Economics & management - Oxford

[DSandDD]

Looking for some guidance on my son's A level choices. He would like to read E&M and is hoping to apply to Oxford. His current choices are Maths, Economics, French and Spanish - Is this a subject combination which affords him an opportunity or is further maths essential? He starts year 12 pretty soon! Thanks

Unless he’s French or Spanish those choices are risky. It’s hard to get top grades unless you are a native speaker (because the native speakers get those grades) and that degree course requires a star a a. Better to do maths further maths and economics. Fourth a level is not required

I'm guessing you're looking for people with children have applied to this particular course and who might seem to have inside information... because to be honest a couple of minutes' googling gave me the answer to that question (no, Further Maths isn't essential).

There's an essential extra test, the TSA that he does need for the course, so I'd have a look for that to make sure he's on the case to get an entry in by 15 October.

Will he have a chance to visit Oxford? Once ds visited some universities, he got much more enthusiastic and did more of this sort of work himself!

My DD is studying PPE and shared the first year economics modules with E&M. She had top grades for maths, but found the maths content tough, because she was in the Covid disrupted year group and also lacked FM. She took maths, history & English language & has now dropped most economics modules as she had reached peak maths!

I did management and economics (not at Oxford). I struggled with the maths despite having maths A Level. FM maths really is the most sensible option

FM and maths

@PermanentTemporary - Indeed, insider knowledge. Further maths isn't listed ad an entry requirement, but is that true when it comes to offers made?
@Lemonblossom - Languages come easily to him (doesn't want to do a languages degree though).
@HewasH2O - thank you. PPE is a great course. I hope your daughter thrives with her choices

DD found that there was a general assumption that she would know more maths than she did, but this may be because she essentially missed her final term of A level maths due to Covid and had tried to teach herself. She started 2nd year economics, again following the compulsory E&M modules, but decided life was too short for advanced differentiation and decided to switch to PP without the E. She is still taking optional economics modules, but these aren't mathematical.

If you poke around in the Oxford admissions statistics you may well find something on thd correlation between offers made & applicants taking FM. I would imagine it's fairly strong. There's no need to take economics at A level, so would he consider maths, FM & the languages? DD did an economics based EPQ, but this wouldn't be necessary with 4 A levels. The key thing would be to smash the TSA next autumn.

@DSandDD
Its really hard to poke around Oxford stats. FOI requests give more info. I’m attaching a load of info. I would say M, FM, Economics and a MFL work well. These tables give college entry stats and subjects offered.

More info.

More info from Merton about selection.

The rest of it. Apologies if not in right order!

I would suggest Maths, FM, Spanish and French.

While FM isn't 'required' as not all schools offer it, most applicants will offer 4 Alevels including FM.

Someone will have to crunch the numbers but an awful lot of applicants have Economics snd few have 2xMFL if any. My DD did 2 MFL and it is far easier to get into Oxford to do MFL than Econ and Mgt.

You really don't need Economics A level for an Economics degree. It's taught more theoretically at Uni and I've heard some say that not having done the A level is actually an advantage.
You DO however need to be very strong in Maths!

Dd did PPE at Oxford and did maths, further maths , economics and history at A level and found the maths element HARD at uni .
The languages are the wrong choices in our opinion.

@pinklavenders
Just look at the info I posted from Oxford university! No, not required, but huge numbers have done it. This course is one of the most difficult to get on in the whole university. Ticking the most boxes is vital and, if you look at Merton’s interview analysts, they ask economic questions at interview! Most courses elsewhere don’t interview. Why put yourself in a more difficult position at interview by not studying economics? We are not talking about the university of “anywhere”? This course is way more competitive and few get on it.

Strangely enough, they ask economics Qs at interview for PPE too. They recognise that economics is not a required subject and are challenging your thought process. The PPE & E&M econ interviews are same.

I think he would improve his chances by swapping economics for FM. What we've been told (by school) is that they like to see "as much maths as possible"- so no hard and fast rules about having done FM but if a school offers it, you should take it.

My ds is a recent graduate of E&M - his A levels were maths, economics and history. He took an AS in further maths and had studied the first year of a physics A level (couldn’t decide between history or physics for a long time so only dropped one in year 13).

You don’t need FM A level for Oxford (unlike Cambridge economics). Once he started being able to select modules he probably picked more from the M side, so maybe he would have struggled with the maths in more advanced economics modules but he didn’t seem to have too much of a problem.

Of course what an individual has is not necessarily that the majority have. It’s not impossible to find what the majority have and FM is not required and if it’s not a strength, don’t do it. There’s no escaping that lots do have it though and Economics.

@TizerorFizz thank you for the data, very useful.