A Level Choices - Russell Group guide

[Lilymaid]

The Russell Group has published its guide to making A Level (and other qualifications) choices. It is available here.

Thank you Lily.

I am going to email this to my BIL's step son.

Indeed, shouldn't all DC have this information?

I think its a really helpful booklet.
I was just surprised to see no mention of Religious Studies. My understanding is that although it might not be considered a "facilitating" subject, it is not considered a soft option. However, only Economics and politics are listed as being considered as hard but not RS.
Any thoughts? Am worried about my dc's choices now

This is just what's needed, v informative and clear

Should be given out to all Y11s, imo

Thenevernever, although not mentioned in the list as a facilitating subject RS is not considered a soft option. To make you feel better DS1 did RS and got 5 offers at top universities - Durham x 2, Bristol, LSE and York. Bristol actually specified RS as one of the subjects with history that he needed certain grades in (it was for sociology).

Also I saw the work he did and the essays, it is not soft.

Thenevernever - it looks to me as though Religious Studies would be fine for most Arts/Social Science courses as a third subject if the other two subjects were "facilitating subjects". Perhaps it is in the same league as Philosophy and Psychology - not soft, but slightly less well respected as Economics or Politics which the report mentions as being equivalent to the facilitating subjects.

fucking annoying trying to read that

The good thing about it is that it finally ends all the nonsense about all subjects being equal.

Teachers now have no excuse telling studenst that A levels in Law, Pschycology and Graphic design will be absolutely fine if the student wishes to attend an RG university, which has happened to my friend's DD.

I heard about this on Matthew Wright this morning . He made the point that if this list is the definitive one, then why not call these A Levels and everything else Something Else Levels. Then everyone would be clear what was what.

Becaus ethat would enrage every economics/politics/RS/media studies teacher in the land

Actually, though, I can see no reason why we shouldn't call these Facilitating A levels.

Noted mention of 'essay based' subjects for some courses.

Apart from English and History, what else would his include?

Arrghhhh the link doesnt work.

Essay based can also include MFL. When I did German A Level, we had to write essays as part of the A2 exam. English Lit is the most useful though, had I not studied it, I would have been totally out of my depth at university.

Thanks for the feedback all.
Lazymum did your ds do any science or maths alongside RS? Just wondering if this helped with the offers.
My ds is keen on doing a mfl and history as well, so there'll be no demonstrable numerical skills other than GCSE Maths.

Useful for DS (year 9) who's choosing options just to make sure he going in generally the right direction.

Did anyone copy it before it was removed from the RG website?

Given that you study the same arguments in Philosophy of Religion at A level as you do as an undergrad, I wouldn't say RE is soft at AS/A2 at all.

I didn't save it, but the facilitating subjects are:
Maths
English
Physics
Biology
Chemistry
Geography
History
Languages.

Teachers, ignore this at your peril.

The list puts paid to the usual put down on 'Business Studies' though I think this must mean A level rather than Btech for the Russell Groups.

It's still on the RG website

Also worth noting is their comment....."If you plan to take more than one perceived ?soft? subject, some caution may be needed.".

In other words, "Make sure you take at least three A levels that we consider "hard"."

thenevernever - I think RS would count as one of the "traditional and theoretical subjects" which they mention as "hard" subjects - they only mention Economics and Politics, but I think they only intend that as an example, not a list.

Then they go on to talk about "soft" subjects being the more vocational or practical ones, which wouldn't include something like RS.

IdontknowwhyIcare - not sure what you mean about before it was removed - it's there now.

It's certainly very useful to have someone some out and say this clearly - I think a lot of parents already know this stuff, as they've heard about it, but there are probably a lot of DC from families where this is all new to them and they don't hear about it from their friends and family, then get a shock when it comes to applications.

Do you think that Engish language and English Literature would count as 2 facilitating A levels?

But its not all about the facilitating subjects - it then specifically says that RG unis regard both Economics and Politics as 'hard' subjects and that any of the RG unis would accept one soft subject....

It is still on the RG website - its 14.44 now and I've just looked at it.....