Economics at Uni without having Economics A Level ?

[keysonthetable]

dc (currently on a gap year) is in the situation of suddenly deciding they want to apply for Economics at Uni but they don't have it at A Level.

They do already have top grades (in hand) in Maths/Sciences A Levels and the top grade in GCSE Economics.

It's such a complete change of direction, might it actually be possible to get offers from most Unis for an Economics place ? Not quite sure how the PS will get crafted to be strong enough to secure offers given that there's no history of studying economics at all since GCSE level, so hard to show a keen desire for the subject.

Are they going to be in the position where it'll be a waste of a UCAS choice by applying to the Unis at the top section of of the Uni subject rankings tables (other than Oxbridge obviously) for the subject ?

ds is in his first year studying economics and as far as I understand it, there are others on the course who didn't do it at A level. His main comment was how hard the maths is, and how he doesn't know how kids with no maths A level are coping.

For my department, there is no requirement to have studied Economics A Level and many students haven't (we do require maths and realistically, it is a good idea to have studied further maths). However, our course is very over-subscribed and we put a lot of weight on the personal statement to decide who to accept. Simply having studied economics at A Level would not be enough to show someone's interest and engagement with economics.

We want to see in a personal statement:

• What about economics interests you? Where did this interest come from?
• What have you done to develop and build on this initial interest?
• How have these activities furthered, developed, refined your understanding and interest?

Our overall advice is: Being interesting, be interested.

We do not really care what you are interested in, or where that interest came from, or what activities you have done. What we are looking for is a coherent, well-written narrative that demonstrates your enthusiasm and your initiative in being able to take an initial idea and run with it because this is what studying economics at university is about.

Be interesting, be interested

No definitely don't need Economics. In fact it's often regarded as best if it's not done as an A level as Unis reach from scratch

Maths and ideally Further Maths is definitely very very useful.

I studied Economics and in my home country Economics is not even offered at school.

how hard the maths is, and how he doesn't know how kids with no maths A level are coping

Exactly. Economics at Uni is nothing like what's taught at A level from what I've seen.

You've really got to enjoy Maths imo. Some Unis require Further Maths too (LSE, Cambridge, Warwick I think)

I had no idea there was a GCSE Economics course?! Our schools round here don't offer it. I can't imagine how useful it would even be at that level? Is it commonly offered?

Thanks everyone for the replies so far.

I did suspect that about the Further Maths as having looked at the various published syllabuses (or syllabi !) you'd need to be a competent mathematician to cope.

dc did do Further Maths A Level for one year, was awarded a grade A at AS level but dropped it to concentrate on getting As in their other A levels. Both maths teachers predicted dc would get A/A if they carried on to full A Level in it.

@phPhion that is my concern, that dc applies for the oversubscribed Unis and despite an exceptionally strong academic record will struggle to craft an (honest) P.S. strong enough to succeed in getting them an offer. They didn't want Oxbridge or LSE/UCL which I would imagine are oversubscribed. I'm thinking that Warwick's reputation for Economics will mean it too is oversubscribed.

If it rests so much on the P.S. surely some candidates resort to a professionally written P.S. (or should that be B.S ) ? However long dc spends on it between now and mid January, it may not be able to compete with others who have had "help" with theirs.
Do admissions people spot these given that there don't seem to be interviews for Economics ?

DD is a second year at Oxford studying PPE without A levels in philosophy, politics or economics. There is a lot of stats in her econ modules. A level econ wouldn't have helped at all.

Admissions teams aren't stupid. They would be able to smell a prof written PS from a mile away. I've never heard of anyone being daft enough to use such a thing.

Economics A level irrelevant to studying Economics at Uni, in fact the written nature of Economics A level maybe positively misleading.
Maths on the other hand..

Do admissions people spot these

Admission teams will undoubtedly spot them!

There is an important proviso to some of the comments.

What sort of economics degree does she want to study.

