easy to come by. Her Durham offer was A A* A.

Dd did 4 a levels, she didn't apply to oxbridge but several of her friends did and all had 4 a levels including further maths

I have a child like this.
Def do Physics, Maths and Further Maths. You then need a fourth A level for a high flyer. General advice is don't do a language as a fourth A level because it'll be too time consuming. Chemistry would probably be more useful tbh.

As an extra thought, I had actually wanted to do Geography as my 4th subject (I loved Geography - in the end I did Geology at university!) but it didn't timetable with Maths, Physics and Chemistry, so that's why I ended up doing Further Maths instead! In hindsight, I don't actually think that doing Further Maths is double the workload compared to doing another unrelated subject.