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

Doesn’t pattern recognition involve an element of intelligence…?

I'd love to do some GCSEs/A Levels now but I looked into it and it seems to cost quite a bit and was really difficult to find somewhere to sit the exams. I'm still unsure how getting coursework marked as an independent candidate works either.

It can be learnt and taught. I really do not believe that being good at exams is a good measure of intelligence, the amount of ‘book smart not street smart’ students is appalling. DD went to a top grammar school and within the highest sets it was extremely prevalent. Personal favourites were a pair of aspiring medical students applying to yet having no idea where Cardiff was (they thought it was in Scotland) and a girl who didn’t know what a stray dog was. You can’t teach common sense

It’s probably a distraction from living in Slough, I think I’d be holed up in my room studying too. Are there even 28 A level subjects? Good for her I guess if that’s what she wants to do.

@KnitWittedNan I am South Asian (well, mostly, some other Asian mixed in too) myself, and while I think the drinking/travelling posters are being ridiculous. If we focus on the OP. The actual AIBU is about the worth of doing so many A-levels!

This is not specifically about the girl, I do not want her to fail or drop out, but we all have 24 hours in a day. If she's doing that many exams chances are she doesn't have much time for a lot of other stuff. Of course you can claim that she probably has loads of hobbies and social skills etc ... but it's not likely that she can devote a lot of time to them.

We do our people a disservice by telling them 'working hard' - at exams is of utmost importance. As a first gen immigrant (got a scholarship for a UK uni) I did not have the time, or money for boyfriends, drinking or travelling. But what I did learn very quickly was that exams were just a stepping stone. Curiosity, inquisitiveness, courage and building a network were more important. 5 years into my career I became the youngest lead (by 15 years) in my area, only woman, and it's only gotten better since. Speeding past more erm 'academic' people (I'm in a STEM field). I'm no slouch myself. I just prioritised other things. Doing well enough to get a 2:1 at least (came out with a first!) unlike other people who wanted to get top marks at all costs.

Just to reiterate, young lady in the OP can do what she likes. If she can do everything great, if she finds the cure for dementia and Alzheimer's' all of humanity will benefit. And obviously I needed to be academic, my kids not so much as they will be able to go to university in the UK even with A's and B's. Or anywhere else in Europe.

But as a general discussion on the point of these things. There are better uses of time.

English unis are set up to take under 18s. It's not unusual for people from Scotland to study in England, and not very unusual for English students to go a year early. From our experience, my child had an appointed tutor to oversee his welfare explicitly until he turned 18 - and some colleges stated that they'd have to have their picture up behind the bar so they wouldn't be served.

Obviously they'd have closer supervision the younger they were, and the main thing for me would be when the child is old enough to live independently.

Surely they’re just single pieces of info?! If you’ve never encountered anyone mentioning Cardiff or stray dogs then how will you know about them?! It doesn’t make someone unintelligent.

I don’t think having heard of Cardiff has much at all to do with common sense?! And even less to do with street smarts??!

I think that if you’re bright and understand the technique, then picking up extra A-Levels isn’t a feat of genius so much as putting in the time and effort to memorise the info. But still, not everyone is able to do that.

I used to teach A levels. Each A level has 5 hours of lessons per week. So 28 A levels would be 5x28=140 hours of lessons per week. That’s 20 hours a day. It’s physically impossible for her to do that amount of lessons. That’s before you even consider that she’s supposed to do an additional 5 hours of personal study for each A level per week - that would be 280 hours of work in total, and there are only 168 hours in a week!

So unless she has a Time Turner like Hermione Granger it’s physically impossible to do the amount of study time required. This story is totally untrue.

This girl travels 90 minutes to get to England’s most successful and academic school. It sends unparalleled numbers to Med school and Oxbridge. It is predominantly British Asian in a very mixed area of London. Very very few girls can walk to the school; most travel for long distances.
I’m sure all the girls are clever and the vast majority are pushed very hard to succeed by their families. The school timetables 5 A levels (optional but 4 is normal) as that’s what the parents want.
I know one girl who struggled because the social life was so limited; given the distances traveled to school, most friends aren’t around for after-school mooching around the shopping centre or birthday parties on a Saturday night. Or as a PP says the parents don’t want them to.
The target is family and community acclaim as each box is ticked (medicine, Oxbridge, 32 GCSEs or whatever). There is nothing wrong with it - it’s just different values.

