Do any universities actually require A-level Geography for Geography degrees?

[SoftIce]

I was browsing university websites yesterday (just randomly, it is one of my hobbies) and to my surprise, A-level Geography does not seem to be required for any degrees. I checked:

Oxford - recommended, but not required
Cambridge - not required (but 99% of admitted students have taken it)
Bristol - not required, just part of a (long) list of subjects which are accepted
Birmingham - not required
Manchester - not required
UCL - not required
LSE - not required, but commonly taken

Do you know any university which actually requires A-level Geography to study Geography? "Recommended" or "Helpful" does not count - I'm looking for "Required".

I assumed that at least top unis would require it, but I probably only assumed that because Geography once was on the now defunct list of facilitating subjects.

Interesting @SoftIce I never knew this. I wonder if it is a recent development? It’s true for history too but last time I looked (for an MN thread!) it wasn’t true for all unis. Have they had to change to get students to apply I wonder? I searched UCL Leeds Sheffield and none require it.

Tho tbf a) why would you want to do a degree in it having not liked it enough for A level and b) if most have done it, it might be a tough first year.

@clary True. I guess this is most relevant for pupils who are not sure about what they want to do at degree level. They can drop Geography in the knowledge that they could pick it up again later.

Not sure why universities have gone down that route to be honest. I think either they think relevant skills can be acquired through other subjects (TBF I assume sciences, history and social sciences teach many skills that are useful for geography) or they teach them from scratch in the first year anyway, so they can relax entry requirements in this way (if this is a new thing - I don't know if it is).

I suppose Geography is similar to Psychology and Economics (etc.) in that respect: great subjects in their own right but not required for any degree, so dispensable if you are unable to choose right now what you want to do later.

I didn't realise History is going down a similar route!

My post wasn’t very clear haha. I was saying some unis don’t ask for history (Leeds IIRC) but some still do. UCL for example.

But I couldn’t find any that needed geog just now, not even UCL. Or Oxford indeed. Lord Peter Wimsey would be shocked.

I know YP who did history A level without the GCSE but always thought geog GCSE was needed for a level geog? Maybe not tho!

I think there are several factors at play. Geography, as a degree subject, has more adjacent competitors these days such as Environmental Science on the physical geography side and International Relations on the human side.

The emergence of Economics, Sociology, Psychology and Business as A levels has probably led to more students taking those subjects at university; in the past some might have chosen Geography at uni.

I also have noticed that more schools seem to be reducing total GCSEs taken and, in doing so, 'forcing' a binary Geography or History decision with regards to GCSE options. This may adversely affect the pool of aspiring Geography students in the future.

Taken all together, Geography departments may, at the margins, feel they need to say they accept students who do not have Geography A level. It is a synthesising degree so if you had a mix of more qualitative and more quantitative A levels, but not Geography, I think you could hold your own.

Agree with PP - Geography and to some extent History A-levels have been displaced by Sociology, Psychology, Business etc A-levels. Most university departments would like students to arrive as well prepared as possible for their degree but realistically they need to be more flexible than they might have been a generation ago about the pre-requisites.

My DS2 considered Human Geography after doing sociology, economics and history A levels because he was interested in demographics and population and public health .

@Piggywaspushed To be fair, that looks an almost perfect combination for human geography. He's just missing Politics!

He's graduated now anyway! Now training in journalism. Started a policy, politics and economics degree but swapped to history after 5 weeks. So things probably ended up as they should have done because he loved history A level.

Geography is not widely taught outside anglophone countries (or in the USA) so requiring it would exclude many international students

As PP mentions, it’s a synthesising degree so students can succeed with a varied academic background

Maybe its to do with A level being England specific and universities have a huge variety of nationalities

There are plenty of uni courses that do specify A level subjects tho.