Law again sorry

[futureplanner]

Having started his A Levels English Lit, History & Psychology, DS is now wavering about swopping History to Religious Studies. I think the volume of content for History has been a bit of a shock.

Just wondered if swopping these two would have any impact on applications as it does seem that history is well liked but he thinks he can potentially achieve a higher grade in RS. As he is only one week i'm not sure if he is just panicking.

For reference got 9s in both English Lang, Lit and RS and an 8 in History (but 2 marks off s 9)

He needs to study the subject he enjoys the most. That way he’ll get the best grade.

Completely agree with PP. Opportunity to qualify and practice law down the traditional route will be down to really good grades as well as soft skills, so if he wants to switch and would do better, and can talk passionately about his studies, that counts for a lot more than ploughing on with history.
A law degree is very book heavy though and he doesn’t need to do that to qualify either. My advice is to do what he loves and is best at (and I did a law degree). Practice is very different from the academic side.

He wants to take the subject he can get the best grade in. He enjoys history but says it's notoriously difficult to get an A* and thinks he has a better chance of that in RS.

Would defo swap to RS. The grade is more important! A* in RS much better than A in history xx

In 2024 5.7% taking History A level achieved an Astar; 6% taking RS A level achieved an Astar.

Making the assumption for simplicity's sake that those stats will still apply in 2026, it is perfectly possible that an individual candidate should be in the 6% if they took RS, but would have been somwhere in the 94.3%, had they taken History (or vice versa, of course).

It should be fine although my own view is if people can manage at least 2 traditional (what were called facilitating) so much the better. I am lawyer and did english lit, history and german. My twins who qualified this both did history and geography and then one did economics with that and the other classical civilisation (and they also did them a AS level and another subject at AS).

I also think history is a really interesting A level. Has he considered university subject? Half of lawyers don't do an LLB first so if he is planning a different degree make sure if applicable he has not given up a subject where he might do a degree eg he might want to a history degree rather than theology.