Facilitating subjects - your views/experiences

[MoorPeople]

Hello

DD (year 11) is currently looking at A level options. She can do 3 (4 not allowed for anyone); there is no option of IB within reasonable distance. She is currently favouring Economics, Philosophy and Psychology. Her school say this would be fine, but I am worried about the lack of any facilitating subjects.

Are facilitating subjects important, or is it just the Russell Group trying to make it a 'thing'. Would the options DD is looking at be considered strong enough subjects to take her further without say English or History? She doesn't know what she wants to do degree-wise just yet, possibly looking at some major/minor/tripart kind of degree as she finds it hard to pin down to one subject! She is currently predicted mainly As with some A* at GCSE. She might get the odd B if she doesn't put the work in!

Ta for your views.

[LooseAtTheSeams]

The only one of the three I'd question is psychology for these two reasons: firstly, the drop-out rate from psychology A level is high as students discover the course wasn't what they expected and secondly because psychology A level isn't needed even to read psychology at university! So, OP's DD might want to swap that one for a facilitating subject or at any rate really check out the syllabus and talk to students who are already doing it! History or maths would go well with the other two subjects if she's likely to do well in either of those and not sure at the moment what degree she would like to do.
To be honest, it's an idea to pick a couple of degree subjects she might want to do and see what the typical requirements are. You may not need any 'facilitating' subjects, it just depends on the degree. (So, for example, music isn't a facilitating subject on Informed Choices but you'd need it to study music at Oxford. It is on the list of approved arts A levels on the Trinity list, however, and combines well with other arts/humanities subjects.)