Will these A-Levels be respected

[appol]

Neither my partner nor I are from the UK, we aren't very familiar with the British system and are feeling some what confused.
DSD is 15 turning 16, she's just done her GCSEs, I don't know how indicative of future success predicted grades are but she was predicted all 8 and 9.
For A-levels her school have everyone pick 4, from October onwards they can drop one if they like or continue.

DSD has selected

• Classical Civilisation
• English Literature
• History of Art
• Latin

Today I mentioned to someone I work with in conversation what she has chosen and she said that it screams "private school" and looks a bit soft. I'm not really sure what to make of that. She went on to say History or Philosophy will be better as they are real subjects and actually respected?

Is this true? Are DSDs subjects seen as soft?
She wants to do English & Classics at St Andrews as a joint honours, but will likely apply to Cambridge too - will this be detrimental.

What does "screams private school" really mean - she does go to private school but is it seen as a bad thing?

I think the grades are more important than the subjects, so long as she's sitting whichever ones her chosen unis require.

I think Latin's a great choice, and one open to far too few young people today. I did O level back in the day and I still find it useful occasionally even now (the bits I can remember!)

Those subjects scream private school OP because most state schools don’t teach them (except English lit). Very very few non-private schools would offer those a levels.

It’s not a bad thing but it does give her a slight ‘look’ if you see what I mean. I think this is what your colleague means. St Andrews is a posh uni so she’ll fit in fine there.

I don’t think they are soft subjects but I would suggest she thinks about careers and what she might do with them. I’m sure they’ll be options.

She just needs to go on the uni website and check their prerequisites.

That's interesting re Greek. Many many years ago when I did Ancient History you had to have either as A - level and the other to GCSE. Look up the Bloomsbury Summer School for some fun interesting stuff if she's keen.

Class Civ used to be seen as a bit of an easy subject. But for those in the area I think that's just because we all had to do Latin as well which as a previous poster said is tough tough tough (but great fun!). It's basically history, just Ancient History.

Oxford seems to favour Latin to Greek, Latin is 3 years guaranteed, Greek is 3 or 4 depending on the student.
DD can't do Greek anyway her school offers all sorts of subjects but no Greek.

Summer is spent doing her sport/in France with grandparents etc. so not much time for anything else.

This is controversial and I will get screamed down but my (limited) experience as a parent is that it doesn't massively matter what A level subjects you do as long as one of them is directly relevant, in many cases, and for some courses almost any are fine - obviously UNLESS you are trying to do STEM, medicine, engineering where it is a bit more prescriptive or Economics where you must have Maths etc.

So for example, my friend's son did Latin, Geography and Economics and is at Uni now studying Geography. My son did Business, Econ and English Lit and is doing Business Management, but there are lots on his course that didn't do Business and did random combos like Maths, Biology, Geography. Another friend's son is studying Architecture and he needed DT and, possibly, Maths? but the third one could be anything, he did Business. Friend's kid doing Law did English Lit, History and something else, a language I think.

If you look in the UCAS site at any university course that she thinks she might want to do it will tell you if there are any particular A levels they must have and any that are desirable an dhelp with applications. Medicince will say 3 sciences but even then I believe there are exceptions nowadays.

They seem fine to me for someone that is not intending to study STEM or medicine or Architecture or Art or whatever.

There is no reason why they wouldn't count as two separate subjects. Most of what you do in Latin A level is language work, learning to translate Latin into English. I didn't do Class Civ but I see from this it's got quite a wide scope. Sounds fascinating, actually! https://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/as-and-a-level/classical-civilisation-h008-h408-from-2017/specification-at-a-glance/

They run stuff online and throughout the year. Some really interesting ancient history courses.

Good luck to her, she’s in for some fun few years!

I know someone who studied Latin at Cambridge and he went to a private school as it is not widely studied in public schools.
I think that a nich subject actually gives you more chance of getting into Cambridge but I my friend did a lot of work going to extra lectures, visiting museums and doing extra things to prove that he had a real love of Latin, so I would concentrate on things like that.

Our low achieving school has Classics as an option, one of our kids sat it. I did it myself in a state school.
No Latin though!

Nope, either Latin or Greek is fine (or was for Warwick 5 years ago). So few ppl take these subjects that if you want to do Greek, it’s fine to do it ab initio.

