AIBU to worry Business Studies GCSE may affect future university choices?

[Y9Options]

DS has chosen his options for GCSE and I'm concerned the Business Studies GCSE is not accepted by some universities. When completing UCAS applications for my DD recently, some of her uni choices stated they didn't accept some subjects - things like Business Studies, Media Studies etc.

DS's GCSE choices so far are:

English Language
English Literature
Maths
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
History
Geography
PE
And the last option is yet to be decided.

DS wants to do Business Studies (Edexcel). He'd consider Computer Science (also Edexcel) but doesn't really enjoy it - and everything I've read online suggests it's dull and hard to get a high grade in.

I'd love him to continue with his MFL (Spanish), but he checked out mentally a while ago when he realised he wouldn't have to choose an MFL for GCSE. He has some dyslexia which affects his spelling and doesn't languages even though, he seems to be naturally pretty good at them when he tries. He also has ADHD (medicated) and is far more motivated in the subjects he enjoys.

Uni applications look at the average of your top 8 GCSE grades, so I'm thinking about his chances of getting the best grades he can. He wants to do something like Economics or Architecture at Uni.

This is really interesting. My son recently chose his GCSEs and I advised against Business Studies, and persuaded him to choose something more academic. At the University where I work, Maths and Economics are highly valued for our Business degree course.

Oxford University state:

"We recommend that candidates take those GCSE subjects that they enjoy the most and are confident in achieving good grades in."

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/admission-requirements/uk-qualifications

No mention anywhere I can see of excluded GCSE subjects.

Wow, some schools don't do DT? DD does landscape architecture and I'd say DT was essential preparation. And it's a lot more AI proof than law or an MBA, that's for sure.

The snobbery on this thread is depressing. Given that all the core subject are covered why not do something they will enjoy and potentially get a high grade in?

Surely, an A* in business studies will look better than a 5 in Spanish?

We let ours take the GCSEs they wanted

Enjoyment of learning and enjoying their time at school seems much more important than what a parent has decided will or won’t look good on a university application 4 years into the future.

He is the one who will sit these exams.

Layout all the information for him and then let him decide.

I would like to which university said that GCSE Business Studies is not counted. My experience in education has not seen this at all. Studying both Business and Economics at A level can be an issue for some but not all universities whilst it used to be that Business at A level was not on the facilitating subject list (many subjects were the same) but that is no longer the case as this list was scraped out in 2019, and the list only applied to two of the A levels.

A GCSE in Business Studies is not going to affect his Uni applications.

On the subject of MFL, Spanish is one of the easier GCSEs for dyslexics. My daughter passed it quite easily.

At GCSE level though? I find that hard to believe (especially as very few schools offer econ GCSE so to favour those that have it would be discriminatory, surely).

@RampantIvy @sixsept we are not allowed to know which unis @Sashya and @jsku are talking about. Hmmmm I wonder why.

@Y9Options please don't worry about business GCSE - yes better an 8 in business than a 4/5 in Spanish, at any uni or sixth form setting, I promise. (Unless planning A level Spanish obvs).

I have to agree somewhat with the PP who suggested a possible low grade in English (which you mentioned) might be more of an issue anyway, especially as economics has a lot of essay writing. So I would focus on that.

Interestingly, Cambridge specify that they look at GCSEs AND any Level 1 or Level 2 certificates, but they are "limited in their ability" to take "bespoke school qualifications" into account, which I think might be what a couple of previous posters have alluded to.

They do also state "Of the Level 2 qualifications you are taking, we recommend as many as possible be academic in focus." but I imagine this means not too many creative subjects.

^"There are no GCSE (or equivalent) requirements for entry to Cambridge. Our minimum offers are based on A levels and other Level 3 qualifications.
We will look at your GCSE results as an indicator of your academic performance. But this will be within the context of the performance of the school/college where you achieved your GCSEs.^

Any Level 1/Level 2 Certificates you are taking will be considered in the round along with GCSEs. Of the Level 2 qualifications you are taking, we recommend as many as possible be academic in focus.

Bespoke school qualifications
We are aware of an increase in the provision of bespoke qualifications at certain schools, often as an alternative to specific GCSEs.

