28 A Levels

[miniaturepixieonacid]

I was reading about the girl in this BBC article with 34 GCSEs now doing 28 A Levels. The tone is, I feel, relatively negative (cost, no university needs more than 4 etc) and I do agree that doing that many is pointless and would be a huge pressure. But the other side of me thinks that it actually sounds really fulfilling and exciting, not stifling and unnecessary. Imagine how well rounded and extensive your knowledge base would be. I bet she's a fascinating young woman to talk to. 17 year old me would 100% have cracked under the pressure but nearly 40 year old me is almost inspired to start building on my own collection.

What do you think?
YABU - it's crazy, no one needs that many qualifications.
YANBU - worthwhile, exciting use of time for someone who can cope with and enjoy it.

28 A Levels

It makes no difference to me at all. If you climb the tallest mountain etc you're scaling the beignets peak- a towering physical and mental achievement. What she's doing is the equivalent of climbing a hill 28times in 28 countries. A levels are no real challenge to an academically able mind and she'd be better off climbing that mountain, picking a few subjects and doing very deep research and developing serious analytical skills, nor such skimming the surface of so many disciplines

Does anyone think this girl would be busy having casual sex, smoking and getting drunk if she were doing only 3 A levels? Nope. She wouldn't.

Her genius IQ is higher than that of Stephen Hawking. It is innate, not a function of what she has done.

Surely once you’ve got the highest mark in say 10 A levels in a variety of subjects you’ve shown what you’re capable of and you’re better off studying at a higher level.

I've just glanced at the BBC article - it says she took 4 last November and will do another 5 this November.

Which is odd given there are no exams in November AFAIK....

This to be honest. If you've got the sort of brain that retains info after one read (which I'd assume she does) then it's pretty much a case of read, memorize & regurgitate, and focusing on past papers as a guide to what's most likely to come up. Getting high grades / multiple A-levels is much less of a challenge. Like Trufflump says, she could be doing a load of wider reading that would actually make a difference to her future choices in a way that a business studies a-level won't. But then it wouldn't get her (and her mother) a mention in the media. She also plays chess & the piano & swims - ticks all the boxes but not very sociable. So when she gets to university she's more likely to struggle to make friends unless she joins the chess club.
It just sounds braggy and rather lifeless at her age (and I'm the sort of person who as an adult does study for fun)

She is exactly the kind of student I would imagine will stumble in further education if she does medicine at oxbridge because she will have the shock of no longer being the smartest person in class.

She's not going to struggle, let's be realistic. She's just not. She might face other challenges (as we all do) but competing assignments with her intelligence is not going to be an issue. I don't see why we need to bring her down.

She has a higher IQ than Einstein apparently.Very bright.If she feels she wants to do this many then why not? I guess its probably just like 1 or 2 GCSE for us! Also she already had 34 A levels !

Less odd when you realise that international A Levels have sittings in June and November each year to take account of the differences in academic years across the world.

I did law on as gcse a few years ago via distance learning then found a local exam provider.

Then a law degree and masters!

I fancy politics next.

It should be easier to do as an adult, but five if exam centres is hard and much harder for anything with a practical element (science or a language)

She also plays chess & the piano & swims - ticks all the boxes but not very sociable. So when she gets to university she's more likely to struggle to make friends unless she joins the chess club.

Well, she can join the chess club, then, can’t she? The beauty of a university is that there are tens of thousands of of people there, and you can find your tribe, whether it’s people to go on pub crawls with or to play chess with. It’s not necessary to fall over drunk or have casual sex to be “sociable”.

Also funny how being neurodiverse is an accepted as a reason to not be sociable unless you happen to have a high IQ with it, in which case it’s open season on pointing out that individual’s failings.

Apparently international A Levels from Cambridge have November sittings. Some of the subjects she's done are only available as international a levels I believe

All power to her but apparently like many previous posters have said, doesn’t seem smart enough to identify, a) these don’t matter 10 years down the line b) could’ve paid for a adult degree course with that time, re accounting qualifications etc c) more in depth epqs in her desired subjects.

and she’s from an asian background, questionable about why she’s doing it ; to impress her parents that can’t be impressed? And just want bragging rights. Poor kid. Just cuz she can do all these exams, doesn’t mean she should.

