English, History and PE A levels, potentially for Oxbridge

[Drangea]

DS is considering the above combination. Aiming to read English or History. Teachers are recommending he applies to Oxbridge. High achieving kid at a super selective boys grammar that send lots to Oxbridge to give context.
We have not discussed with teachers yet, wanted to get a feel first.
Thanks in advance
(also posted in further education, but was advised to move to here)

I won't paste the link then @clary! (Though it's very easy to find...😂)
Lots of interesting information, though it annoyed me slightly that you can only view maximum combinations of 3 subjects, and some of the top 25 combos are things like "Chemisty, Physics, Further Maths" with "Chemistry, Physics and Maths" having its own data. Obviously nobody does FM without Maths so everyone in that group must also have done Chemistry, Physics and Maths. Also, second most popular combo is Maths, FM and Physics but it's impossible to see how many of those pupils only sat those three or whether FM was a 4th. It looks like someone sitting, say, Maths, FM, Physics and Chemistry could show up in multiple "popular" groupings. It would be good to be able to filter out pupils doing more than 3 A levels. But it's worth a look, on a rainy day when you don't have anything else to do...

Please do! My sister insists that my nephew is going to Oxford or Harvard because he rows for Team GB (apparently it's all sorted out at the regattas you know).

@MrsAvocet There is a feedback email!

Back to the original question. PE may be considered 'vocational' in a similar way to Business, Photography or Media Studies and so may not be appropriate especially from a selective school.

How about Classical Civilization as a 3rd if offered?

😂😂 so classical civilisation (offered by private schools) is more academic than PE ?? Read the spec - it’s a lot of science

Classical Civilization is offered by our local state 6th form college so not just private schools. OP's DC has done Latin so it may be an option.

Agree that PE has lots of science but therefore may not be a good fit for someone who enjoys and is good at History and English.

Cambridge don't like 'vocational' subjects (The Subject Matters). The only way to find out how they view PE is to ask them.

This thread has been highly entertaining. Thank goodness for those who actually have knowledge of admissions taking the time to bust some myths. People often don't want to hear it though so they? My kids are in state school and when my son went to a talk by some people from Oxford about admissions there were a couple of pushy parents insisting on arguing with them when they said you didn't need more than 3 a levels to apply. Perhaps they also had siblings who lectured Oxford - apparently this trumps actual admissions experience!!

My sister's a nurse by the way if anyone needs any medical advice...

PE is not vocational. The only subjects which are termed vocational are not A levels but A level equivalents and have much higher continuous assessment, coursework and modular exams. Calling PE vocational is symptomatic of an academic snobbery.

Oh I am so missing the crying with laughter emoticon :'D

Oh, @MrsAvocet , what a rabbit hole you have hinted at! It’s fascinating.

The first page I found was, for combinations of 3 (or 2) subjects, comparing the grades. Unfortunately it only allows you to choose subjects which had 2500+ entrants so no PE, and I didn’t know which English to choose.

Nonetheless, for the 30 students taking English language and literature, History and Maths ( the most popular A level) last year, the most common grade was B for History, A or B for English - and all grades were equally likely for Maths.

For just English literature and History the most common grade was a B, in both.

For the 9710 students taking Maths, F Maths and Physics, more students got A star for Maths than all the other grades put together, for Physics more got A than A star, and for F Maths the A and A star results were broadly similar.

There are all sorts of conclusions and caveats to be considered here, but I think it’s good general knowledge so worth the time spent on it.

Cambridge certainly consider some A levels as 'vocational'.

From Cambridge advice on A Level options (The Subject Matters):
"Other A Level Subjects
There are many other A Level subjects that we
haven’t mentioned at all in this leaflet. The fact that
we haven’t mentioned them doesn’t mean that we
think they’re not individually valuable. Subjects
such as Drama and Theatre and Art and Design can
be appropriate preparation for certain courses
such as English or Architecture. However, as
Cambridge does not typically offer vocational
subjects, A Levels such as Business, Photography or
Media Studies may not be appropriate."

Whether or not PE is in this category or is more similar to Drama or Music isn't clear.

Yes, but those three ARE vocational , assuming they mean BTec Media or Business. You never quite know with Cambridge and its derisory attitude to media.

There are Vocational A levels, Btecs, CNATs , for example. PE is none of these.

I didn't copy out the whole document but they are talking about A levels. They do not consider BTech etc at all. Cambridge is academically snobbish. Whether they are about PE or not isn't mentioned but it is not one of the subjects they lost as 'preferred'.

Yes, but that does not matter if the other two subjects are...

I thought they were just A-levels. Nothing to do with Btec. The vocational courses were T-levels weren’t they? You can do business and media a-levels and they hold the same worth as a PE A-level technically

Yes, you can. T levels have not really taken off.

Cambridge assumes some subjects are vocational without really knowing much to be honest. There is a vocational and a non vocational Business A level. My DS1 did the latter.

There are also business and Media BTecs.

"Cambridge does not typically offer vocational subjects"

Like medicine. Or veterinary medicine. Or architecture.

Having interviewed for Oxford English I’d say he needs to be passionate about his chosen subject and the rest the admissions tutors won’t be so keen on worrying about. I’ve known people get on with unusual combinations before and it was about how they came across. Better to be passionate and able to talk about why he did PE than lacklustre about Latin (which is absolutely not the draw a pp implied, and Old and Middle English are less important than they used to be and everyone starts from scratch with OE anyway).

Having said that if he’s only in year 10 he has plenty of time to think about it! But please don’t put him off a subject he loves because of uninformed advice about admissions! Absolutely not everyone has more than three A levels and his extra curricular interests will add spark to his application. EPQ is a very good idea as well!

Too bad History of Art is no longer an option! It's a great subject.

Agree about the MFL.

History of Art A level is still offered by Edexcel.

Oh yes, I've enjoyed this data in the past. Frustratingly one of my DC's subjects isn't even listed (which is a reflection of the terribly low take-up of languages), but if I put in the nearest available choice for that one the 3 A level combination comes out at fewer than 40 - so their particular combination must be incredibly unusual. But the right one for them 😀

Education, Engineering

One of the things that has put off people taking MFL languages in recent years has been the increase in bilingual takers which obviously skews the grade boundaries. At one of my children’s school the majority of people who took the MFL language A-levels were bilingual from birth. A lot of the others who would have taken the A-levels were put off doing it because of this as they knew it would be much harder for them.

@JulesJules - Thanks for this. I hadn't looked at O as DC is applying to C. I wonder if C will follow suit and drop the ELAT as well? According to the C website, it seems to be still happening,

Apologies - I just looked again. Cambridge have dropped the ELAT, but replaced it with a 90 minute assessment for shortlisted candidates only and it's administered by individual colleges.

So dispiriting that young people are put off studying something they are interested in because all the focus is on how the grade boundaries might work.