Whilst we do not have a minimum GCSE requirement at Cambridge, our assessment of an applicant's qualification history and trajectory is based on qualifications that have been benchmarked at an internationally recognised standard. We are therefore limited in our ability to take such bespoke qualifications into account when making our admissions decisions, and we do not treat these qualifications as equivalent to GCSEs. We encourage relevant schools to seek to have any bespoke qualifications benchmarked should they wish for them to play a meaningful role in our processes."

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/before/accepted-qualifications

He has chosen 10 GCSEs, 8 of which are really academic. It will be no problem for Economics. Lots of universities only look at the top 8 GCSEs. If he does want to do Architecture and he wants to go somewhere selective, he may well need to produce a portfolio which will be very much easier if he has done Art GCSE and ideally Art A-level. Some of the courses specify that they prefer art A-level but not all. Some of them don’t ask for a portfolio if you are doing Art A level but do ask for it if you are not.

Yes, I think there might be quite a lot of private school hearsay going on here!
DD did dance and psychology for gcse which will probably cause much pearl clutching on here (Alleyns do do dance btw!). I am not seeing this as a problem later on.
The only GCSE issue that seems to occur is grade of English or maths required.
DS hit every grade from 4-9 at gcse and got all his econ offers apart from Oxford (not really a surprise!). I think the maths and further maths and A* predictions (and maybe state school?) were the big factors in his offers.

My DD has just done her options and was unsure between economics GCSE and Business Studies. I steered her towards Business studies because I think it gives a rounder view of business, indeed if I hadn’t done it I wouldn’t have learnt about the subject area I chose to make my career. If she wants to do economics she can do it at A level but at least she will have a basic understanding then of what marketing, HR etc is which in my view is more useful in the longer term.

I agree that it’s a shame it’s not offered in more schools. DS’s school doesn’t offer it.

DD did 10 very academic subjects plus DT. She loved having a subject that used a different part of her brain and she got to use her hands. It really helped her avoid burn out once all the intensive revision kicked in. It’s a great subject for those who are not “arty”.

I think the OP must have mistaken GCSEs and A-levels. There are some unis with preferred A-level lists, and some may have Business on it. I have never seen any university that has a list of preferred GCSE subjects. (And I personally think that would be insane, given that everyone has to do a core of academic GCSE subjects anyway!)

As for "school-directed" subjects, I think previous posters may mean something like Sevenoaks School Certificates (although I think those can be entered on UCAS) or Bedales Assessed Courses. It is pretty clear that these are not GCSEs so if the school lied to you about that, you need to take it up with the school. But I am surprised because I actually got the impression that both schools are quite proud of their bespoke courses and advertise the fact, certainly on their websites.

I should have said: I have never seen any university that has a list of preferred GCSE option subjects - English and maths requirements are obviously common but that is not what people are talking about here.

There are few other posters working in unis on the thread…. We’ve all said otherwise, and @JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOffhas not provided any link that supports what they are saying, and I don’t recognise the name (though that means nothing) as a regular contributor to HE threads. So perhaps not everyone is who they say they are. People lie on-line - who knew.

Uni admissions is NOT black box. It is open and transparent. Unis are NOT (handful of exceptions - largely lower tier) private institutions. They’re public. And regulated to within an inch of their lives.

So far the only evidence that we have that BS and PE are not suitable at GCSE level is one anecdote from a parent who knows someone who didn’t get into Ox and had one of these subjects, and a school which passed off its own non-examined curriculum as a GCSE qualification.

Evidence people - ask for it! If it’s not forthcoming, think about why not.

GCSE advice for the potentially uni-bound: do at least 8 full subjects, make sure Maths and English are up to scratch, after the compulsory ones are chosen pick ones your yp enjoys and will do well in, keep an eye on what GCSEs are needed for likely A level/L3 courses. Dont sweat it…

Edit to add: do people really think there are huge teams of admissions staff going through thousands of application to ferret out an erroneous GCSE in PE? Do you know how many admissions (and other) staff have been made redundant recently? It’s laughable this would happen.

Hi @Y9Options returning as promised having grabbed an Econ colleague in the gym this morning! (That wasn't why I was there 😁)

So we have minimum institutional requirements (GCSE 6 maths and English) but beyond that, different subjects that are regarded as particularly selective can put in additional higher requirements. Econ for us is one of those subjects, and I think would be elsewhere too.