There are some very mathematical courses, notably Cambridge, UCL, LSE and Warwick. DS who was at LSE and reckoned that he could have got away with only taking two economics courses out of 12, and indeed manoeuvred his Masters so that he did not have to write a single essay. But there are loads of good courses whi9ch are less mathematical and which will lead to good careers. Durham is one example, Bath another.

DH in contrast studied PPE at Oxford without economics or maths A levels, and works as an economist, albeit policy rather than number crunching.

(I went to LSE with double maths, economics and geography a long time ago, so I am happy to side with DS about what constitutes "proper" economics even if I think he might be wrong.)

My view is:

1. Be very careful about the more mathematical courses unless you are comfortable with maths, as in having the aptitude to get an A/A* in FM if you are able to take it. (Admissions departments won't formally ask for it, but if you don't have it you will be expected to catch up fast so certainly need the aptitude.) Some then find the content of maths heavy courses dry. That said the skills achieved are in high demand and job prospects good.

1. Even those courses like to see a level of roundedness and often like an essay subject (economics or history) along with the maths. Those maths heavy courses are competitive so it is worth throwing what you can at them.

1. Taking economics at A level gives you a chance to discover whether you like the subject, and indeed to demonstrate interest in it. A level economics was revamped a few years ago. Before that Universities did not seem as bothered as to whether you had it or not, but I understand Universities were involved in drafting the new syllabus and seem to give it more weight

It's more important that your ds has a good grasp of maths rather than economics A level.

The key word in 'personal statement' is 'personal'.

Why do you think your DS won't be able to put together a decent PS? If its that he's not done much which shows his engagement with economics, maybe he can find ways to address that to some extent during the next month.

As a starting point, what made him decide now that this is what he really wants to do? Has he been reading material which has confirmed his interest in it? Maybe there are some free short MOOCs or suchlike he could do?

If he wants a place on a competitive course at a 'top' uni, he should have the nous and motivation to figure this out for himself and put in the work. You can encourage him and point him in the right direction but it really has to be up to him to follow through.

Or he can just apply to Warwick and 4 others, including some with lower entry requirements than what he's already achieved - he's unlikely not to get any offers.

@Blubells

Do admissions people spot these

Admission teams will undoubtedly spot them!

All PSs go through the UCAS checking system, so even for courses where the PS is not, or hardly ever, actually read by a person, you run the risk of your PS being 'flagged' with the universities unless the service you pay to write your PS (even if only to 'sub' your own) is very careful how they do it. You may end up with the whole application being rejected.

www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/writing-personal-statement/personal-statement-dos-and-donts
www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/filling-your-application/fraud-and-similarity

I'm nothing to do with university admissions, but I would assume that an applicant submitting an otherwise good PS with the odd grammatical error would be looked on slightly more favourably than the one with the 'perfect' PS flagged for a high percentage of similarity by UCAS?

It is important to appreciate just how over subscribed places like Warwick and the LSE are, and if you really want to go to a "top" University how important it is to think tactics.

DS was advised (with a 4 A* prediction including both economics and FM) to apply for all four and hope he got one. He did get one, and only one. A classmate got none but was offered a place at Cambridge, not LSE, on reapplication.

These courses are very technical and it really does help, if you want to go into research (which most people won't!) to have covered the ground.

The personal statement really only matters a lot for oversubscribed courses that already ask for very high grades. This is because there are far more academically qualified people than there are places on the course, and most applicants have much the same grades, so something other than just academic qualifications needs to be used to decide who to offer a place to. The vast majority of economics courses are not like that.

If the DC has already ruled our Oxbridge, LSE and UCL, then they have already ruled out most of the courses that will care a lot about the personal statement. Warwick will care, a few others that ask for very high grades might care. Beyond that, someone applying with grades in hand that are higher than asked for will very probably get an offer.

In terms of the personal statement, it is exactly as @ErrolTheDragon has said, it is a personal statement. A person who is actually interested in economics and who, as a result of this interest, has thought about economics and done things to find out more about it, should be able to write their own personal statement in no time at all. They would need to polish and check it and make some minor refinements, but really even one day should be more than enough time to produce a decent draft because it should at this point be nothing more than organising their thoughts.

