Bright child, good school, Year 11, got to choose A Levels. Tell me - 3 or 4?

[nonnomnom]

If your child is reasonably bright and at a good school, can you tell me if they will be expected/are expecting to do 3 or 4 subjects, now that AS Levels are largely going? (Not counting those doing Further Maths or General Studies here.)

DD's school surprised me by saying they needed to do 4 - even if essay subjects - but dd now saying she's only going to do 3 as there only 3 she really wants to do and better to get 3 good results than 4 mediocre ones.

But will decent unis expect 4 now? Or at least 3.5?

What will most Year 11s be doing? National guidance seems unclear.

Thank you...

roguedad that's cheating. Also, some Oxford colleges (not sure about Cambridge) don't like that particular calculated misrepresentation and so their offer letter states that the offer is based on A*AA (or whatever) plus the continuation through to qualification of the fourth A level specified on the UCAS form. Which I think is quite funny for the slippery customers out there.

Three OP, unless there's FM in the mix although I agree that the EPQ is a good addition.

Molio is n't your present sixth former doing 5? I assume that is for keeping choices open?

I didn't see the intervening posts but that comment about cheating was in response to your suggestion on Wednesday roguedad, of an applicant representing on their UCAS that they were intending to take four subjects through to A2 and then dropping one after securing offers.

It's not a question of aiming low either roguedad. It's a question of aiming deeper rather than broader but I accept that a distinction should probably be drawn between straight sciences/ maths as opposed to a mix which includes arts/ humanities or is straight arts/ humanities.

Yes current DC is doing five but that includes FM which he's just picked up so he'll be left with four but including FM (I expect - his choice - but I'm certainly hoping he drops the fifth). I think there has to be a caveat for FM.

No it wasn't to keep options open. His subject choices at the start of sixth form included two which still have the old AS and two which don't so that was standard fare for the sixth form but he's now collected another because of taking up FM. The fifth subject is a completely unrelated creative subject which he just enjoys but in no way does it keep his options open. It adds bugger all in that regard.

All my other DC have taken only three plus the EPQ except for the medic who wanted to take history as well, alongside the sciences. But that added nothing to his application either I don't think. He didn't do it for application purposes. If that was the motive then he'd have taken maths instead.

Everyone would agree that it is better to get 3A's than 2xAA and 2xBB

If anyone considers fourth subject to A2 level they better be hard working and well organised!

"Everyone would agree that it is better to get 3A's than 2xAA and 2xBB"

Surely "it depends". As an employer for example, I would probably rate someone who had 4 A levels including a language over someone who had 3 A grades without, and wouldn't stress too much at all if all the A levels were in the A*-B range.

Universities may just look for 3 A levels, but employers will have a different set of criteria (and obviously the quality of the uni and degree will factor into that).

DDs college is massive and they have not decided what they are doing next year.
They have the resources to run separate AS/A2 and A2 classes in the same subjects
but are still sitting on the fence about how they will actually handle stuff.

DS has been accepted to start there next September to do 5 subjects, probably, depending, maybe

I feel really, really sorry for schools and colleges without the resources or economies of scale to be able to hedge their bets while the car crash of the changes carries on.

I don't really see what bets need to be hedged?

Yes, it is the most utter incompetent mess of a transition.

I don't know a single parent of a year 11 child - even traditional Tory voters - who don't despair and think the whole thing is a bloody unfair mess.

I feel sorry for the teachers as well as the kids - possibly even more so.

Molio - assume hedging bets refers to trying to cover all eventualities until they know what universities will prefer.

Ladymucks - language is important only in a fraction of graduate jobs. Maths is important for more IMHO. But that is besides a point unless of course you are youself a managesr involved in graduate intake atthe moment.
However first of all that student will not get an offer from one of top unis (we are not even talking Oxbridge here). Regardless of doing 4 subjects. And that us the fact.
That's what parents and students have to know and remember when trying to "hedge".

Molio
Universities are geared up to offers based on AS and UMS
that rug just got pulled

So, will they base on mocks?
or will they still want AS?
or will they interview?

Do schools do AS even though it does not count to A2?
or do they do A2 only and hope that Unis do not want AS?
And what if some do and some do not?

And what happens to the under resourced schools who struggle to get a few kids into RG each year?
or what happens to the schools with only 60 kids per year at 6th so have to cover all bases with limited resources?

Its an Aintree of hedges and hurdles
and the muppets at the DfE do not care or understand

I'm not a Tory voter and I don't see a particular mess and I'm certainly not in despair although I am a Y12 not Y11 parent. But actually I also don't see why Y11 are especially affected - Y12 are a bit messier, if anything.

There's no need to 'cover all eventualities'. Universities will have to work with the material they get and politically they can't afford to discriminate. I really don't see the problem with just going with the flow. The new ASs aren't co-teachable with the new A2s and disrupt the teaching of the new linear qualifications, so surely the most sensible thing is to do the new linear A2s without ASs in the subjects where they exist and the old style ASs in subjects where they still exist. I'm not getting wrapped around the axle anyhow, it all seems fine.

