DP has just declared that A'levels are harder than a degree.

[supersop60]

And that's what employers are looking for.
AIBU to think he's a twit?

hazell42 since the demise of AS levels most students are taking 3 A levels. Those taking 4 are usually doing further maths as a fourth subject. I don't see how any educational institution can fit 5 A level subjects into the curriculum.

No UK university asks for more than 3 A levels, not even Oxbridge. Although Cambridge sometimes offers on 4 if the student is taking 4. But they normally offer on 3 subjects.

There is a bigger jump from gcse to alevel than alevel to degree. In fact in first year at uni repeated some alevel atuff.

They are harder in the sense that learning to walk is quite possibly harder than learning to dance a pas de deux and learning to pronounce your first words in French is probably harder than analysing Ronsard once you have been studying for a few years. Doesn't mean it's less advanced.

I have never found anything as hard as learning to read a Ladybird book in English (my first foreign language). Not my 2 BAs, not my PhD, not my entire research career since. I don't think that means the university dept looking to hire me should test me on the irregular verbs in The Three Little Pigs rather than the articles I wrote with considerably less effort.

If degrees added nothing to the learning done at A-level, you would think straight A students would arrive at uni capable of constructing the perfect argument (and remembering how apostrophes work). Believe me, they still have plenty to learn.

advanced maths A level is probably harder than a drama degree

When dd auditioned for drama at Guilford they told her that they always put the drama students in a separate accommodation block together with the nursing students because they are the ones who work too hard to cope with the distractions of the other students' social life. I did 2 degrees and then a PhD in a subject that is usually considered very rigorous: still, I never worked as hard as dd does at drama school.

A levels were pretty easy as were the first couple of years of my degree, final year I worked really hard. My postgrad was hardest.

Oh and when I was an employer I looked for personality and attitude most of all. One of my best employees had hardly any qualifications having been a bit of a scallywag at school but he was a valued member of staff at our place, level headed with bags of initiative.

When in school a teacher told me A levels are the hardest exams for your age to do. As a graduate and qualified accountant I am inclined to agree.

I think my degree was a lot harder.
20 people started. 5 finished. I had the third highest score... And got a high 2.2 MEng.

I had 4 Alevels, AABB, plus A at AS. Alevels probably more intense, but degree more complex and covering a lot wider range of topics.

I think my A levels were equally difficult to my degree. I teach A level and GCSE and think that both are easier than the GCSE and A level that I took 30 odd years ago (due to improvements in technology eg for composing music and also due to easier dictation and removal of harder theoretical elements at A level).

My son and daughter both found the jump from GCSE to A level harder than going from A level to undergrad, so I can sort of see what he's saying there.

After my son graduated and was deciding what to do next he was looking at various graduate training schemes. All of these, without exception, required you to have certain A level grades before you could start the application process, and this was despite having a degree, so again, I can sort of see what he's saying - for some employers A levels do matter, even if you have a degree.

Gcses were harder as so many of them some subjects i hated eg maths but had to do, a levels were a breeze compared to them. My degree was hard work but easier than both gcses and a levels as subject i enjoyed and loved doing so more fun than hard work. It was a good degree from a Russell group. Your dh is right in my case but everyone diffefent.

I think its generally thought the transition from GCSE to A level is a bigger stretch for students than the transition A levels to degree. Due to the differences in studying.

I doubt employers would want A levels move a degree though.

I look at A levels and they might influence me, but that’s because I employ language teachers. Thing is, I interviewed someone a few years back and her Spanish A level was an A. You’d think her language skills would be great, but she could barely answer basic questions

Did you actually see her certificate? That seems very odd, as my German was definitely at a better level when I did my A level and got an A that it was after 2 years of university. It was my year in Germany that made all the difference.

I've heard plenty of people say A levels were harder than their degree.

I doubt employers would want A levels move a degree though.

I think in some instances, for example the graduate programmes I mentioned above, you need certain A level grades to be able to progress in the application process, regardless of your degree or classification.

Eg all of the programmes DS looked at were via a computer based applications process.

Requirement was equivalent of ABB at A level. If you didn't have that you couldn't progress on to the next part of the application process and it wouldn't have mattered if you had BBB at A level but a first in your degree. Another applicant could have ABB but a 2:1 and could have continued with their application.

So in that respect A levels did matter more than a degree because you needed certain grades at A level before your degree had even been considered.

Obviously, you did need to have a degree so it isn't the case that A levels are all that's required but it certainly wasn't that A levels didn't matter once you had a degree.

A Levels have always been harder than degrees in that they are far more prescriptive, you learn lots of facts and start to learn how to analyse and synthesize a lot of information, and they are a very big jump from GCSEs

A degree is less of a jump and and focusses on skill sets, research, analysis etc. New information is less given more found, guided.

