Psychology A-Level

I taught Psychology and had several students go on to study medicine with it.

@TizerorFizz relevant work experience would be anything with children/older adults e.g. helping at a holiday club especially if for children with SEN, care work, volunteering at a day centre, befriending. Nobody is going to let a 17 year old loose on inpatients in a psychiatric hospital!

Not to the same extent as history or politics, for example. However not sure it will really matter!!

You have to write essays for A level psychology, much to DD's annoyance. Anyway music A level will teach her to write essays, she doesn't need another essay subject for a music degree. (I did music with A levels of music, maths and biology.)

If she wants to do music at uni, where does psychology come into her thinking? It’s totally unnecessary. I think some music degrees require more essays than others so my advice is to do at least an essay subject. Then a third which probably should be what she likes so why not maths?

I don't think schools in England do AS levels any more. DD sat AS levels in 2017, which was the last year her school did them.

Can she start with four and drop the subject she least likes?

DD was convinced that psychology was the one A level she really wanted to do, along with geography and biology. As she did so well in her GCSEs she was told she had to take 4 A level subjects, so she picked chemistry as well.

After a few weeks in year 12 it was psychology that she really didn't want to do, but she kept on with it to bank a good grade at AS level then dropped it much to the disappointment of the teacher who told her she was throwing away an A*.

If she had stayed with 4 subjects I doubt that she would have achieved the grades that she did in her other three subjects as she managed to improve on two of the grades.

There is no need for 4. With her music, what’s the point? Unis don’t ask for 4 unless it’s FM. Music looks like a non negotiable for A level, but should it be? It’s the same as Psychology if she’s not taking it to degree level. Something to consider. Does she see Music A level as a gimme? Far less work for a high grade? I’d look into that position as less work and 2 others keeps workload reasonable. Adding a 4th, in the circumstances, seems pointless.

There are lots of options but many with this degree will have to compete against others with all sorts of degrees for jobs. So I know Dc who work for charities, became social workers and even a journalist with a psychology degree. But I could look at similar jobs for politics, English, history, MFL grads etc etc. There are counselling roles and a friend is doing a masters in this following a psychology degree.

My daughter is taking this. There are a lot of psychology specific skills but it also tackles how do complete a research project, ethical studies and plenty of transferable skills.
She wants to become a psychologist to help SEND children eventually but we have explored plenty of other potential career paths to use the psychology degree she is aiming for and there are LOTS.

Psychology is by far the most dropped subject for some reason

It was at DD's school. I think it is an untried subject for most students as they haven't sat the subject at GCSE. Also, at DD's school a lot of the less academic students took psychology because they didn't get the grades for other subjects.

In DD's case she hated psychology. She found it boring and unchallenging. It is very content heavy and you have to remember loads of case studies by people with difficult to spell names. DD took it to AS level then dropped it.

It is, of course, possible that the more interesting topics were covered in year 13, but most of what DD learned about in year 12 was unpleasant experiments carried out on unsuspecting people.

Easiest A-level I did, by a long shot. Doesn't mean it's not valuable, just a comment. Wasn't accepted as valuable by some of the unis I applied to, but that was a 20 years ago now!

I would imagine it depends where you are intending to study. Bath, as I said earlier want an essay subject. Cambridge don’t see psychology as a science for their course so you have to decide where to go and what to study to suit what you are aiming for. Psychology as a third subject probably wouldn’t harm applications for other degrees!

@Hughs I’ve seen that argued too. Although I would suggest that can be a positive too as young people are adjusting to university life and being independent so having some repetition of content is useful. I did A level psychology and a degree in psychology there is overlap but definitely not exactly the same.

Funnily enough I've seen it argued that DC shouldn't take A level psychology if they want to do a psychology degree, because so much of the first year covers stuff in the A level syllabus and it's boring!

Cambridge likes it’s preferred subjects. That’s why it still lists them. Maths, Biology, Physics or Chemistry are listed for Psychology at Cambridge. You need to take at least one which appears to suggest two is what’s expected!

Hi @Poseidensgrumpyneighbour ! You raise some interesting questions. I come to this as a parent but also as someone who has worked in schools and who still works in the education sector.

Officially, universities don't undervalue Psychology. They are content to count it as one of three A Levels if that is what the applicant studies, providing the other two offer mandatory or desirable subjects. But unofficially they might prefer Biology, for example. Cambridge for one does not require Psychology for its Psychology degree course; but it does like Biology and Maths. My daughter's school stopped offering Psychology A Level because Universities did not demand it.

As for workload, Psychology does need a bit of work. More importantly, Music A Level and music making are very time consuming. A friend of my daughter's found her three A Levels demanding enough as a musician. (She got a first at Cambridge eventually.) So whilst I, too, encouraged my daughter to study what she wanted, I did talk her down to do one fewer A Level in the end. Four full A Levels and music making might be a bit too much; the demands may eventually dilute grades and may also take the fun out of the experience overall.

Bath, for example, ask for science and essay subjects. No just science. Psychology counts in their science list.

Slightly worrying though, in my view, is that their undergrad course suggests relevant work experience can enhance an application. I’m struggling to see how DC can acquire this unless parents pull strings. If you were parents with no strings to pull, how many ordinary DC can realistically get this? It rather follows the pattern that doctors are Dc of doctors, vets are Dc of vets etc. I see you are encouraged to read widely on the subject but relevant work experience is difficult for many with no useful connections or parents who can help. I’m wondering what they consider relevant? I can see why it’s a sought after course but seems to require far more than grades and background comes into play. Surrey, for example. mentions just grades as selection criteria.

I teach in an academic independent day school and we offer Psychology. It’s very popular and is taken by a range of students. We’ve had kids go to Cambridge to read Psychology that have done it. I think it is more accessible than some other subjects- it feels a bit bite sized and obviously lots of Psychology courses at University need hard sciences. As one of four it would be fine.

It really isn't. It's a good intro. As is a ug degree in psychology because when you do your masters they also say that you have to unlearn a lot of 'truths' of the ug content.

You also don't need a doctorate to become a chartered psychologist. In some fields of psychology, yes, but not all.

That’s interesting thank you for sharing that. My DS did A levels this year and got an A star for Psychology (he got a review of marking as had paper checked and 2 marks hadn’t been added on). He had an excellent teacher for Y12 but she left so basically had to teach himself Y13 and had a tutor for a few months. I was proud before but to see that only 5.7% got an A star is quite impressive (well it is to me anyway!)