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.

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

Language A-Levels are notoriously difficult to get high grades in because of native speakers getting very high marks and pushing the grade boundaries up.

If it's vitally important to get A/A* grades in all your subjects, languages are a bit risky. Sadly, this is contributing to a collapse in numbers of students entered for language A-Levels and applying for language courses at university.

I did psychology A-level. It was fascinating, and was the only of my A-levels that gave me any skills I used in later life (the section on how the brain memorises stuff was particularly useful during my history degree revision!)

I see someone upthread said that psychology A-level is not “well regarded”. What an ignorant thing to say, I assume the writer may be elderly, as that opinion is very out of date. Cambridge thought my psychology A-level was very interesting and perfectly acceptable, and after Cambridge I went into lucrative City career where I beat thousands for the job: psychology A-level did not hold me back and if anything was useful in terms of interview tactics and office politics.

I didn’t go on to a psychology degree but I wish I had, as my friend who did now has a very lucrative counselling practice that gives her complete flexibility on hours and location. Frankly, most women still have families and do the brunt of childcare, and if I give one piece of career advice to my DD, it will be to choose a career that won’t later force you to choose between career progression and doing the school run.

It’s interesting that psychology is the only subject your DD has expressed interest in yet your immediate instinct is to be negative about it. It seems to me unusual for a seventeen year old to have so little idea what subjects really interest her, and it looks to me as if she hasn’t yet found who ‘she is’ because of parental / peer over-focus on what career she’s destined for. Let her explore her interests. If she has zero interest in anything apart from psychology, then why on earth aren’t you supporting that?

My friends who chose A-levels for tactical reasons did not get good results, and those who did economics were miserable. I’m not saying career is irrelevant to A-level choices, but if she has no burning desire to be something scientific then I’d suggest psychology / history / perhaps maths if she is god at it, a path which will probably be followed by an arts degree. She can still get a great job with an arts degree you know!

I think psychology is a very useful subject, understanding thought and behaviour, a great skill for life and navigating the workplace.
Whether something is well regarded? By who? If she's interested in it and works hard that's all that matters.
I recruit a lot in my workplace and never look at what subjects candidates studied for a-level, only that they did study and passed.

Never ever heard of psychology A level not being well regarded, I think that’s absolute nonsense. It’s a very popular A level including the most academic. I have one who did psychology and economics and had 5 RG offers including Bristol and Durham. Several friends are now at Oxford with it. Definitely a completely accepted subject by all unis

A Level Psychology is actually very well regarded, one of the top performing a levels in England, and great with sciences and/or maths due to the heavy biology and maths content. It also is a wide ranging subject so great for students who find it interesting but do not yet know what they want to do.

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.
Please ignore this advice. As others have said it's rubbish. Psych is acceptable as an A level everywhere. I would caution slightly about doing Economics purely because it's male dominated - she needs to enjoy it. It can be quite marmite, so check the content.

Good on her for recognising how important Maths is though!

DS is doing history, economics and government & politics. History involves a lot of reading around, he reads history books for pleasure in his spare time.

Economics has a reasonable amount of maths, his (local comp) isn’t keen on people with lower than a 6 in maths taking it. However, it also requires the ability to write essays and read data effectively so it demonstrates a bit of everything really. As a PP says, it’s definitely not for everyone as if you are interested the content is pretty dull! Perhaps read the economist to see if it appeals?

Rather surprised that Tessa2014 a so called expert teacher is so negative about Psychology and suggesting taking a language instead.
I would say that taking a language is really not a good move unless the student is really able and keen.

I did Economics at uni but don't understand why she'd study it just because few girls do it.

My dd did Psychology, Biology and Maths and received offers from RG unis.

Lots here about pysc, but do make sure she thinks carefully about econ. Few girls doing it is not in itself a particularly good reason to do it. I am sure some people love it it, but many children I know who have taken it have found it very dull (my son included). Maybe buy a cgp book and have her take a look and check she wants to spend a third of her time for the next two years on it.

If she is decent at it and can bear it, maths is a top quality option.

I do feel for you - v envious of parents of children who are sure they want to be a medic/ engineer etc as the a level path is clear, and they can always bail out of engineering and do a general grad job afterwards if they change their mind, but at least they have a direction.

Agree with others btw, never heard of psychology being any kind of lesser A level.

Yes, it is not essential for any degree (inc psych) but that's all; it's not on any banned list, look at RG unis. Mate of DD's is at Brum with psych A level. DS2 himself had offers from RG unis with (horror) PE a level.

The thing is tho, the old list of facilitating subjects is a guide to what may keep more doors open. Psych is not needed for a psych degree as not all schools offer it. Ditto economics or politics, for example.

