PPE at Oxford - What A Levels Do You Need to Study?

[AnastasiaBrown]

Hi, I'm supporting a Year 11 student whose mum is not well and I have offered to be her 'uni choices' supporter. She wants to study PPE and one of the courses she likes is at Oxford. She has chosen to study Maths and English at A level and her third choice is Economics. I'm wondering if that is a good combination. She could also study Politics and Government. I would appreciate any advice from those of you in the know as to what is a good foundation for this subject at degree level. Thank you.

Surely by the time you're finishing your degree, even the "average bumbling students" are near-fluent, if not fluent, after spending several months abroad? And having been brought up bilingual isn't necessarily going to make you better at literary/historical/cultural analysis.

Imo no one is ever fluent - or even approaching fluent - until they have spent years ingesting a language. A degree with a few months abroad (and possibly conversing a lot of the time in your own language anyway) does not make a fluent speaker.

Back in my day doing A Level languages the literature component was much larger and the speaking minimal. Daft, really, as I could read a German book and construct/deconstruct any number of difficult sentences, but was paralysed if trying to speak. Actually I have five foreign language GCSEs (a bit of a useless hobby) and I am crap at speaking them all.

I would second some of the advice above on the number of A levels -- three would be preferable to four if it allows you to achieve a higher proportion of A*s (which logically it should).

Offers are expressed in terms of three A levels so as a general rule, don't dilute your efforts with that fourth A level.

Fluency in an MFL, great. But if you are bilingual/bicultural there are all sorts of ways it will be evident from your UCAS form -- schooling history for instance, parents names, country of birth, or that bit where it asks you if you have a second nationality. If you are bilingual, get it mentioned in your reference rather than taking that language as one of your three A levels (because yes, many unis think the less of you for taking an A level in a subject where you have such an unfair advantage).

And maths will be incredibly helpful when preparing for and sitting the TSA. At the very least, if maths A is ruled out, then a strong maths AS is important.

What's a TSA?

Maths may be a useful A level but as a secondary school Maths teacher, I would make a plea to parents to please NOT force your DCs to do maths A level just because it is useful. Every year we have a number of pupils doing Maths A level for this reason, some of whom scraped a B grade at GCSE. Since you can get a B with around 46%, they generally crash out of AS maths with a U grade. The pupils are devastated, parents always seem surprised and us poor teachers are under enormous pressure to 'I quote, close the gap'. Some gaps are just too big.

Every year we have a number of pupils doing Maths A level for this reason, some of whom scraped a B grade at GCSE.

So why do you let them on the course? My children's school requires A at GCSE, Astar preferred, and Astar for further maths, with preferably 90+ UMS. You can hardly complain if you accept on to the course people you know are going to fail.

What's a TSA?

Thinking Skills Assessment. It's one of the entrance exams aptitude tests that Oxbridge and a few other universities are sneaking back into the system (see also BMAT, PAT, HAT, STEP, etc, etc).

Thanks for starting this thread. I was about to do almost the same one.

But my q is do you need further maths? Because DDs school doesn't offer it and so she'd have to move school.

She wants to do Maths, History and Physics. What do people think of those options (for getting onto a PPE in Oxford)?

Yes but I am just a teacher here, so have no way of stopping B grade pupils from taking Maths.

I would have thought physics a solid support to maths for PPE but would recommend taking statistics options (rather than mechanics which she'd find easy).

Statistics options in maths that is.

I did English Lit, Geography, French and Maths and studied PPE at Oxford.

DS2 did well enough on TSA without Maths at AS to get an interview at least.

(He did get A or A* at GCSE so was reasonably good at that level; but because he was in top set he was one of a group who did some kind of maths extension thing in Y11, which might have helped - only he failed it completely, as most of them did I think one student got an E & a maths genius got a high grade but it wasn't a successful experiment)

Re Maths, History & Physics, I would imagine that would be an attractively broad combination.

longlist's similar but broader (& longer!)

Thanks MrsHathaway and TheOneWithTheNicestSmile.

In 2013 our school sent 3 students on this course. Their results were:-

student 1 (Hist, gen stud ,maths, RE)
student 2(Hist ,Maths,Phys genstud**)
student 3 (Eng lit,latin,maths,RE,history)

where *=A
and *=A

Hope that helps!

sorry student 2 should be (hist*,maths,phys, Gen stud**)

You can't be fluent in a language unless you have lived in a country for several years as a normal citizen of that country, or you have a parent who speaks that language as a native tongue.And neither of these options guarantee it.