Is it a bad idea to do more than 3 A levels?

[SecretSquirrels]

DS in Year 11 and hoping for a good set of A*s in his GCSEs at his very bog standard comp.
He is very hard working, ambitious and bright. He plans to do Maths, FM, Physics and Chemistry at A level and possibly History at least to A2.
He would love to go to Cambridge and I've been reading some of the Oxbridge threads with interest.
I wonder whether there is a danger of over-stretching himself and taking on too great a workload at the risk of doing less well than if he just did 3 subjects.
Given that he has the ability,can anyone give me an idea what the workload is like at A level?

SecretSquirrels DS1 is in Y13 and is doing Biology, Chemistry, Physics and History largely because he enjoys History rather than because he thinks it will be an advantage with applications (for the subject he's applied for it most likely won't). He's doing a sciency EPQ too. It's a significant workload but not over the top. He's a steady worker I'd say but has plenty of time off.

I wouldn't have wanted any of his three older sisters to do four and doing three only didn't disadvantage them at all.

They all did General Studies to A2 and Critical Thinking to AS but those aren't work generating subjects.

My DSC's school starts 6th formers on 4 subjects and allows them to drop one after a year - my DSS found 4 too much work and has dropped to 3, his sister is doing 4 and coping well so far, but will decide what to do at the end of the year.

I've a feeling at the 6th form they do the full Maths A level in Year 12 and then FM in Year 13.
He was planning to do all four Maths FM Physics and Chemistry to A2 but the History just to AS.
I think he would struggle with the reading and essay writing for History. Doing that 5th might also limit his time for the enrichment subjects. Yellowstone - critical thinking sounds like a very useful idea for DS.
I think I may persuad him to start with 4 and forget the History

I've been thinking more about this and would say maybe consider starting with all 5 assuming they can be timetabled together. Having done Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry I was a bit lacking in anything non scientific and although I did General Studies it wasn't enriching as I never went to the lessons (due to the rest of the subjects I was doing - I wasn't bunking off ) abd just did the exam at the end.

But there is a while until a decision needs to be made so although a good thing to think about it isn't critical yet.

petal2008 I think they have to choose the subjects they want to study when they apply for 6th form (which is in the next 3 months). It may be different at a school with it's own 6th form but ours hasn't. Obviously if GCSE results were not as predicted there might be a rethink.
There is a huge 6th form college which I think will be his first choice but we are also going to look at a smaller 6th form at a school some distance away.

you also need to bear in mind that the subject they drop is not the one they originally thought of doing! My DS is currently doing 4 AS and his initial intention was to continue with History, Geography and PE into A2; however since beginning his courses he has began to no longer favour history as the subject area they are studying is not to his tastes (he loved GCSE modern world) as whereas he just chose Law AS as he couldn't think of what else he wanted to do this is fast becoming his favourite subject as is even re thinking his university subject area (sport was the subject that he had decided upon over 3 years ago is what he wanted to do at uni!)

A lot to think about then. He's more "sciency" than "arty" so maybe he should think about chemistry or, for a slight shift, geography which I gather is the "in" subject at the moment with all the slant towards climate change etc. Also this may fit in a bit better with his uni choice. He has quite a good 6th form at school so can speak to his teachers to gauge their opinion. Need to know if maths and FM is split over the two years or studied alongside each other - this never occurred to us.

I am glad we didn't have all this choice when I was in 6th form - I just went to the head and said I want to do English, French and History and he said ok! Only the really bright did four subjects and only the genius level got A grades but that's a whole new thread!

DS is doing Geography at GCSE and while he should get A* it's dreadfully dull. All coastal erosion and climate change and nothing else. The A level syllabus is more of the same. The History looks much more interesting (Vikings and Middle ages).

DS's school let pupils start 5 subjects in the sixth form but only if those 5 subjects are Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Geology, Maths and Further Maths. They say it is possible to do that combination because there is so much overlap between Physics, Maths and Further Maths. It would be quite normal to continue with four of them throughout sixth form, and some do all five throughout.