Will doing x3A2's after x4AS's be seen as a negative by Uni's? Would they even know?

[Lurgano]

Son doing 4AS's at top grammar. School (over?) keen that he continues to do 4A2's -- but I think that there is a risk that if he does this he will end up with a mix of A and B grades when he needs 3xA grades for the course he wants to do....and I think he has better chance of achieving this with more focus on each subject.

However do Unis like to see that 4 A2's are being taken even though the offer is for 3 grades....?

If you started the year and submitted your UCAS form with 4 A2's and then dropped one as the year goes on would you have to inform the Unis?

Three A* grades are better than two A and two B

If that is the choice....

Talkin would your DD have chosen to do 5 with the retroscope of her Y12 experience?

summerends
Not sure.
One of the ones she is dropping - the language - was actually planned to carry on through to A2, but the workload has been horrific.

Quite a few of her friends are still doing 5 at AS (and one lad is doing 7, all predicted A) but many more have dropped to 4

then at A2 it will be the 3 and the EPQ instead of the original plan of 4 at A2

Thanks. I suppose I am asking what an able student would retrospectively advise herself at that Y11 decision point. The problem is that subject content and teaching is mainly unknown at that stage. I think Y11s find it hard to close doors by dropping subjects that continue to interest them and don't know enough about the future relative workloads.

Part of the problem is that the A level syllabus has become insanely prescriptive.
There are marking schemes available for every thing that suck every iota of lateral thought and creative analysis out of it - in the two sciences in particular.
The two maths are more straightforward as there is a right answer.
The language has been much more essay writing and less conversation and gaining an understanding of the country than expected, but its less literature than it was when my friends were doing them back in the stone age.

The best thing to do - and what we did not do - is ask the students who do not help at the open evenings IYSWIM

Summerends - I have DDs in year 12 and 13 who have both taken 4 subjects in year 12.
DD2 could have easily coped with doing further maths as a 5th subject in year 12 - and she would have done but didn't have the option (course not running as not enough opted to do it). She has self studied about half syllabus and may continue to finish off the AS in year 13 if she doesn't decide to carry on with all 4 subjects. Her school strongly discourage 4 A2 subjects - the only ones taking 4 in the current year 13 are the ones doing further maths, but school will probably allow DD2 to continue with 4.
DD1 is currently in year 13 and doing 4 subjects in year 12 and now 3 in year 13 was the right thing for her. She knew what career/degree she wanted to do and what subjects/grades are needed.

I think that sounds excellent advice.
The marking schemes are (I presume) to standardise marking as much as possible. However the consequence seems to be that efforts need to be focused on learning the best answers for the mark scheme rather than more time on the actual subject matter.

Sorry hellsbells I cross posted. That is a useful perspective. I think though even very strong mathematicians don't always know how much extra work the two maths will take up until they are doing it IYSWIM.

Summerends - according to my DDs, biology is the worst for that!

Sorry Summerends - I cross posted too!

Summerends - I agree about the maths and it is only with hindsight and some self studying that DD2 knows she would have coped fine taking 5.
I think they should stick with 4 for AS and 3 for A2 unless there is a strong argument/need for taking more (e.g. If 1 is further maths which some courses/universities don't recognise as an extra subject - fine for engineering/maths degrees but not so for others such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy etc).

Yup, the Biology stuff where you can answer the question completely and accurately but get no marks because you have used different words than in the marking scheme ......

The double maths complement each other in the view of DD and her friends.
But the college has the advantage that hundreds of kids do Maths and well over 100 do Further Maths AS, with nearly 100 carrying it on to the A2 - the classes are grouped by linked subjects.

summerends it has to be an entirely individual assessment. So much depends on where on the able spectrum the student is, how they fare with large workloads, which subjects are thrown into a particular mix etc. Although my DC are all able (by definition, as their school was fairly selective), very few would have prospered doing more than three - in fact only the one who took four (plus GS plus the EP) could have managed it without something giving. I think both they and I recognised their individual limitations as well as questioning what value an extra subject would add. By contrast, in the case of DS1, he wanted a non science subject to liven things up and neither he nor I doubted his ability to carry it off. He's just one of those DC who never gets less than A* and never seems fazed but he's unusual, even within the family. Also, he was taking the three sciences and a humanity and says himself that that meant a far lesser workload than his siblings, who overwhelmingly did arts and humanities. As Needmoresleep says, it's not always a case of dropping grades if you take more on, but you need to be realistic about your ambitions, abilities and limitations.