But for a history degree, or eng lit, or maths, or biology, you do need those subjects (as a general rule anyway). Hence studying them at A level may leave more doors open - do Eng lit and you can study Eng lit or psych or politics. Does that make sense?

So it may be worth her considering continuing with her favourite one or two of the traditional subjects - sciences, MFL (apparently not tho), ENg lit, history, geography, maths. But if she genuinely thinks she will enjoy psych (or sociology, or politics, or philosophy, or PE, or classical civ or whatever) please don't be put off by outdated ideas. Take a look at a few highly rated unis and see what they wanbt students to have taken for A level. Most, for most courses, are very much not prescriptive.

Thanks again everyone, very helpful comments.

DD2 took Psychology as a second science to get into the Marine Biology course she wanted, did very well in it and found it very useful in terms of teaching understanding of research statistics and research methods - she's already found it has put her ahead in some of her classes. The Biology A level she took is not more useful in terms of coping with the work, it's about the same. Psychology is not a badly regarded A level, it's taken pretty seriously these days.

Have a read of this

www.studentladder.co.uk/year-12/preferred-subjects/

Is she keen on trying a new subject or sticking with the least-worst of GCSE subjects?
It might be worth drilling down on this.

My dd for example started economics at A level and within a fortnight knew she wanted to study it at university, but was slightly restricted in university choices by not having taken maths A level too.

I've heard often though that if you don't love maths you shouldn't take it at A level.

But my dd is loving her business economics degree (at a Russell group uni for anyone who's bothered )

[quote FatJan]Have a read of this

www.studentladder.co.uk/year-12/preferred-subjects/[/quote]
Don't have a read of that! Did you read the opening paragraph FatJan? 'Recently updated it in 2013' means that information is 8 years old and well out of date given RG have got rid of facilitator subjects now.

"There is much discussion about whether certain subjects are ‘preferred’ over others and will give you a better chance of gaining a university place. The Russell Group of 24 leading Universities published a booklet called Informed choices in 2011 and recently updated it in Dec 2013. This is their guide to making choices post 16 education."

Should really say this was their guide a while back!

[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]
I didn't say it was required I said they would take it so you just backed up my point by trying to prove me wrong 😅

My daughter (now year 13) got all 8s and 9s at GCSE which can make it harder to choose A Level subjects. We printed off past papers for the subjects she was considering (making sure we chose the right board). She found that really helpful. I looked over the RS paper and thought it sounded really hard! But she immediately related to it, thought she could do it and would enjoy it, and she's been proved right. For some reason, she barely needs to put any work into it and she's predicted an A*. She looked at the Geography papers and thought it sounded too case study-based, so she didn't do that. She's also doing History (enjoys but loads of work) and Psychology (interesting content, boring teacher, not too hard).

One of the reasons she picked Psychology was because she thought she wanted to work in mental health and a Science would probably be useful/necessary. She didn't want to do a traditional science. Again, I'm glad she made that decision as she's looking at Mental Health Nursing now and most courses want a Science A Level, but they include Psychology. However, this doesn't apply to your dd if she's also doing Maths, as that probably 'counts' as a Science for most courses.

My ds is in year 11 and we're going to do the same thing with him once he's been to the open days. He was making noises about RS but I think he'll have my reaction if I show him a past paper!

Definitely choose subjects that sound interesting and ones she thinks she'll do well at.

The key is to narrow done what she wants to study so she can choose the A levels that are requirements for the possible subjects she is interested in.

Not having a clue is not a good excuse, she should know by now whether she is good/attracted to Humanities, Science or Social Sciences.

She needs to start looking at universities with the idea of narrowing down her choices and finding what a level subjects are required for the degrees she may be considering.

Choosing A levels with no idea of what she wants them for May be a futile and expensive exercise. She doesn’t want to start applying for unis in less than a years time just to find she has the wrong a levels for what she want to study or that she needs an expensive foundation course because the A level combination she chose is the wrong one.

@mimbleandlittlemy the link I provided is not outdated, please don't put people off reading it.

It's an overarching review of preferred/facilitating subjects as displayed on many university websites. There's some deviation between institutions, but not much.

Here is LSEs: www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Undergraduate/Prospective-Students/How-to-Apply/Admissions-Information

Psych is in the preferred/facilitating list, as it is with many others that acknowledge they have a preferred list.

The original link I posted isn't outdated in this sense, don't just 'not read it'.

The Russell Group spotted publishing it's own list because it was causing confusion and some students thought they should ONLY take these subjects. In reality, is be surprised if it didn't come about as the result of some sort of campaign from a group/groups involved in creating/teaching 'non-facilitating' courses.

The concept is still alive and well. Facilitating subjects are still very much a thing.

stopped* I'd be+