Universities will have to work with the material they get and politically they can't afford to discriminate.
You just made me snort my Martini

Cross post Talkin but no, I just think some people react hysterically when any change is announced. It seems fine to me anyhow and I'm not completely oblivious to how this stuff works. My Y12 is just getting on with three subjects where he'll do an old style AS in the summer and the two subjects where he'll do mocks and get a predicted grade off those. It's not a big deal. Let the universities worry about it.

Let the universities worry about it.
What about the employers and the colleges and the rest of the real world ....
the numbers going to Uni are going to drop back to under 1/3 after all

Another cross post. Talkin I think you like to slag off everything to do with change though. Change is sometimes good, you just need to work through it.

Molio the issue seems to be that there is movement by some schools towards 4 A levels - including (IMHO) a half baked compromise which involves dropping one at some point if things are not going to plan, even though the A2 course load hasn't changed.

Some schools are trying to spin this as a 'good thing' because it widens children's' options - and I can absolutely see that it is sensible for heads to try to salvage some sort of coherent and optimistic individual school policy out of this shambles.

However if universities still expect A*AA-AAB as the standard offer for the sorts of humanities courses a lot of the posters on this thread are presumably hoping for for their children, then it seems to me that encouraging children to study 4 A levels is likely to be letting a lot of them down. As an earlier poster said, AABB will not be good enough for many universities, such as Durham, Exeter, etc. My experience is only in English however!

Another cross post! (I'm cooking :)).

I'm just not going to despair Talkin, sorry. I think it's all fine.

Universities are geared up to offers based on AS and UMS.

No, the vast majority of university courses do not base offers on AS and UMS (as the poster knows). For most courses, provided that candidates have reasonable GCSE and AS results and predictions in line with the required grades, they receive an offer. Decisions are made by administrators rather than academics. For these courses predicted grades will suffice; candidates are currently not rejected just because their AS scores or predictions are a grade or so below the required A2 grades, so possible errors in predicted grades won't particularly worry universities.

A small number of over-subscribed university courses interview. Of these many don't in any case use AS UMS as a significant factor in deciding whether to interview; Oxford uses its own pretests and medical schools use a range of factors including BMAT etc.

A small fraction of over-subscribed courses use AS UMS heavily in deciding whether to interview (mostly Cambridge courses). The latter courses will most likely move to pretests (this is decided in some subjects and the Cambridge board is drafting specifications) but these pretests will affect only a tiny fraction of students entering university. I think Cambridge pretty much accepts that they cannot force schools to do AS when they are not co-teachable.

I'm getting very behind with the posts here Figment! Threenew linear A2s is a good offer for plenty of kids. Three plus an AS in a different subject is a good option also. Three plus the EPQ is fine. Four is there too for those who can manage it. But trying to do a new style AS in a subject while also doing the same subject as a new linear A2 is daft, in my opinion. But it's just my opinion, obviously. So I don't see a problem.

Cross post now with disquisitiones. Exactly, the crucial point is that they aren't co-teachable and although Cambridge sent out a letter to HTs before the election trying to persuade them to still do ASs, the university obviously now sees that that almost certainly won't happen. So that's Cambridge's problem (but I'm sure they're clever enough to resolve it), but it's not really a problem for the kids.

I did 4 including general studies. When I went to uni my ucas points totally discounted my lowest a level grade. Not sure if that's still a thing but worth looking into.

I think I would have failed badly doing 4 full subjects (general studies was pretty much just turn up and sit an exam) and I was a B grade student at GCSE.

Molio - you're an outlier from the people I know. I can't believe you would suggest that this has been handled well! - it's been handled abominably. Schools didn't get sight of what they were going to be teaching until just before starting to do it , they have no idea how to advise students over what to do, hence my query. My dd's excellent school initially said everyone must do 4 and announced this at the Open Evening in Nov. Then they issued new forms in Dec saying the dcs could do just 3. Ie they have no idea and are trying to wing it.

The lack of consultation is shocking - Cambridge said they wanted to keep AS Levels as did other unis but Gove just overrode them on the basis of no evidence.

I am genuinely unsure why people are so attached to AS levels and the frequency of exams of that system. I suspect like Molio that those people just don't like the idea of change rather than actually like the idea of lots more exams. It will cost Cambridge more money to administer pretestd which is why they were attached to AS levels. All the competitive universities have had to deal with predicted grades from the small sector of IB and preUs, now they will just have to scale up the process.

In the schools I know the teachers of Y12s are just getting on with teaching their subjects the best they can with the information they have. It should be all about teaching their subjects, not preparing for exam technique most of year s 11 to 13. The number of A levels taken will obviously depend on funding and ability but universities will find ways to assess ability that are not dependent on number of AS levels and A levels taken.