You’d be surprised. Lots of kids come into medicine and they are used to breezing through everything and everyone being very impressed by how clever they are. But every med student is extremely bright so you get kids who were the smartest in their school suddenly being mid to low points in their class and no long being regarded as impressive and it sparks an identity crisis for them. You throw oxbridge into that mix and the effect is ten fold.

I’m sure she will cope with the work I meant more she may feel a little small when no one in oxbridge medicine course is impressed with her 28 alevels because I doubt anyone will be! And there will be lots on that course who could have done similar but had better things to do with their time. Like someone said earlier it’s like memorising pi to 1000 places. Very hard for an average person to do but pointless .

It does sound excessive, though if you look at the finer details in the earlier article, several of them were overlapping eg multiple maths courses, multiple history courses etc. I be wonder the real reason for so many apart from to get publicity. 7 or 8 is still tough!

Kids who do elite sports often have grueling schedules. Kids who are into gaming often seem to have less balance in their lives.

It’s not necessary, but I can think of much worse hobbies to be so into.

I did all my O and A levels after I had children. Some at evening classes, some during the day where I joined a class of 16-18 year olds. It used to be common in the 70s and 80s to have a wide choice of subjects at evening classes. Local colleges did non academic stuff like flower arranging, pottery plus all the usual O and A levels. Fees were low, cost to do the exam was low though I can’t remember exact amounts. Cuts put paid to most of them I think.

My dc have 4 each plus epq as a comparison and it was full on, but they both played in a youth orchestra, sang, played sport at a high level, certainly no time for more study. Each course takes a certain amount of time so even working 16 hours a day I'm not sure you can really do 28

Only 28? Bit mediocre compared to most Mumsnet kids

@KnitWittedNan my post didn't mention housesharing, casual sex or getting drunk 🙄 so I'm not sure how you read this in my post.

I said 'friends, hobbies, boyfriend, travel, whatever'.

Clearly this wasn't a comprehensive list and the 'whatever' covers a huge range of things she could be doing that would be far more worthwhile and healthy than this.

She could become a master at anything. She could become fluent in language(s), work at being a master at chess, a sport, volunteering, anything.

She could really delve deeply into a subject of interest in her spare time and gain a real breadth of knowledge in something. Ancient history, medicine, pet care, politics, carpentry, who cares. Anything worthwhile.

Instead she's sitting in a room alone for Lord knows how many hours, so she can memorise pages of text in a scattergun approach to subjects - and get yet more functionally useless GCSEs and A Levels. Ticks on pieces of paper. Woop.

Encouraging and supporting her to do this is shitty parenting imo.

The other thing I wonder is, I’ve seen elsewhere she was able to do alevel maths at 8 years old, so why didn’t she just do her alevels earlier? She could have done that instead of 34 GCSEs. doesn’t make headlines I guess?

Edit: additionally some of the subjects aren’t well regarded at all.

I agree - its pure showing off - look at me

Like others have said, why not accelerate her path to surgery?

Most people do 3-4. So twice as many would be an amazing achievement. I just don't see how she can do it. 28. The mind boggles and then she claims she has a social life and hobbies too. Does she not need any sleep

And what about exam clashes?

@SomethingDifferentt

Mate, it's quite clearly a list of examples from posts like yours. Nobody said you said that.

I don't disagree that this ain't the best use of her skill set a stated, but its extremely tedious when whenever someone doesn't do exactly what you did, we start with the same generic list of activities.

Again, maybe she doesn't want a boyfriend. Why does she need a boyfriend at 17? Of all the things to aspire to, could have said volunteering or something, sheesh.

She might not have the money to travel. She might not want to. Shocking, but not everyone wants to do that. She's only 17. There's time to do it later if she does. Maybe she does go holidays with her family already.

Maybe she sees her friends at school? Maybe she doesn't go out a whole lot as they're all doing A levels? She's not the only one.

She quite literally does have hobbies apart from studying.

It's so tiresome, sorry.

Yes I was thinking the same.