A-levels for Medicine

[Clovie]

My dd has just enrolled at college. She wanted to do 4 A-Levels in history, maths, biology and chemistry, but after enrolment today she is now very unsure. She is a high achiever (all 8 and 9 in GCSE) and wants to do medicine. She was told at her enrolment that 4 subjects is too much and she’d be better concentrating on 3. She is now panicking about which subjects to choose and only has until Thursday to decide. Any recommendations? It’s hard to know whether she should stick with maths or show that she’s more rounded and choose history.

Yeah, I found my biology and chemistry really useful, but should have done maths with stats instead of pure maths. Would have been so useful through med school, and later.

Start all 4, see what the workload is like! Science workload is fairly definite with actual answers at A-level level. If she can deem an essay done (good skill for Oxford) the workload should

Maths helps with sciences so it's not as much work as 4 essay type subjects and good prep for Oxford anyway.

The original post asked for recommendations, and I was simply offering mine given that this is my ACTUAL job. I hope you have a lovely evening!

It is my actual job, too, as a medicine admissions tutor and someone who teaches year 1-3 medical students as well as advising sixth-formers in several schools & colleges about medicine applications. I apologise for the tone of my previous message. I - in common with all medicine admissions tutors - get frustrated when students receive advice that leads them to make poor choices. The A-Level subject requirements for medicine courses are very clearly stated, and they are genuine: there is not a hidden process favouring applicants who choose biology, chemistry & maths over those with other combinations. As long as they are meeting the stated requirements, students should select the A-Levels for which they will have the greatest motivation and the highest probability of obtaining A or A* grades.

OP, please refer to the Medical Schools Council entry requirements booklet.

Whilst Chemistry Biology and Maths are often a combination for medicine applications Chemistry, Biology and another are also fine too. Indeed this year one of our medic offer holders (slective sixth form) and now about to start his degree has Chemistry, Biology and History with his History being an A predicted grade which allowed him to apply to AAA courses.

If she likes it and is likely to get a better grade or it will bring her more joy go for history. But chemistry and biology leaves more medical schools open to her.

There is a lot of misinformation on here.
Many universities require biology, quite a lot require biology or chemistry, a few require both.
A couple of colleges at Cambridge require 3 sciences.
NOWHERE else requires 3 sciences and neither do they prioritise 3 sciences.
Newcastle doesn't require any sciences at all.
She should not do 4 A levels in my view. It's unnecessarily hard work and there is always the (very small) risk that she might get an offer based on 4 A levels.
Even with 8s and 9s at GCSEs, A levels are a step up and she'll have to work hard to get the As and A*s for medicine.
I would suggest she does chemistry and biology plus whichever of the others she either prefers significantly or whichever of the others she will find it easiest to get a good grade in.
The reality is that, if she meets the criteria for interview (which are usually predicted grades plus - and this is usually weighted much higher - the score in UCAT or BMAT), then she'll get an interview. If she doesn't she won't. Her 3rd subject will not impact on that one iota (there is almost nothing subjective about interview offers for medicine, for all bar a couple of unis).
Maths might help her with the UCAT. But if she's very academic then she probably doesn't need that help.
Don't do it to "show she's more rounded" because that implies a subjectivity to this process that simply doesn't exist. But if she loves history it won't disadvantage her in the slightest to have done that over maths.
Essays are important in medical school and she will learn useful skills in history (another option is to do a history of medicine type EPQ if they are on offer in her school?).
No disrespect to teachers here or in schools but I've spent hours and hours researching all this in order to help local schools improve their application process and things change every year. What I've just said applies to this next cohort - another year could bring a whole lot of new changes.
None of the teachers I know have the time to keep up with any of this (and they don't need to) but take any advice with a massive pinch of salt and check for yourselves.

Apologies. I managed to miss that there were 2 other pages to this thread so thought I was commenting fairly near the beginning when you were getting incorrect advice. 🤦. Apologies for repeating the same things as many others!

Thank you so much everyone for all the comments. I’ve shown dd and I think she feels better knowing that she can choose history if she wants. She might still choose maths, but at least she’s not going to feel like she has to do it.

And we were just talking about her EPQ and she definitely wants to do something based on history of medicine or diseases. She has a morbid fascination with it!

I've been looking into this and for medicine Chemistry is the only essential one, but Maths is an advantage if you want to apply to Cambridge and a few other universities, and biology is not essential but preferable for a few. History won't be much help but it won't exclude you from applying as long you have high grades in it. You need a minimum of AAA.

Some people on here have no clue. Studying Maths will help to develop better logical thinking skills, which are useful for UCAT and BMAT. There are some mathematical elements in those as well. I would advise Maths over History every time.

I’m a doctor although went to uni in 1999 so things have obv changed. Chemistry is essential. Out of those I’d say Chemistry, Biology and Maths although if she can manage 4, having interests outside of the usual stuff can only be a good thing for applications. I did RE for my 4th.

I've been looking into this and for medicine Chemistry is the only essential one, but Maths is an advantage if you want to apply to Cambridge and a few other universities, and biology is not essential but preferable for a few.

Biology is essential for Aston, Birmingham, Brighton & Sussex, Cardiff, Edge Hill, Exeter, Hull York, Imperial, King's, Lincoln, Nottingham, Plymouth, Southampton, St George's and UCL.

