Engineering without Physics ALevel?

[AlrightDaveHowsItGoingAlright]

Daughter has decided Engineering is her preferred route. However, she did not realise this until halfway through year 12 and she does not take ALevel Physics. To remedy this, she started ALevel Further Maths halfway through year 12, caught up by teaching herself and is now likely to get a predicted A/A in it. Other Alevels are Maths (likely predicted A), Biology (likely predicted A) and Chemistry (likely predicted A/A).

She does also have a GCSE in Engineering at grade 8 and also GCSE Physics at Grade 9.

She thinks she would prefer an Engineering course that offers a general year 1 and allows to specialise in year 2 onwards. It seems to make sense to also only do an accredited course, so she can one day work towards Chartered status. If not general in year 1, she thinks she likes the idea of either Aerospace, Mechanical or Systems Engineering.

Have attended open days at Exeter or Warwick so far and loved the sound of the course at Warwick. Warwick prefer candidates to have Physics but will consider applicants with a 'strong profile' who don't have it. So not sure how realistic this is.

We are looking for advice for where else we should consider bearing in mind her lack of Physics. We think Sheffield might be a good shout? Any help from people who know more than us would be appreciated! She will be the first in my my entire family time go to Uni and it's a massive commitment/expense for us. We want to make sure it really counts and try to make the best choice. She doesn't currently have a preference for campus/city unis she will consider anything.

DS did engineering at Exeter.I don’t know if they have non accredited degrees, but his was accredited. I think you will need physics to do engineering.
I also didn’t think Oxford and Cambridge was that attractive for engineering, but I could be wrong there.

It’s better to be on an accredited course. I think IET have a list of accredited courses on their website. Sometimes it just down to when their renewal of accreditation is due
as courses continually change but also someone has to actually graduate before a new course can be accredited eg the new robotics courses.

have you looked at power academy universities?
Pros and cons; and I believe you can sign up for power academy as an individual. Means you will be tied into one company for summer internships though and that can be tricky if you don’t like it. You can change but you have to reapply. My dd was not at a power academy institution nor did she apply as an individual and had no problem securing summer internships.

second joining Formula Student my dd had a good time on it. Great for business students too.

www.theiet.org/career/accreditation/academic-accreditation

Sounds like she may be interested in general engineering. Suggest applying for MEng rather than BEng and year in industry as we were told it's easier for funding to reduce by a year than increase by a year. MEng makes getting CEng easier.
Sheffield is good for General Engineering. Bristol do Engineering maths which she may want to look at.

I would be looking for an advanced math course she could do alongside physics A level on a gap year. Maybe a first year math course from a university. That way she is progressing her math while bringing her physics up. Dont do her the disservice of suggesting she applies for a less competitive program because they will accept her without physics.

I agreed wholeheartedly with your earlier post, and in theory with this one. However Leeds and, especially, Sheffield, Mech Eng are in no way compromises or concessions.

This might be helpful for determining accreditation of engineering courses: https://www.engc.org.uk/education-skills/course-search/recognised-course-search/

IME girls seem to get a little more leniency when applying to Physics and Engineering degrees.

The issue here doesn't seem to be one of ability, just of preparation. Perhaps if the DD gets an offer on a course she would like to do she might consider intensive catchup in Physics over the summer holidays between A-levels and university? That doesn't suit everyone (and I completely understand why) but I have known students who are fine with that type of approach.

Exactly this.

I studied chemical engineering back in the ‘90s and there was surprisingly little chemistry in it. There was a LOT of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. Chemistry itself was only studied in first year (I did a four year degree in Scotland) and never went beyond A level.

Physics is far more useful for chem eng than chemistry.

I have a DS that recently did a chemical engineering MEng degree in Scotland - lots of maths, not so much chemistry. He had physics at Higher and maths, mechanics of maths and chemistry at AH. He’s now working in construction materials safety (which I gather involves setting fire to things)

If OP’s DD loves maths then Chem Eng is worth a look, because there a huge range of careers available in a wide range of industries.

Durham has a General Engineering MEng degree that might suit?

www.durham.ac.uk/study/courses/general-engineering-h100/#entry-requirements

@SabrinaThwaite Hopefully no more Grenfells then.

A bit late to this. If DD isn’t that keen on chemistry, @AlrightDaveHowsItGoingAlrightId assume 20% at degree level might be too much. I agree with @poetryandwine there are great universities with very good engineering departments not requiring physics. Warwick isn’t better than Sheffield for example. No employer necessarily takes an Oxbridge grad over a Sheffield grad either. Also lots of general engineering grads go and work in finance/city roles. They don’t stay in engineering. If she wants engineering look at the ones who will take her without physics and go and have a look on an open day. She will have to work on the physics but she can.

