Help with a level choices

[NCTDN]

I'm not sure if this is the right section - secondary education seemed to young.
We're just starting the college open evenings for DD. She doesn't have a clue what she would like to do career wise so needs to keep options open with her next choices. She's very academic and could take up pretty much any A level following on from gcses.
How does she decide? Where can we get advice on what universities ask for,especially the Russell group? Does she stick with 'traditional' a levels ie not vocational based but the core curriculum type?

have a look at some university prospectuses. they list course requirements , and the a levels you need to have she can see if any interest her. she could also try calling up the education advice helpline on 0800 101 901, who specialize in offering advice about things like these. also, a final piece of advice is to pick what she enjoys x

russellgroup.ac.uk/for-students/school-and-college-in-the-uk/subject-choices-at-school-and-college/

This is a good starting point, but as sleep says, the most important thing is to study what you enjoy. Nothing would be worse than spending two years focusing on a subject that you find boring and/or have no interest in.

Look at individual courses too and find the top ranking unis for that course (plenty of sites around, slight variation but broadly similar). You can than find entry requirements. NB not all top unis are in the Russell Group.

Will she do 3 or 4? If 3 I’d choose 2 that go well together, like maths and physics, or English and history, for example, depending on whether she prefers sciences, arts or humanities, then the third can be something more ‘frivolous’ that she enjoys but will still complement the other two, or maybe another academic subject she really loves but doesn’t normally go with the other two, like English, history and biology, or maths, physics and French.

If starting with 4 with the intention of dropping one, you have more flexibility. If she has no idea which of the 4 she’d drop, take two pairs.

If she has any ideas of careers she might be interested in, she needs to make sure her choices will match those. Any sort of engineering needs physics and maths, any sort of medical career needs chemistry etc.

No point going for majority vocational A levels if she doesn’t have any idea what career she might be interested in. Better to stick with traditional subjects to give her more choice later. Why do computer graphics if she doesn’t want to go into computing? Do maths and you can go into computing later.

Unless she has a clear idea of what career or course she wants to pursue and specific entry requirements, pick whatever she will do best in.

Sounds as if your dd would be best to choose traditional academic subjects. She should choose her favourite subjects and those she is likely to do best in.
Any vocational options offered are unlikely to be A levels. The A level reforms have meant that vocational A levels are no longer offered in England.

Talk to your daughter what sort of thing does she like? Is she good at science and maths? Is she artistic? Is she practical or would a vocational course be more suited. How on earth I we expected to know without knowing the child. You def asking the wrong people. Look to see what is available in your areas and what are the entry requirements. The uni will depend on the course. For instance one may be better for engenearing and other is better for humanities.

She'll have more options if she goes for maths and science etc.

Some of the more vocational courses/ humanities don't t have subject requirements as long as you can demonstrate an interest for the subject in your personal statement. You could always do it.

But if she later decides later to do medicine for example, she'll need specific subjects and if she wanted to do it she'd have to do an extra year of school.

Since she's academic if recommend either;
•math + 1 science + one other of her choice
Or
•math + 2 science

I am not sure if I agree that your dd will necessarily have more options if she chooses Maths/Sciences.
What does your dd like - reading/writing essays, solving problems, hands-on Science practicals or other practical tasks such as cookery/sewing, creating and designing, writing music/playing a musical instrument.
Most sixth forms do allow pupils to change their mind between applying for courses and receiving their results so there is room to change if your dd either changes her mind or doesn't achieve her expected results. Some sixth forms have taster days where pupils can try out a lesson before starting the course which is particularly useful for new subjects that may not have been offered at GCSE.

If she genuinely has no clue what she wants to do next it makes sense to do a science/Maths and an essay subject/language and something else.

When most DC analyse what they really like at school they can make choices. However avoid putting subjects together randomly. If she likes languages, always do 2 at A level. One limits choices.

Does she enjoy science and maths? What interests does she have besides school? Does she like history? What does she read? What about politics or Law as a degree and a career? Some A levels are way better prep than others. Essentially, do 2 academic subjects which were defined by Cambridge university and choose one to complement. So English, History and Drama. History, Politics and Maths. Economics, Maths and Psychology, Geography, Maths and Sociology, etc You can mix and match a bit but check a few careers and university courses to see what works best. Look at top universities first. They tend to be more choosy over subject combinations.

If she likes languages, always do 2 at A level. One limits choices

??? Most schools won't let you do more than one GCSE language these days, so you're going to be hard pushed to be able to do two languages at A level unless you do one from scratch. And in what way does it limit you? There are hundreds if not thousands of degree courses which are a language or a language plus another subject. You mentioned law in your next paragraph - there are plenty of law courses which allow you to study one language as well and spend a year in the country of that language.

Seemingly random subject choices can work fine - eg someone I knew at school did German, economics and chemistry A levels and then did law at Oxford.

Apparently there's a website that gives ideas of what universities all for. Dies anyone know it?

You need the RG Informed Choices site. It's designed to help students mot get pushed into taking (say) law, business studies and accountancy when (say) maths, economics and history may give them more options in the future.

www.informedchoices.ac.uk

Thanks @Hoghgyni

Try SACU and play around with the A level tool under students. That will show you degree programmes students went into last year and what subjects they used. You can click on the degree names in the cloud thats generated for more info. Hope that makes sense.

UCAS?
www.ucas.com/undergraduate/what-and-where-study/ucas-undergraduate-what-study

Just to clarify, I did mean SACU!

berlinbabylon: for MFL degrees, you have far wider choice if you have studied 2 at A level. This is obvious. It leads directly to joint honours MFL and ensures you should be able to cope with ab initio. It’s also not going to stop you studying Law as long as you put History, say, with the languages.

It’s no coincidence that there is a dearth of MFL grads from state schools. They have poor preparation for the degrees. As your post demonstrates.

I don't know anyone who's done two languages at alevel and it's also a terrible idea. It gives you an extremely narrow path and you won't be able to do any of the more academic courses.

Dd did 2 mfl!

Nothing at all wrong with doing two MFL A levels - they were classed as facilitating subjects on the old system. But in most cases people can only do one, and I fail to see how it is remotely restrictive. Ok if you don't have German A level you can't do it at post A level standard at uni but a lot of unis have beginners courses.

DD's school didn't give them the opportunity to take 2 MFL at any stage. Most MFL teachers could teach French, Spanish & German, but they could only take French or Spanish to GCSE. Even in year 7 they were put in a French or Spanish stream and could only switch between the two if there were particular family links.

If you enjoy and are good at languages and want to study them for A level, it's not a terrible idea in the slightest to do 2 languages at A level, if your school/college offers that. Language a levels are well regarded and seen as rigorous, and would not affect admission to "academic" courses such as Law. Having said that, if your DD genuinely has no preference, maths or science A Levels probably rule out nothing at this stage.