Never stop learning. Im always doing courses/learning new topics.

She’s clearly a bright girl doing it for fun, driven by a real love for learning. And why not go B-road before going deep into a chosen subject. I’d love to hear what she thought of different subjects compared to others.

I can't think of 28 worthwhile A levels.

Biology, chemistry, physics, maths, English literature, English language, geography, history, Homework economics, design and technology computing, French, Spanish, German, physical education, politics, psychology, sociology, R.E/philosophy, art.

I can't think what the other 8 subjects could be if they aren't just watered down versions of the above.

Other than that I think if she is capable of doing 28 A levels without stress or having to spend all her life studying, then why not?

Again - highest sets = best exam results. In my opinion being good at exams and being bright aren’t the same thing.

Even the head of year was appalled enough at the Cardiff is in Scotland comment for the entire year group to have an assembly on it and how ridiculous it was. Any 17/18 year old with half a grain of awareness of the world around them would know that that’s not true

This problem would have been solved if she had done the Geography A-level :p

Theatre Studies? Further Maths? Other languages?

I don’t believe that someone could live in the UK and never have heard of Cardiff - it’s hardly a little village in the middle of nowhere!

But even if it had somehow passed them by, surely they’d have the common sense to look it up before applying?

You can have an Einstein level IQ but it doesn't necessarily make you capable of original thought and stacking up GCSEs and A levels willy nilly is not a marker of whether you can think originally. There are very few Einsteins, very few Hawkings and even fewer Beethovens (the last could just about add up)

I wish her well, though.

Another A level geography student asked if the Republic of Ireland & the Czech Republic were the same place 🤣 Also a successful medicine applicant!

She’s going to get a shock when she finds out that people with high IQs get discriminated against. It annoys people. Nobody wants to hire someone who’s smarter than them, who could outshine them and get promoted above them. People want to hire someone who can do the job but is also personable to work with and not a threat. They want to hire someone who’s willing to start at the bottom doing the photocopying and making the coffee. Social connections and networking are more helpful for getting a job than high IQ. Her mum isn’t doing her any favours by telling her that academic work is the be-all and end-all. Too much is actually harmful.

I think her IQ test was the rather particular Mensa one. The one that parents of 'geniuses' seem very keen on.
She may well be a genius but I wonder why she's therefore just focusing on A Levels. As someone said already, that's like climbing up the same hill 28 times.

Off the top of my head, I would put Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schubert in the genius category - though, to be fair, they didn't get the chance to do a Mensa test so who knows? All early starters - Mozart wrote his first published symphony aged 5, though he did have a pushy father- and all dead in their thirties so it's good they started young!
And they weren't one trick ponies either. Mendelssohn for eg was a brilliant linguist and classicist, excellent artist, well travelled, well read, brilliant pianist and, of course, composer. He published his groundbreaking String Octet aged 16 and the Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream aged 17, both of which are still going strong.As are very many of his other compositions.

There aren't many true geniuses. That's why they stand out.

Now do agree with that.

Much more scope for developing and demonstrating originality once you get to uni (I hope this is still the case!)

Although the two are certainly not mutually exclusive!

Well sadly it is true - Head of year started making students point to where they were applying to on an unlabelled map after that as it wasn’t a rare occurrence…

Medicine doesn’t start with photocopying and coffee making but ok.

Again, this is deviating somewhat from the topic but people with high IQ's do not get 'discriminated against'. A lot of them simply rely too much on intelligence alone. That's all.

@Mirabai there's a LOT of admin work in the first few placements. You'd be surprised. A date of mine was once complaining he'd spent so much time in med school only to be ringing around various trusts for patient records!

Again, there's no assumption that this girl will be unhappy to start at the bottom. But just saying. Every profession has its share of drudge work.

I did an A level in Classical Civilization a few years ago. Always loved the subject and wanted to channel it into something more structured. I did it via distance learning and took the exams at a local high school. Loved it! (Well, not the exams so much, but pleased I did it).