OP Latin and Eng lit are both on the Cambridge uni list of highly recommended subjects (“choose two of these”) and her other two choices are on the “also good” list so they are all good. And would get her into anywhere to study her chosen subjects at degree level (depending on grades ofc)

Oh x post op sorry

This is key. Maybe start gently making sure she doesn’t get her hopes on Cambridge, it’s so unlikely statistically.

I'd say, best to find out from the universities whether these A levels will get her into the course she wants to do, and take everyone else's opinion with a large grain of salt.

@Peonies12

She actually prefers St Andrew's to either (visits often with her dad when he goes to do guest lectures), she likes the "vibe" better and prefers the 4 year course I think.
I have a feeling applying to oxbridge will be more of a "to see if I can" than anything else!

These are good subjects to be able to go on to study classics/ English or a combined degree. Ignore the PP who said not to do both Latin and CC, they are different subjects and good to do together, given what she wants to do as a degree.

I marginally agree that history is a better choice than history of art, but they are very different subjects and she should do what she enjoys as that is conducive to getting better grades. Doing “harder” subjects because they may be well respected is a double edged sword, yes they might be looked at more favourably, but an A* in a slightly easier subject is better than a B/C in a harder one.

I've asked DSD why history of art. She thinks the syllabus is interesting and won't feel bad if she decides to drop it.
Apparently the history syllabus her school uses doesn't feel as exciting.
She has done Classical Studies for GCSE and noted that when she was studying for that/english/latin and other subjects she enjoys she was happy to go over the time she had timetabled for studying but in History she would watch clock while studying and stop as soon as her timetabled time for it was up. So she doesn't want that again. She was still predicted 9 in History but maybe didn't enjoy getting to that point as much!

@appol I think you need to find out which subjects successful applicants have studied for these courses. I would have thought History rather than History of Art was a better bet for competitive courses at elite unis. I’ve said elsewhere, look at the Cambridge guide to choosing A level subjects. She has two in Latin and English but make sure History would not be a better bet over HofA. Ignore private school jibe. HofA is mostly private school in uk. Who cares though?

We have looked, they recommend two from English Literature, a language (French is her first language so by all accounts she has a higher quality second language than the vast majority with an A-level and has the DELF Junior B2 to show it, though I doubt they will care if they are looking for the A-level!), Latin counts here too, then history. So from that she has Latin and English Literature. In the other subjects you could take they have classical civilisation and History of art.
DSD really doesn't want to do history as the syllabus her school uses isn't of interest to her. Unless it's likely to make or break her chances she's unlikely to change her mind on that.

Whether in general history is 'better' than HofA is somewhat irrelevant - from everything you've written and the info in the Cambridge guide, it looks like the subjects she's chosen should be fine and they're the best for her.

They're definitely not soft but maybe a bit narrow - fine if she knows exactly what she wants to do, but wouldn't do any harm to swap one for maths/science/geography if she wants to keep her options open a bit more.

It sounds as though she's very clear what she wants to do - the course and a good idea of the unis too. And on the arts/humanities side there's generally more courses available which don't have specific prerequisite knowledge vs stem.
Narrow is fine for kids fortunate enough to be sure of what they want to do - and her choices include 'essay' and language so not as narrow as some.

Also, swapping in one science is generally pointless for 'keeping options open' .

There's nothing "soft" about any of them but they are very niche

This. Taking three subjects from a choice of physics, maths, further maths, chemistry and biology is also a bit niche but people do it all the time. It’s fairly common to do 3 STEM subjects, or 3 humanities subjects because most people pick what they are good at and enjoy the most. One of mine didn’t do A-levels at all, but did an art course and then went on to do a creative degree at an arts university and will (hopefully) have a career in the creative sector. Doing a science, a language and an essay based subject would have kept open doors that she wasn’t interested in going through. If you don’t know what you want to do post 18 then propping doors open (or at least not slamming them shut) is something to consider, but if you are clear about your direction then pick things that are helpful to get you there. If your dd wanted to do maths at Cambridge or Warwick then nobody would be criticising her for doing maths and further maths with physics.

Sounds like you have checked the entry requirements. That’s all you need to do. You can equally say someone aiming for computer science has a niche set of A levels of physics, maths, further maths and computing. A levels by definition is more niche given there are only 3 choices usually.