Yes I've heard that for Biology, concept-wise the easiest of the sciences but the most technique dependent for exam purposes.

Molio yes that all makes sense. Certainly doing five humanities / MFLs must be near impossible to achieve and have a life besides. However strong mathematicians are the group who are most likely to embark on 5 A levels, either the science / maths quintuplet or to include a single humanity or MFL like TalkinP's DD. I still wonder if polled at the end of Y12 how many would retrospectively think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages for that first sixth form year.

Also suffering with mark schemes here. Agree with all that's already been said. I'm assuming that another reason is because papers are marked by people who are not subject experts?

Yet another with a dc complaining about the mark scheme. Ds says the teachers bang on about it the whole time, to the detriment of actually studying the subject.

I can see two sides - yes, a prescriptive mark scheme does stifle creativity. But - and I suppose this must be one of the reasons for a tight mark scheme - people have got what they wished for, ie a definitive answer. "Why was my essay worth 90% and so-and-so's 92%?" In the old days the answer would be have been "just because". But now papers can be moderated and examiners too. I guess that is fairer, but at the expense of the "out there" candidate.

Additionally a teacher told me that some candidates would rote learn a prepared "eccentrically brilliant answer but slightly off topic" which could be moulded to fit any question. So an examiner wouldn't know if the candidate was truly a genius or had an arsenal of "ready answers", even if they were very good ones.

Just one experience so don't know how useful for the op but dd has Cambridge medicine offer and is doing 4 A2s but no EPQ. Fourth is 'contrasting subject'. Offer is against three not including contrasting subject. I have no idea whether offering 4 was a help or made no difference.

thats very interesting Oyster2. Reassuring that they made an offer based on 3. How is your dd managing the increase in workload as each A2 is supposed to involve a 30% increase? Does she think it is worth it and do you think it has posed a risk to her not getting their offer because she has taken on more work.
Thanks,
TF

And conversely my dd has offer for medicine at Oxford with 3 A2s and EPQ. I believe she spoke in depth about her EPQ in the interview. I would say it is harder to get into Cambridge though.

The workload at Oxford and Cambridge, especially for subjects like medicine and law is very heavy, and I wonder if offering four subjects might help in that it shows you can juggle. Though a well researched EPQ woudl do the same. It would be unfair to make some a three A2 offer simply because they were taking three and give others a four A level offer.

As Molio has said above a lot will depend on the child. DS took five, though 2 were maths, without having any obvious impact on the time he spent computer gaming. (He is a minimalist!) He needed to take four as futher maths was desired but would not be part of his offer. He took a fifth, fun subject through to AS, and might have dropped it had he been certain he was on track for at least an A in his other subjects. As it turned out he got a really high UMS at AS in the fun subject but had a disaster in one of his humanities papers. His offer was not specific about which subject he got an A in, so he kept the fun subject up. It helped that it involved coursework that had to be in before Christmas so that by June he did not have to do too much to secure the A.

This will be much harder under the new system as it appears you can't bank the AS results in the same way. And I think its much easier if you are a competent mathematician and have double maths in the mix. DD is taking five at AS, without double maths, and is finding it harder, as she has virtually no free periods in the week, and scheduling homework is difficult. Plus she is now facing loads of exams. If she gets an offer it is likely to be A*AA, so I doubt she will continue with five. She will do four, as this would allow her to drop a grade should she have a bad day, plus keep the door open for a late application to Irish Universities.

Workload has been tough as the fourth subject is known to have a heavy workload in itself. She started an EPQ but dropped it. It was particularly difficult with BMAT and preparation for interviews as well although I do wonder as NeedMore says that it shows that she can handle the demands and the stress and that Cambridge would have liked this. She was worried that it might affect her other subjects (she needs AAA) so hasn't done much work for the fourth recently. Fingers crossed it all turns out ok! Decorhate, I actually think Oxford is much harder to get into for medicine.

I guess it depends on the dc's strengths. My dd's AS UMS scores were certainly not high enough to warrant a punt on Cambridge!