Admissions people know that people get varying levels of support for writing their personal statement, just as they have different opportunities for doing different activities. This is why we put so much emphasis on the personal narrative dimension of the PS, on the individual showing their own thought processes. Of course, they could just get someone who is interested in and knowledgable about economics to write the whole statement for them, but unless courses interview applicants there is no way around this.

For very competitive courses, generic personal statements (of the type that might be flagged by UCAS or more broadly) are rarely helpful. For the course I teach on, a UK domiciled student without further maths A Level had around a 25% chance of being made an offer last year. Having a personal statement that reads like hundreds of other personal statements is not going to help you be picked out of the masses for an offer. That is why we say: be interesting.

No need to get the application in much before the January UCAS deadline, so time to do a few things to add evidence of interest.

A few ideas.

1.start following a few economists of Twitter and read articles they post or retweet. (Starting points might be academics in departments he is interested in.)

1. Sign up for online public lectures. LSE has a good programme, but there will be others.

1. Look around for reading lists suggested for incoming students. We found one produced by an Oxford college, with a good list of popular economics books, that helped guide my son's reading one summer.

Then follow up on interesting themes by looking at YouTube, TED talks etc.

By January your DS ought to be able to write about what sparks his interest.

PS for Warwick is very important. It is worth reading the website thoroughly for what they are looking for in potential students and making sure you have covered and evidenced each attribute. (It may be that the first sift is a tickbox scoring operation conducted by support staff.) The PS needs to be focussed on his interest in studying economics, ideally including perhaps identifying what caused the relatively late change in interest.

@Phphion I appreciate it will vary from university to university but how would a student who has done Economics for GCSE & A Level find the first year of an Economics degree? Will they be covering a lot of what they have already done at school if A Level Economics is not compulsory for entry?

@Decorhate, I will try to answer.

My memory is that DS only took one economics course, out of four first year courses. The others were stats, maths and an outside option, and his outside option was more maths. So not much chance of overlap. Plus things are covered very fast. They did half a FM course in a single lecture.

I have checked the website, and now you need to take 1.5 economics courses.

My guess is that the economics was also different from school economics, a bit like UG history or Eng Lit is different from A level even if the same topics. Certainly on one of the more mathematical courses, there will be more analysis and more analytical tools....and fewer, if any, essays. We have known people who have not realised that on some courses economics can become a sort of applied maths, and though they loved the subject at A level they have found the degree very different.

Thanks again for the input everyone, very informative.

I can understand why dc wants to take this alternative path as they are a strong mathematician but didn't want to study maths at Uni. Plus, there do seem to be a good range of "Economics + X" type courses.

Just hope they can persuade their chosen Unis to make them an unconditional offer via their personal statement but I do wonder if the admissions people will see their GCSEs as having been achieved through actually sitting exams and not the CAG to help them stand out from other applicants. The reverse side of that of course is that their A levels, despite being A*s, are CAGs and I'm not sure how these will be taken in comparison with current year 13 applicants with predicted grades.

I am wondering however if the subject is that popular that many applicants simply not get offers from some of their chosen Unis.

@steppemum

ds is in his first year studying economics and as far as I understand it, there are others on the course who didn't do it at A level. His main comment was how hard the maths is, and how he doesn't know how kids with no maths A level are coping.

My DS says the same - he is glad he did Maths at 6th form (IB, not A level) and said it would be very hard without.

DS applied to Exeter for Economics as one of his choices. The speed with which that offer came through would infer that nobody had read his personal statement and the offer was based purely on his GCSE grades and predictions.

Thanks @Needmoresleep Ds has gone from looking at the more mathematical Economics degrees to applying for Economics & Politics. Not sure how the economics content of a combined degree will compare with a straight economics degree.

@blametheparents

When did your DS apply to Exeter ?

It was quite a while ago, but I started an economics degree at a RG uni having done economics A-level and really enjoying it (and getting a very high mark). Failed my first year because my maths wasn’t good enough, and I hadn’t know how important it was. Changed my degree course! Maths is key as many PP say.