Please help DD choose her A levels

[sydenhamhiller]

We have received so much helpful advice from MN for y13 DS navigating med school application, I would be so grateful for some guidance for Y11 DD1.

DS always knew he wanted to be a Dr, so could aim at the A levels he wanted/ needed. DD is opposite: lockdown has sucked all the enjoyment out of education/ her subjects for her... she's not sure what she wants to do for A levels or beyond that.

She's academic: at a girls grammar school, expected 8s and 9s. She is not much of a reader - enjoys English, but knows she does not want to do it for A level. In y9/10 she thought she wanted to do engineering, but now she is doing if for GCSE and did a virtual work placement with BAE systems, she is no longer as keen.

She was considering Maths, Economics and Psychology.
Maths: She is in the top set of 6 for maths, she's good at it. She doesn't love it, but is clear sighted enough to be saying it's a 'handy' A level to have, and leaves lots of doors open.
Economics: she read something about only 20% of Economics students are girls, so she thought that might be a good field to go into.
Psychology: she needs a 3rd 'thinks this might be interesting'. I am very old, and very out of touch, and I just worry about certain subjects not being as 'well regarded' as others.

I know core subjects and facilitating subjects have been done any with, but it's stuck with me!

Any advice/ tips/ things to avoid? School is a bit.... meh. And of course, it really is up to DD1 to choose, but she doesn't know what to pick, and it's starting to stress her out. Thank you.

PP asked about Economics and essays - well obviously check how your own school and exam board work, but the terminal exams are likely to be a mix of essays, multiple guess and short-answer questions in response to tables, graphs etc.

OP, you are partly correct.
Economics and Psychology are not (normally) essential as A-levels to do those degrees (or any other).
Maths opens a lot of doors.
If you want to open more doors then would say one of the sciences, geog or hist. Then Econ or Psych.

I would seriously consider swapping either economics or psychology for a language, especially if she’s not that interested in economics anyway

@Tessa2014

Psychology a-level is not as well regarded. With 8s and 9s she should be doing something like a language, or history/English or physics/bio/Chem.

Sorry to be blunt but have a lot of experience as a teacher and also in uni admissions.

Tessa2014 Blunt is good, and just what we need.

Re psychology, that is what I thought - but I am fully aware of fact I am a y2 teacher with no grounds for that 'feeling' ;o). She is currently in the process of trying to drop Spanish (she truly truly hates it, it is the subject she performs in least well -her only sub 8/9 prediction.)

She is doing 10 GCSEs, she can afford to drop one if they let her...

I'll show her this thread - she might go with a science.

Thank you!

Thanks everyone, appreciate all the comments here.

DD1 is my most sociable, enthusiastic, join-any-after-school-club child, and COVID seems to have just - understandably, and like a lot of her peers - knocked her off course a bit. She's 'not enjoying anything' at the moment, so it's hard to say to her 'just pick something you enjoy' as she doesn't feel there is anything at the moment... which is a little heart breaking in a 15 year old.

Her father and I have MAs (Scottish Unis) in Divinity and Social Anthropology, so we are definitely from a 'do whatever you enjoy' background, and not pushing the traditional route of A levels/ uni either - we've looked into apprenticeships with her, but she does want to have the uni experience, and I think would quite like to stay on at her rather traditional girls grammar which only offers A levels.

Thanks again everyone, a lot of food for thought.

Good grades are normally the best door openers.
No point doing badly in traditional subjects, especially if you're not going to enjoy them.
Also no point taking 3 less preferred subjects and then wondering why OxCamDurBriWar aren't falling over themselves to take you.
Try to balance your selections if possible.
And as AngryMum says, even high-ranking institutions are a lot less fussy about subjects than you might be led to believe by reading MN. Psychology is the second most popular A level now - and those 63,000 or so from last year are not all at ex-Colleges of HE now are they?

@mumofthree22

Having done psychology Alevel myself, there is a lot of essay/ research writing but it's a very interesting subject to study and quite easy to gain a high grade in it. However, it isn't as highly regarded by universities as the more traditional subjects and I would only advise to study it as a 4th Alevel not as 1/3 main ones. If your child is into maths , physics alevel works really well as there is a lot of common maths content in both Alevel maths and physics. This can make the workload slightly less and it's a strong combination.

It would be taken if she wanted to go to say Oxford and study Psychology! It really depends on what she decides on degree wise. Choosing at 16 with no clue is so hard! I was in the same boat and almost got A levels in Photography and Textiles before dropping out to do an access course and study Psychology instead. I was pushed to college before I was ready though!

My daughter is in her Second year of college now when she started she was taking maths, chemistry and a btec biology. After a few weeks she dropped the maths and took history instead. Now she has been told to apply for unis and she now has decided she doesn't like chemistry anymore. Her plan was to do more chemistry in uni.
She's now abit stuck because she doesn't want to do chemistry and she says the btec is useless so she has history. But what can she do with history a level.

Any advice

Sal

Also worth noting I have a friend with a dregree from durham with 0 A levels. He just had to do a foundation year, A level choices don't always doom you with university even though school makes you feel that way at 16!

What a levels do the school offer? I work in a highly academic school and we have “pathways” where students pick three subjects which work together and then one other which they often drop.
If she is historically sociable and enjoyed people is staying at the same 6th form the right idea or would she benefit from a move somewhere else?

My daughter is doing Psychology and Maths and loving both.