Yes, we will be looking at as many as we can. Booked in to go to Nottingham this week. Sheffield also will be a definite visit later in the year. What is Lancaster like in terms of reputation for engineering? Their courses seem to accredited and there is a general first year, before you choose a specialism which is something she liked about Warwick.

@AlrightDaveHowsItGoingAlright we were at Warwick yesterday (also loved it) and Southampton today - at Southampton they spoke about their foundation year for students who didn’t have maths or physics. They very much have foundation year for “oops didn’t take the right a level combo but I now desperately love engineering” rather than “drat I didn’t get great grades so need a catch-up year”.
They do specialise from Y1 on their engineering courses, rather than general first year, but they did say that the mech eng course is pretty general and it did seem to have lots of bits from the other courses (aerospace / Astro, acoustic etc).

FYI Southampton is also accredited for MEng.

Thanks. The trouble with the foundation year option is that (I think) this then means 5 years at uni, rather than 4. Considering I originally thought she'd be at uni for 3 years, I'd got my head round it being 4 if she goes MEng (which she will), but 5 years seems an awfully long (and expensive!) time. This has been putting us off the foundation option.

@AlrightDaveHowsItGoingAlright It’s fairly unusual for a course at a RG university not to be accredited. Occasionally new ones. Overall very few but it’s important they are. Also first and even second years are similar to other engineering disciplines, eg civils and mechanical.

Lancaster is a bit mid division. No advantage over Liverpool or Manchester who are well established unis for engineering. Surrey is under valued and worth a look. Haven’t looked at the physics issue though.

Someone I know did a foundation vet course at Nottingham. Great A level results but not the right science. So these courses aren’t really for A level low grade dc. More for dc who are very suitable apart from 1 subject choice and a good academic pedigree so it’s likely they will succeed.

@AlrightDaveHowsItGoingAlrightI would only do foundation if it was for a big gain in terms of course and career outcomes. I think if it’s not necessary then possibly swerve it. In engineering, a good grad should get a job if they have put together a decent cv.

It's out of date, but everyone in my family did deferred entry to Oxbridge for engineering or STEM combined with the year in industry scheme, and I met a lot of people who've done the same. It's only really maths courses that discourage that. I don't know if YinI still exists, but high profile engineering companies like Cambridge Consultants and JLR used to take lots of Oxbridge deferrals. You would need a solid plan to defer though, not just traveling. I think a year work plus physics A level would be solid enough but I'd expect her offer to include A in further maths with all the mechanics modules.

@Paaseitjes What year in industry scheme? 18 year olds enter companies as apprentices now. It would be difficult to get anything meaningful. A better route is trying to get an internship and work experience during the holidays.

Definitely consider Bath.

Her grades and subjects profile will be sufficient to get offers without Physics- the difficulty will.come once the course has started as the lectures will assume everyone will have Physics A-Level, or might cover in a half-hour "recap" what would have taken half a term's worth of lessons at school.

A lot of the physics A-Level content that she'll need will be picked up quite easily with the mechanics part of the maths & further maths a-level syllabus, but I would look to organise either a summer school or some 1:1 intensive tutorials during the summer before uni to get her up to speed.

@TizerorFizzthe name has changed. It's run by the Engineering Development Trust. When I did it 10 years ago, they helped you get a 1 year placement in an engineering company before going to university, a bit like TeachFirst. It was a brilliant way to get some experience, grow up and earn some money. Many companies hired students back for the summer or when they graduated. It was a always different from an apprenticeship because it was only open to kids going to university after, and mostly only on highly respected courses (eg automotive at Coventry, Aero at Bristol or general Eng at Oxbridge). I grew up in an industrial city with big engineering universities, so maybe it was pushed at school there more than elsewhere.
https://www.etrust.org.uk/programmes-platinum-placements

@Paaseitjes DH is CEng and employed many engineers. Never heard of it but he’s civils and structures. Also not big city so no one did that I think. Plus 4 years at university now makes earning money an even longer time away. Although decent chance to save up. DH would take 18 year olds for work shadow experience.

Ah funny, I worked at AECOM and had friends at Atkins & Jacobs all in the geotech & civil departments so it definitely exists in civil, and there were quite a few of us at the regional Young ICE meetings. I really recommend it if he's struggling to recruit high quality graduates especially outside the SE. It also means you get a really cheap junior who's significantly smarter than the average school leaver

He’s just retired! No longer his problem. Recruiting grads is never the issue. Getting them to run projects at the next stage up is. They are not very ambitious.

At the aerospace offer holder day in Nottingham, they said physics was really important if that helps.
Sheffield is ranked v high for aero.
southampton was an interesting open day because they placed a huge empanadas on recruiting girls. It put ds off as it didn’t feel a fair selection, but may be to your dds advantage.
as pp stated, Warwick don’t do aerospace so we ruled there out.