Do students doing "harder" A levels get lower offers?

[Sarahcoggles]

DS is in year 13 and is about to submit is UCAS form, hoping to study geography.

Looking at universities, they all state their entry requirements in A level grades or UCAS points.

DS is kicking himself for choosing 3 tough A levels (history, geography and French), rather than choosing subjects like sociology, media etc which are traditionally less demanding. French in particular is incredibly difficult, totally different from the GCSE. He says that his offers will be for the same grades as pupils doing easier A levels, but will be much harder to achieve for him.

Is he right? Or do universities modify offers depending on how challenging a particular subject is?

Please don't accuse me of being snobby by the way. It's just simple fact that further maths, for example, is going to be more difficult than health and social care.

DD did maths, physics and chemistry and her offer was AAB (Bath). She got ABB and they still honoured their offer, fortunately - and now has her Masters in Civil Engineering! Her mate had an offer of A*AA from Bristol to study aerospace engineering, which was rescinded when he got AAA. He did the same A levels as her.

My son has applied to study one of the more competitive courses and so far he has received one offer and they have offered him a AAA or A star, AB instead of A star AA due to the fact he is studying 4 ALevels (maths, FM and sciences) and has an A star in his EPQ - universities recognise the harder workload and adjust by a grade accordingly.

It also states on the admissions requirement page which subjects at ALevel they disregard/ignore such as media studies etc and which subjects were essential or preferred.

It can depend on a number of factors.

Way back in the 180s one student who left VI form the year I arrived got an offer from Oxford, for maths, they offered him EE.

Basically they didn't want him going elsewhere.

If it makes you feel better I don’t think it is necessary in a student’s interest to find the a level years easy. If they go on to do a degree it will be a bit of a shock if they haven’t had to work hard to get their a level grades.

Some of that is going to be native/bilingual French speakers.

I don't think any allowances are made. Some courses state which 'A' levels they discount - but after that a level playing field.

My eldest is Y13 - he is doing Geography, History and Law and made his applications for the October deadline to study Law. He is forecast AAA - has three offers so far, two AAA and one AAB.

My youngest is Y11 - and making his choices. Wants to do Physics, Geography and Business Studies, but is worried he should really take Maths - but I have told him to really think about what he wants to do, and will be interested in. He is forecast an 8 / 9 in Maths GCSE but hates it and finds it really boring.

I personally think 'A' levels were the hardest - much harder than GCSEs or degree, and would also say do what you are good at and interested in.

It’s a really good question and one that seems to be known by few people. I wish DS hadn’t taken “harder” A levels as there was no advantage at all in him doing that.

of course some courses require certain A levels but many do not or only require one specific one.

if I had my time again I’d definitely ask DS to consider some of the subjects where it’s easier to get top grades.

Bio & Chem for eg seem to be hard to get top grades as all the medics do them and they need A*

I’ve heard it’s hard for non native speakers to get the top grades in MFL

etc

Difficult is very subjective

Hear hear.

I disagree

as an employer for example if I see Physics A level on a cv I’m going to have a different view compared to Media Studies

because Physics is harder

Really? A fellow colleague has just retired from being an executive head at an outstanding college and she said geography and physics are easily the easiest A-levels. Also geography seems to be quite popular amongst the young adults that I know, so maybe a lot of competition pushing up grades.

I very much doubt Bath would honour that these days, a lot has changed the past few years

a lot also depends on how competitive the degree is, and the uni

eg Economics or Psychology at top unis no wriggle room and can only expect an offer if predicteds well above entry reqs etc

One of my DC did French and it was hard. They found an online French exchange buddy which really helped - so DC spoke French online, buddy helped, in return DC helped French buddy with English. Could you find something similar? Made a huge difference!

My DD started A level French, decided it was too hard and swapped it for further maths!

The problem with difficulty is that it entirely depends on the aptitudes of students, so impossible to rank subjects. We have great scientists get Astar Astar in bio and chem and a C in psych, for example, as they find the essay writing really hard. Equally the students who've essays and analysis take one look at a physics book and run a mile. How can you judge that?

I got that, but that was back in the days when you did the entrance exams as standard and then got an offer based on those, not on your A levels. I still worked for my A levels ;-) (not sure all my fellow students did!)

Surely so much of it depends on the course, the Uni, and the level of demand for that specific course/Uni. Largely students wanting to do the same course are going to be doing similar-ish A levels so it mostly becomes a level playing field - Geography is very competitive right now. He may have found sociology easier than French - someone else will be the other way round.

These days no A-levels are objectively "easy". Both mine are doing them now, both predicted As, but DS couldn't get that in DD's subjects, and vice versa!

I’d imagine that those taking on a French at A Level are more able as a group than those taking on Sociology as an A Level. They’re going to get more As.

It probably would’ve been easier for him to get a good grade in sociology but it’s done now. At least he didn’t pick maths or physics because they’re even harder.

Your DS has time to improve his French. He needs a native French speaker as a tutor, to be using French on discord (or whatever the ‘down with the youf’ equivalent of a pen pal is) watching French YouTube videos, French tv on Netflix/Amazon Prime. All his free time, everything that’s not History or Geography, needs to be in French. If he tries it from now until Christmas he’ll really see a difference.

That's an unusual view. At my nephew's school, children need a GCSE 7 in physics and maths to study physics, while most other subjects need a 6.
It might be easy for those who are selected or choose to do it, but not easy for everyone.

No and yes... officially no, but dd got a place in clearing who recognised that French was a hard a level skewed by native speakers (she is not) they offered an aab course with bbd

@Schlaar piss easy ? Your really a teacher that teaches both and extended btech is piss easy to get high grades
I really hope you are not my ds teacher or a representive of most teachers

My DS just got an Ain sociology. He is very bright. He also got an A in history...and economics.

I teach sociology. It has 3 exams of 2 1/2 hours each. Completely answered via evaluative, evidence backed essays. It is not 'easy'. It's very rigorous.

In some schools, weaker students congregate in sociology. They get low grades and struggle to get the issues or apply their learning, as they would in any subject.

I teach three A level subjects. English Lit is the least demanding of student's time and has the lowest workload. I don't think it's easy , or harder, than the other two. They are all reformed A Levels.

Obviously bold fail. He got A stars. What a dimwit doing his dimwit subject.

That is not why that happens! EPQ routinely gives dropped grades to account for different UCAS tariff and maths /FM gets dropped grades for allied subjects with maths content. It is not because the subjects are harder.

By the way your DS should indeed have chosen sociology. Mainly because much of geography is sociological...

He is doing traditional A levels (as I did for law - I did English lit, History and German). They will stretch him more. One of my children who is a trainee solicitor at the moment eg did history and geography like your son plus economics - the latter is not a traditional "facilitating " subject but not far off and quite well regarded.(He also did Music AS in lower sixth)

It is not just universities that will look at the subjects but also future employers and others so I think he is doing the right thing to do good subjects./
Don't worry about it.

@Withholdingvitalinfo it's not decades ago, she started in 2018 and graduated this summer.