Students who find degrees harder than A levels are those who didn't make a huge change in their GCSE style revision/learning strategies. They have to continue to do that in the first year of Uni, and that can be hard.

I have taught both, it is not at all unusual for someone to say that their degree is less difficult than their A levels. But that is because of the outcomes, the skill sets, the way of working. If A levels suit your learning perferences a degree will feel very dificult. If your A levels felt like climbing Everest every day then a degree may well feel like a pleasant stroll.

I think there is a big jump from gcse to a-levels and a lesser jump from A-levels to degree and the gap from year 1 to year 4 of my degree wasn’t huge. I sort of get what he’s saying but he’s clearly wrong about employers. While I do look at a-levels and GCSEs, the first filter is degree

A levels are the first time you have to properly do thinking rather than just fact retrieval and facile repetition. it is a big shock to the system.

if you pick a degree in a subject you genuinely enjoy, it doesn't really feel like work.

but employers want to see the degree, definitely.

I am a vet. No one looks at my A levels as I am unemployable without my degree. My degree was way harder than my A levels. A lot more subjects to juggle, longer days at uni than school. A levels were just rote learning and regurgitation onto paper, no thinking or applying of knowledge.

All degrees are equally hard. It's just that we find some easier than others because of our own talents and interests.

I don't believe that's true. There are some subjects at some unis which most people could do (even if not brilliantly). There are others which many of us really can't do. Some courses require bloody hard maths. Some require the ability to learn a hell of a lot. Some require the ability to solve difficult problems Some require all of those abilities . OTOH the PPs choice of drama seemed poor because some require talent - drama, music, art.
Even within the same field, the courses at different unis are not all 'equally hard'. That's not the same as 'worthwhile', and it's not the same as 'how much work does the average person on this course need to do to get a First'.

Degrees have A levels as a gateway - people who struggle with the former are presumably not very likely to get an offer for the more demanding degree courses, or even apply for them.

It depends on how you define 'harder'.

I'm currently studying for a PhD. That, and my previous degrees, are more intellectually demanding than A Levels. However, I don't actually have any A Levels. I went to university as a mature student, and I can honestly say that if I'd been required to take A Levels before I started, it never would have happened. I don't cope with the stress of high-pressured exams at all, and the quality of my work under exam conditions isn't great. I also struggled with the rigidity of GCSEs - this is the mark scheme, this is exactly what to remember and write if you want the marks. University essays involve more mental effort, but there's far more room for interpretation, creativity, and examining the topic in as much depth as you want to. Nobody ever told me 'but that's not on the syllabus, so don't bother with it' at university.

I've also been in the bizarre situation of being turned down by job application processes because I don't have A Levels, despite having a first-class degree and a distinction in my MA. I had to just dismiss that as clearly not a good fit, as the system couldn't accommodate people with non-traditional educational histories.

My degree was easier than A levels. I have a first in English literature and language from a red brick uni.

I think A levels were more intense and felt more pressured. Part of the issue was that you just had to learn stuff and be able to produce the required answer.

I did a Law degree and enjoyed the freedom to formulate my own view so it didn’t feel as difficult as A levels. So I don’t think a degree is easier but I think it doesn’t feel as relentless because you have a much higher level of autonomy.

I have both and I found the leap from GCSE to A'level harder than a degree. Studying for 4 x A levels across diverse subjects was fairly relentless. In comparison doing a deeper dive into one area for a degree felt less intense.

A levels were harder as we went from the structured learning of GCSE’s and lots of teacher help to having to find our own sources etc for A levels and much less help/ guidance .
Once you’ve done your A levels a degree is a similar way of learning so less of a shock to be independently learning /studying , in my case anyway ..
I don’t think they look for A levels over degrees but I don’t think degrees are very important anymore in getting a good job

I did A level economics and then had some economics modules in my degree - the modules were far easier and far less in depth than the A level. After a couple of lectures, I realised the standard was far lower and only attended the occasional one just to keep attendance records looking good. I didn't even do any revision and still got pretty high marks in the essays and exams.

Same with Maths A level. My degree had a couple of modules of "quantitative analysis", basically probs, stats, and averages, standard deviation, critical path analysis, upper/lower quartiles etc. It was a doddle, I'd say GCSE standard rather than A level.

The area I struggled with was law modules - but some of the others doing the degree had done A level law and they said the A level was far higher standard and could give me lots of help, and they basically sleep-walked through the law modules.

I came away thinking, certainly in the first 2 years, that the standard wasn't particularly high, and no higher than A level. It was year 3 when things ramped up. But of course, you need years 1 and 2 to do the lower level work, particularly if you've not done A levels in the relevant modules.

After all, there are usually loads of "optional" modules from different disciplines you can take in years 1 and 2 that have no relevance to your chosen degree subject, such as a foreign language for beginners etc., so the standard of years 1 and 2 is going to be pretty low.