I don't get this Psychology snobbery on MN. Friend's two daughters are doing Psychology at Cambridge and Durham respectively and both did Psychology A level, my ds did it and got 5 offers from very good RG unis (the MN gold standard ) though he is doing a different subject. At DS's school it was the most popular subject, along with History, for A level and people got in to a huge range of RG unis including for a wide range of subjects including Oxford, Durham, Warwick, Bath, Manchester, Exeter, Birmingham, Nottingham, Imperial so the universities aren't discounting it.

If she is interested in it, she should do it. As others have said, it's the grades now, not the subject and a A is an A if she got an A*.

As at Grammar I assume they start as 4 A levels and drop one if they want to? I would go for Psychology OR Economics plus Maths then add Biology and Chemistry or 1 science and a Humanity (geography) then she could go Chemistry, Biology and variations there of or Economics or Business at Uni.

@bubblegumunicorn

Even Oxford say (for Psychology):
It is highly recommended for candidates to have studied one or more science subjects (which can include Psychology) or Mathematics to A-level.

So Psych not essential/required.

My DD is in the same boat, finding it hard to find enjoyment in anything. It's absolutely heartbreaking to see the effects the past year or so has had on them.
Mine is considering Maths, further maths, psychology and one of the sciences. She should get 8s or 9s in all of them so just a question of preference. Her strongest is probably chemistry but I think she slightly prefers biology.

Agree that Psych A level isn't looked down on - many unis class it as a preferred A level when listing say 10-15. Lots of out of date info here, it's mainly about grades. Sure if a Uni has 2 spaces and 2 identical candidates with identical A level predictions and identical GCSE results and close personal statements they may look at which A levels but is all about predicted A level grades in the main.

So she needs to go with what she'll enjoy and do well in. Trying not to close any doors of possible degrees she may be interested in.

My Y11 DD has been combing through Y13s Uni prospectuses looking at all the entry requirements which is a great thing to do.

[quote stubiff]@bubblegumunicorn

Even Oxford say (for Psychology):
It is highly recommended for candidates to have studied one or more science subjects (which can include Psychology) or Mathematics to A-level.

So Psych not essential/required.[/quote]
No, but nor it is accepted, so obviously not the barrier to a place in the sainted Russell Group it's made out to be by some.

Unless Oxford has somehow slipped, unnoticed, into the ranks of the despised recruiting universities and is merely acknowledging that with the popularity of the subject at A level, it can't afford to be that snooty about it?

@Sadless

My daughter is in her Second year of college now when she started she was taking maths, chemistry and a btec biology. After a few weeks she dropped the maths and took history instead. Now she has been told to apply for unis and she now has decided she doesn't like chemistry anymore. Her plan was to do more chemistry in uni. She's now abit stuck because she doesn't want to do chemistry and she says the btec is useless so she has history. But what can she do with history a level.

Any advice

Sal

The BTec isn't useless. Depending on the level and grade, it will earn her ucas points. Some are the equivalent to 1, 2 or 3 A Levels. She can go on ucas.com and search for courses that require a certain number of points and use the ucas points calculator to work out how many she might have. Do you mean she's dropped chemistry completely? If she has an AS in it then that will get her points as well. If she will get qualifications in history, biology and chemistry, or even history and biology, she has 1000s of options open to her in sciences, humanities, Liberal studies, health care, etc. Someone at schools should be able to help her with this, get her to talk to a careers advisor or even form tutor about it!

Also OP, at my school we have around 90 taking psychology each year. All get great uni places, around 85% at RG or other highly selective unis, for all sorts of courses. It's the grades that are important in most cases, although obv not for specific courses like medicine, but that's not relevant here anyway.

She is still doing chemistry but doesn't want to do full at uni. She said she's thinking of sociology, criminology and forensic science. But shes been having issues with the college she sent her personal statement a few weeks ago to her tutor to look through and has been waiting for them to give her feedback which they didn't. They expected the a level kids to apply last Friday and she didn't end up doing. Her friend has just been offered a place at York today after apply last week but her friend wants Cambridge. She said she's going to do a statement tomorrow and send it to college and then they will help her apply. The biology she was expected to get a 7 with her gcses but she didn't do the exams because of covid and got a 4 the college said she couldn't do a level but could do btec and it's a level 3.
The college has been saying its first come first serve with the unis so she can't wait till January to apply. I feel stressed for her at the moment.

Thanks

Sal

Maths economics and geography?

My dd is in her 2nd year of A levels and regrets her choices, she chose English lit, computing and Maths, she got 8’s and 9’s in GCSE (9 in English and computing and a 8 in maths), she’s wishing she hadn’t done maths and is wishing she did history instead, she’s finding the maths a huge step up from A level and is slowly losing interest and confidence.

If your daughter doesn't like reading she should definitely not do History. Maybe she could do Maths, Economics and Geography or Maths, French and Geography.

I think Psychology would be ok but as it can be started from scratch at uni she would keep her options open more by choosing three traditional subjects.

I would choose Psychology over Sociology.

We have just been through this and my DC got seven 9s and 3 8s so could have done any of her subjects

She started with English History Politics and Biology

After a year she dropped English to give a better mix ie not all essay based

I did Sociology at degree level and a

Masters at Durham -never had an issue getting a job

My belief is follow your heart mostly but don't' close your options off too soon

DS1 was top set maths, borderline 7/8, came away with 7 at GCSE.
Found A level maths really tough. Sweated blood and tears to get a B this year. Didn't enjoy it at all and he was far from alone.