Will people please stop making stuff up? You might cause a young person to make a decision that seriously limits their options.

www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2877/entry-requirements-document-2022-digital.pdf

Should have added that chemistry is not required by Anglia Ruskin, East Anglia, Keele, Kent & Medway, Lancaster, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Plymouth, QMUL (Bart's), Sheffield, Southampton or Sunderland.

It is always advisable to take chemistry to keep a broad range of options open, but it's not absolutely essential.

She has chosen history, so I just emailed college and informed them. I received this back. There is no single medical school that requires maths. I’m getting more and more pissed off with them by the day and she hasn’t even started yet!! I have swiftly corrected them and she is now enrolled onto chemistry, biology and history.

Thanks everyone for your help

Good for you! 👍 I hope she enjoys the course.

@Clovie - It might be useful for your daughter to contact admissions at one or two of the medical schools she will want to apply to and ask them to confirm that having biology, chemistry & history A-Levels is acceptable and won't put her at a disadvantage, then show the replies to college.

One thing the college might be thinking is that having all the potential medics doing the same subjects allows them to put them on a 3- or 4-day timetable so they can have full days off-timetable to do "work experience", do UCAT prep, attend interviews, etc. However, that's not what they said in the e-mail. Also, that can't be allowed to take priority over ensuring students are taking A-Levels they are most likely to succeed in.

If she were doing A-Level physics (or possibly economics) I would understand the strong recommendation to do maths as well. I can't see why someone with an 8 or 9 in GCSE maths would need to do A-Level maths to support biology and chemistry. We have loads of medical students who have done A-Level biology & chemistry without maths.

My school required anyone studying A-level science but not maths (a fair few, mainly medics) to do "some" "maths for scientists". DH's school didn't (he's a vet, Cambridge grad) didn't and he did find some of the maths tough - but his dad (Science PhD) tutored him through it.

Between us (I have A-level maths but only 1 stats module) we fought our way to vaguely understanding confidence limits and the more complicated stats involved in evidence based medicine.

College clearly have no clue... however I'd be concerned that their teaching of some of the mathsy bits of science in the science subjects might be a bit iffy if they're assuming that all the students do maths as well!

Just a word of caution OP. I did really well at GCSE level and decided I wanted to be a vet. So I chose Chemistry, Biology and Physics A Level. My teachers warned me that these subjects together would be really tough going and I ignored them. I really struggled with them and ended up doing really badly. Individually they re really hard subjects. I ended up having to drop physics and took another non-science subject at AS level to do a science related degree at a rubbish uni. I’m not saying your daughter will struggle like I did and A Levels may be different to when I did them 20+ years ago but it’s worth considering how she will cope with these subjects although I’m sure you have already.

As a medic who went to medical school decades ago, I would say maths mainly useful for the statistics bit, but not extremely important.
That maths encourages logical thinking, I would say history is useful for critical thinking (very important, just look at all the (mis) information you get overloaded with nowadays) and useful for essay writing skills.
DC who is due to start history at uni level, found history more difficult than maths (but easier than further maths ).

She does not need maths (unless applying to Cambs). History is a v common 3rd A level for medicine. 3 and an EPQ (on medical thing so have something to talk about and a couple offer a reduced grade offer if get an A).

This is a really useful document for your dd www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2877/entry-requirements-document-2022-digital.pdf

Agree with many others that none require maths, most prefer bio and chem, not having both of those will limit her choices.
From my school the medics over the past few years have done a wide variety of subjects for their third A level

My daughter was also told by her college at her interview not to do 4 a levels. Which is frustrating as her school spent all last year persuading her to choose a fourth!

She's going to start with 4 and see how it goes. One is further maths though, which is a bit different from the OPs situation I think.

@CovidCorvid

Drop history. Keep chemistry, biology and maths. They’re the standard “medic” a levels. Medical schools aren’t interested in history.

I don’t believe that’s true at all. Medical schools are inundated with applicants and having something a bit different to everyone else is no bad thing. That having been said chemistry is a must.

OP my elder son is a GP and (many moons ago) he did 4 A levels (chemistry, biology, physics and maths) he too was a high achiever academically and he and his teachers were really confident he’d cope with 4 A levels which he went on to score 100% or very close to in all modules. My advice to you is that those top, top grades are very important your daughter would look better with 3 cracking A levels than 4 in which she didn’t do quite so well. Medical schools love to see some work experience and my son volunteered in our local old people’s home and something like that might be a better use of time than an extra A level. Good luck!

@Awkward77

I am a Science teacher and can tell you that she will need chemistry, biology and either physics or maths. There are a small handful of universities that do not require maths or physics but they are in the minority.

Agree with this. Additionally what is officially ‘required’ is often not what is preferred or what will assist her in her course. There’s a lot of maths and particularly statistics involved, and maths will facilitate the chemistry. If they accept her without maths then she may well have to do additional maths study whilst at uni. IME years ago people only did 4 if they did further maths, general studies or similar.

@Clovie

I can’t add anything constructive apart from we are having a similar issue. DS wants to do a Sports Science degree and most are insisting on another science and DS can’t chose.

But just wanted to recommend the Surgeons Museum in Edinburgh (if you fancy a trip one day) to your DD. We went this summer and it was amazing. Huge amount of medical history and it might help her with her EPQ.