Subject choices academic vs fun dilemma

[Witsend1234]

My teen is due to make their choices for Scottish Highers after Christmas. I know it seems awfully early in the year.

For a bit of background, she’s autistic and an extremely bright, academic, A student in everything academic. She wants to go to the local university (a RG uni) which has reasonable entry requirements (AAAAB) for most subjects including law, which is her on/off preference.

Our problem is that she’s wanting to take both music and drama at higher in S5 and her grades aren’t as good. She also does dancing 4 times a week and refuses to drop some classes to focus on studies/revision. We asked her to drop two and keep two - we will need to get strict on this but would rather at first it was her decision. She will never be a professional dancer and I hate to say, she isn’t good enough to study drama with any professional outcome after education (I come from a family of drama school grads all excellent, none have made it) These activities give her a community she can belong to and I know at 15/16 that seems to be the most important thing in the world, especially as an autistic teen.Shes not got the maturity to think beyond this.

My dh and I have suggested she takes one fun subject in S5 and the other in S6 so she has four good academic subjects at first sitting and one alongside advanced highers, but she’s refusing to consider it. She wants what she considers the easy option now.

Ultimately the school will go with her choices and preferences not ours so she can do what she wants. We just don’t want her realising (as both my dh and I did) that she made the wrong choices at school and then it becomes much harder to rectify in adulthood, especially if higher education becomes more expensive in Scotland.

I guess I’m wanting to know how much weight is given to higher drama and music by universities for students looking to enter areas such as law or psychology (her two career preferences )or how much damage they cause to her chance of getting into a RG uni when neither subject will be studied??

How have other parents handled this situation with subject choices? Have any parents of stubborn autistic teens encountered this and how did you deal with it?

thanks.

Is there an out of school option for drama?

I'm familiar with kids doing a level and there, having one of 3 al levels be a lighter subject (drama or music) is not a limitation but two is.

What are her other subjects? Psychology needs more maths or science than law.

Admittedly I don't know the Scottish qualifications as well as English, but I know in England Drama and Music are quite theoretical as well as needing the talent. Has she looked at what the universities consider strong subjects?

First step is to go find out from the uni what subjects they accept for entry to the courses she's looking at.

Secondly, have a long think about what's important, it's her life and you perhaps need to let her make some of the decisions for herself. Getting too involved at this stage might breed resentment. My parents never got involved at all but we're supportive of any choices I made, it did no harm I found my own way. Your role in this is guidance and support but not telling her what to do.

Would it help to remind her that some subjects, particularly music and foreign languages are routinely studied by adults outside the school setting, so she would not be "closing the door" if she didn't take them at school. Whereas others like science have to be studied now, while the labs, equipment and help are available.

Take law at Edinburgh as an example, the only required subject is English Higher, a B on the first attempt.

undergraduate.degrees.ed.ac.uk/?action=view&code=M114

And here's a list of the approved subjects at Edinburgh - music and drama are both on the list.

www.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergraduate/entry-requirements/scottish-qualifications/approved-subjects

I did my Highers a very long time ago but I know my Art and Design Higher was considered acceptable by your local university so I'd assume Music would be as well. Should be able to check on their website if some Highers aren't accepted.

But for Psychology the list of required subjects is longer, leaving less scope for 'fun' subjects.

"The grades used to meet our entry requirements must include:

SQA: Highers: one from Biology or Human Biology, Chemistry, Computing Science or equivalent, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, or Psychology at B.
Higher Applications of Mathematics is not accepted in place of Higher Mathematics.
National 5s: English at C. Mathematics at A or Mathematics and Physics both at B or Higher Mathematics at C."

undergraduate.degrees.ed.ac.uk/?action=view&code=C802

Does the drama have a group component? I know of some students who didn’t do as well in drama as they hoped because the rest of their group didn’t put the necessary work in. When things are considered easy or fun subjects you don’t always get the most motivated peer group. I don’t think either music or drama are necessarily easy subjects, but they have that perception

She does it out of school on a Saturday but she doesn’t want that to replace rhe school subject. I’ve told her she could pick it up again in s6 at higher but she refuses that because she hates the people in the year below (this is why I don’t think it’s her rational mind making the decisions)

She has to take maths and I think they’ll push for a science too but again that could be taken in s6. She’ll be doing English, a humanities subject and a modern language - she’s happy with these.

I know for law they have a list of subject that they don’t really consider academic enough of which drama is one but not music. They also have requirements for passing in 5th year at first sitting meaning her 6th year exams while not unimportant aren’t as influential. I used to hang out with the old admissions officer for the law dept in her office over lunch and hear her saying these things on repeat to parents. Her drama teacher told her drama is great for being a lawyer because she’ll be acting everyday. Psychology is a bit more prescriptive about what they want.

We have tried to stay out of her choices but I’m fairly sure the whole drama thing is more about a boy she fancies and the social circle
that includes her than drama itself. My concern is that she won’t have the opportunities her dad and I had to redo things and retrain/re-study in adulthood because of the way student financing is changing. It won’t be free/cheap tuition in a few years time. It’s much harder as an autistic person to get on in life starting later in life. I don’t want her having a difficult experience because we left her to it - it was mine and my partner’s mums approach and really didn’t work for us. And then there’s realising how much youth is valued over experience too late (like me!)

Edinburgh law website says it requires 5 x A at first sitting in s5 unless a WP student which she doesn’t qualify as.

Yes, that's the entry requirements, but you were asking about the required subjects?

I was just using Edinburgh as an example to show you can go and check what subjects are on the list of approved subjects for the uni and required subjects for the course.

Are you concerned that she's less likely to get As in these subjects, or just that they don't feel as academic?

If the former, that's a valid concern which will affect her chances of getting in. I think she might get a conditional offer for AAAAB and being autistic, but not AAABB.

Because of the boy and because it could be argued as helping public speaking/law adjacent - I'd do drama this year and music in S6, encouraging her to practice her instruments and improve over S5 to make it easier in S6. She should take maths if psychology is on the table.