Our Econ entry on the website says you need "a strong set of GCSEs with majority at 7/8/9. We also consider your overall GCSE subject profile." My colleague who teaches on the prog says there used to be a formal "banned list" but this is no longer the case, however subjects that she thinks would be regarded less favourably for Econ are those in art/ design, business studies, film/ media, and religious studies. They are not banned but they might discount them from the overall profile.

However as before, what probably matters more is GCSE maths score (ideally 8 or 9) and following that, choice of A levels.

Making an educated guess at your institution you say:

‘For GCSEs, you’ll need several GCSE grades at A (or 7) and A* (or 8-9).

As a minimum, we ask for GCSE English Language and Mathematics grades at B (6) or higher. We’ll also consider your overall GCSE subject profile.

A-levels
AAA with an A in Mathematics

We also consider your AS grades, if available.
See subject combinations regarding Further Mathematics requirements.’

A kid with 10 at grades 7+ isn’t going to be turned down because one of them was BS.

Hi @titchy yes and I haven't said that.

I'm not going to discuss my institution for obvious reasons. I post on here about some really personal stuff and no, I don't generally post on the HE or the Academic Cmn Rm boards because it's a bit of a busman's holiday and I am here as a mum, not a prof.

I also think HE admissions are much more flexy and opaque than some here think. I have worked at 2 RGs and a post 92. I'm on my current institution's central admissions cttee. There are tensions between what senior professional services colleagues want ( our COO or head of admissions) and academics.

Talking generally here, the interest of "the University" is to get as many good students as they can, where they can. A course like Econ is popular and attracts good students. It helps support the whole institution. So somebody like the head of admissions would like to expand it, and if that means slightly dropping tariff or relaxing requiremts, they're okay with that if it doesn't impact league tables etc.

Meanwhile, the head of dept who's been here for 25y and whose team is actually doing the teaching has a different POV. They might prefer a smaller cohort of 3A* students. They may also have a degree of leftover snobbery!

Admissions policy is often a tug between these opposing forces and in practice, some depts will want to retain control and use academic judgement much more actively in the admissions process.

I teach business. I have been er known a university not recognise it?

I also teach computer science. (It's really dull tbh id you aren't completely invested in it )
Buisness is a really good course. Super interesting.(Of course there are elements of the exam that are tedious as in all exams )

*For some reason I can't edit my typos !

My ds did both Business and Econ A level - knowing that this would be problematic if he wanted to do Econ at uni (but more so that he wasn't doing Maths A level) - which he didn't, and knew that he was going to apply for Business Management at university so the school and everyone were fine about it. He really enjoyed both, got As in both, got offers from all 5 unis including RGs and is now doing Business Management at Southampton, which has been great for him as a not particularly academic kid, more practical (and interested in earning money).

People are snobby about Business Management courses but actually it has some of the best graduate recruitment stats and highest starting salaries (esp compared to STEM). Not up there with the top Econ/Maths grads I'm sure but not every kid is high functioning in Maths (you either have that brain, or you don't). I work for a software company and most, if not all the grads we hire to be SDRs and AEs (sales guys) have done Business or BM at uni (often not at RG or one of the acceptable alternatives shock! horror!) and they are mostly able to pay off their student loans in the first couple of years and most are earning mid to high 6 figures after a couple of promotions before they are thirty. Not a bad outcome for most.

Yes I agree. It really depends,and I have seen this many times, occasional universities don’t like the two but that is related to the choice of course. I Economics degrees vary tremendously depending on maths content

I think some people are getting confused between:

a university not counting the subject of BS when asking for x GCSEs at y grade, ie excluding that Gcse,

and

excluding pupils who have BS GCSE whatever their other grades are, just because (which would be bonkers).

Its the GCSE which is (apparently) sometimes excluded, not the kids who have taken it.

OP I definitely think contacting the institutions you're interested in is the way forward because it's clearly not a universal rule.

@AstonScrapingsNameChange yes! Indeed.

Well the skills and knowlege acquired, certainly will be far from defunct. And if the new GCSE doesn't have a good technical foundation I imagine all the private schools will switch to the IGCSE instead.