Four A levels? Vet Sci/Med aims

[CervixSampler]

Dd is doing chemistry, biology and was doing history but is doubting her choice now. She’s aiming to go on to study veterinary science/medicine at uni. She got a 6 in history which was unexpected. I think she was predicted at least a 7. It’s been a strong subject and she doesn’t know what happened and can’t figure out the grade boundaries because the codes don’t match, or something. She’s now considering physics or maths as her third A level and would like to do a fourth subject too, for fun. Maybe French (she got a 6 taking it two years early). When I was at school most people did 3 plus general studies but that was a long time ago and things have changed.
Do people do 4? Is it a regular thing or do most do 3?
Any recommendations on the third and potentially fourth subject?

She took history, geography and drama as her options for GCSE. Geography is strong with an 8. She was doing extended maths but dropped it to focus on actual maths and her sciences.

TIA

@CervixSampler be pushy. Email every practice you can as you need to have the wex by Sept of Yr13. Pets don't count I'm afraid.
Hopefully her college will have contacts too, and the MOOC does count as some of the wex. But it's more like 9 applicants per place for need to stand out and the more experience you have the more you have to talk about at interviews. Good luck !

Look at this if think might be eligible

This is RVCs usual wex requirements

Bristol more holistic. But I've not had any student get in without some wex.

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/vet-school/study/undergraduate/guidance/

I think the RVC course costs several hundred pounds. Nottingham used to do an online course they counted as work experience. I'm not sure if they still do. That was free. It might be a good place to start.

@Hatwontfit I've posted the link to Notts MOOC. This RVC is free for WP - they do a paid one but no one counts that as wex.

Vet med student mum. My daughter did Economics with Chemistry and Biology as she wasn’t sure she could get an A in Maths. It has not been an issue at all, she has just finished second year.
Don’t do an EPQ unless your yp wants to
do it. It’s far more important to get a variety of work experience. Not just because the Unis require it, but more importantly it will give your yp an idea of what it’s going to be like. I still remember when my daughter did her first stint of lambing at 14, there was a Vet Student applicant there who thought the whole thing was disgusting. She hated the sheep and the gore and was terrified of the cows that were also on the farm. I’m not sure if she carried on with her application.
My daughter did lambing, dairy, worked at a stables for a year, kennels and overwintered hedgehogs for a local charity. As well as clinical.
The degree is a lot of work and it’s definitely a vocation so please make sure they know what it can entail. As an aside my daughter is literally living her best life at the moment. She loves Liverpool and the course.

Mines just qualified. Loved every second of Uni (even the Covid bit) and now loving being a vet. It's a hard course with holidays taken up with EMS (although they've cut this down now, as well
as the wex required to get in). Agree with everything @follygirl says. Know what you are getting into.

It's a long time since I was applying for Medical School but in my day the norm was Chemistry plus two out of Biology, Physics and Maths. There's more flexibility these days, particularly the third subject which I think is a good thing so I'd probably opt for the subjects she's likely to get the highest grades in. To be honest, I'm retired now and still not sure what was so important about A level Chemistry but it does seem to be pretty much an ubiquitous requirement. I think the A level that served me best was actually Physics, but not really until my post graduate exams and obviously that's specialty dependent and not many youngsters know what direction they're likely to go in at this stage. Three A levels is definitely plenty and 3 top grades is much better than 4 less good ones. Work experience is very hard to come by in medicine these days and I don't think it was ever that valuable anyway. It's really difficult to give school children any real idea of what life as a doctor is like. Most Trusts do short courses for aspiring medics involving lectures, simulation etc and they're at least as much use as any "real life" experience a school pupil is likely to get in a hospital or GP surgery. I do think getting experience of working with the public is worthwhile though. The ability to communicate with people from lots of different backgrounds is a key skill for doctors of more or less all types and if you don't enjoy working with people then medicine might not be the best choice.
I don't know much about Vet Medicine but would imagine much of the same kind of things apply. One of my friends' DD is currently about half way through the course though and I know she did 3 science A levels. She did quite a bit of voluntary work for experience including on farms, at a cattery and a wildlife rescue. We are in the countryside though so those kind of opportunities are probably easier to come by here and one would hope that admission tutors will understand that some youngsters will find it harder to get work experience. In my opinion, the real value of work experience is not to enhance your chances of admission but to give you insight into the realities of the job. Both medicine and vetinary medicine are careers that get romanticised a lot and reality is often very different. I think it's worth at least trying to talk to people who work in the fields even if it it's not possible to get direct experience.