Dropping fourth A-level after UCAS submitted

[BiancaBlank]

DD3 (just started Y13) is currently doing four A-levels, but the school are quite keen for her to do drop one. Her tutor emailed me to say that if she puts all four down on her UCAS application and subsequently drops one, she has to contact all the universities she applied to and let them know, and that this would look bad.

Anyone know if this true? Incidentally, a different teacher at the school told a different pupil in the same situation that she wouldn’t have to let anyone know if she dropped a subject, as offers would only be based on three subjects anyway. Both DD and the other girl want to study history, and the fourth subject is a science, so not really relevant in any case.

I think you do have to let them know, as they thought they were making an offer to a "4 x A level student", even if only three grades are required. I'm not sure whether it looks bad though, would be interested to know as my DD is in the same situation. Also not sure how likely it is that the conditions of the offer would change.

the school are quite keen for her to drop one
What are her thoughts around this? Is she finding all four a breeze and likely to get great grades? What’s school’s rationale?
Four A levels is a lot and if she’s going to get great grades at all four then fabulous but more often than not doing four waters down the attainment of potentially high grades if she were to do 3. Universities normally only want 3 A levels and would much rather 3 As than 4 Bs.

The universities are highly likely to make offers on the 4 subjects so if she drops one she would need to inform them. She could email the admissions departments and ask them if they’d be offering on 3 or 4 and the affect of dropping the 4th mid application. They’re incredibly helpful!

Students definitely need to let their universities know if they drop a subject, even if the offer is made on the best three grades. Even if it doesn't make a difference to the offer (which it might), it can delay a final decision on results day if the university thinks they are waiting for a fourth result that is never going to come.

Personally, I don't think it looks bad if a student tells us they are dropping a fourth subject. I view it as the student taking a considered decision about what is right for them, and I'm just pleased that they're organised enough to let us know!

Would definitely need to let the universities know. My DD was made an offer of XXY with the Y in one particular subject. If this had been the one dropped then she wouldn't have been able to meet the offer.

Can she just really concentrate on 3 and do her best in the 4th rather than dropping it?

From recent experience , If you apply with 4 subjects they may only offer on 3 subjects but this could be slightly lower as they have factored in that your child actually has the workload of 4 Alevels. If you subsequently drop 1 then you’d have to tell the universities and they may give you an increased grade offer as you now only have 3 Alevels workload. My DS friend learnt the hard way and dropped the 4th before exams and the university rejected him even though they only based his offer on 3 subjects which he achieved as they wanted the 4th alevel sat even if the grade was an E!

The universities are highly likely to make offers on the 4 subjects

No - Cambridge sometimes do this, and maybe other unis if the fourth is further maths, but otherwise the offer would be on three subjects. This is the advantage of doing four imo, it gives you four chances to hit three grades, so one disastrous paper doesn't matter. But only if the DC can handle the workload and do well in all four subjects without struggling. Nightmare scenario would be an offer of say AAA, DC gets Astar Astar BB and doesn't get in.

At DC's school quite a lot of people dropped FM at the end of year 12 if they won't going to need it (some hadn't decided until near that point if they were going for maths or engineering etc where it would have been an advantage). (Our school strongly discourages 4 A levels except for FM).
They were all told that they should drop it before their application otherwise they would have had to inform UCAS/unis of the change.
There is no advantage in doing 4 A levels and it's much harder to do well in 4 (though obviously not impossible).

I am a former (Russell Grou) admission tutor and everyone saying that you must inform UCAs/the universities you have applied to is correct. The teacher who told OP’s friend’s daughter otherwise is wrong. Although it is rare, it potentially risks setting up an unexpected rejection like the one the friend of @mumofthree22 ’s DS.

We now have a very high, uniform standard offer. But when our offer was in transition we sometimes cut applicants a break if they were doing 4 exams (on a 3 exam offer). We also rescinded a small handful of offers on results day, if applicants had dropped their 4th subject without telling us but only made the reduced offer.

Thanks everyone. I think the school feel there is little point her doing chemistry alongside her three humanities (particularly as one of them is history, which is a LOT of work), so she is just taking on a load of stress and jeopardising her chance of top grades for little benefit. I think this too, but she is so stubborn! Would have preferred an IB type arrangement, but that isn’t what we’ve got. She copes OK with the workload at the moment, but I think where it will really hit is when she comes to revise for the exams and has a whole extra subject to learn.

Grades wise, she’s predicted four A*s on the UCAS form. We all know that’s aspirational, but she did get three in the end of year exams last term and the last one close, so it’s not unreasonable. All the unis she wants to apply to - including Oxford - want AAA or less for history, and her argument is that she really should be good for that; but then, there’s threads on here all the time about kids who don’t get grades they were totally capable of for one reason or another!

i think you are right about the exam season - it was really full on doing 13 exams in our case and it goes on forever…. Also be aware that A level chemistry really ramped up (for ds anyways) in the second year of A levels. Results day it’s nice to have the safety net of another A level to meet offers though. I suppose it’s also worth you having a sense of how your school did this year in terms of results and people meeting offers. Ds also had a three A offer but ofc two A stars and two Bs (for example) would have meant missing it. Suspect they’d have let him in but for all the extra work and worry is it worth it?

Of course she has to tell them!! 4 A levels is much more work than 3 A levels.One thing oxford will be looking for is bandwidth andvdropping one may cast doubt on her ability to cope with a high workload.
My dd did 4 and got 2 different offers from Bath A*AA or AAAB.
Of course theyvwill know! She applies to a uni with 4 a levels and only 3 grades are returned, a competitive uni would probably revoke her place

Statistically the number of students doing 3 A levels is around 68% and the number taking 4 A levels is 4.6% typically 50% of those taking 4 A levels take further maths.

Oxford may have an entry of AAA but we were told that around 40% of their offers are to applicants who have 4 or more A star predictions. You can look up grade profiles for different courses at different universities. Sometimes the university lists them sometimes they are from Freedom Of Information requests and googling can find those. Entry grades are the lowest they will accept someone in.

She has to weigh up now whether it would be best to drop one or not. If this were my child I would say if you are going to drop it then apply with 3 A levels to stop you having more work of contacting each university she applies to to inform them of the drop.