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...

I agree with you Catslife.My dd1 has been encouraged to do solely 3 A levels with the intention of doing Medicine/Veterinary Studies.She did 4 language GCSE's with A* in them all.It now seems a shame that now she's solely restricted to Sciences and Maths because her School are telling everyone to do 3 ( Gdst School).
Having spoken to Medical admissions at several universities the 2017 requirements have mostly not been specified yet.But they have confirmed that they have many worried parents phoning up to see how many A levels are required.Students are required to trust the Schools advice without clear guidelines - especially the current year 12's.

Bobo

LSE does not interview. I assume because:

1. They have 13 applicants for each economics place
2. Up to 60% of economics students will be non EU (Probably something I should check but am too lazy, I think thats what I saw somewhere) and so it would be impracticle.
3. It is not nearly as rich as some Oxford colleges, and indeed has a lower proportion of public funding than any in the UK.

This means that the PS is, as Bobo suggests, very important. But not a problem for an applicant who is genuinely interested in their subject and has been happy to read round the subject or similar.

A decision by LSE to focus scare resources into teaching, rather than selection, seems a reasonable one. Yes on the margin, different decisions might be made but given how competitive the course is, they will end up with strong candidates. Presumably they eexpect Cambridge to syphon off those that interview best.

The UK is lucky to have four very strong, world ranked, economics courses. Cambridge, Warwick, UCL and LSE. (A bit like COWI for maths.) Each has advantages, each selects on a slightly different basis. The advice DS was given was to to apply to all four and be happy to receive an offer from one. (Actually the same advice DD is being given for medicine. Once you get over a certain level of competition it has to be a bit of a lottery for all bar exceptional candidates.) DS says he is now glad he is at LSE (the only offer he got) because the course allows him to take more, and more advanced, maths options than available at Cambridge degree. However some of his peers would have been happier at Warwick.

The problem for French students seems to be:

1. They don't seem to understand the application process and, inevitably, the system is not designed around their qualifications.

1. If Bobo is correct, French students tend to rank LSE and Cambridge much higher than Warwick and presumably UCL. They are then relatively more disappointed than a British student if their offer for one of the top four Universities is not the one they wanted.

In terms of access, I assume all London Universities are struggling. London is just so expensive. Relying on anecdote what I suspect the LSE is good at is attracting British ethnic minorities. First from inside the M25 including students who would expect to live at home, and then those from elsewhere who are attracted by the very obvious diversity of the student body.

Maybe I should add that DS took 5 A levels. This allowed him FM, which was desirable but which would not be part of an offer, and history, which was always going to be more of a stuggle, and which might not have delivered the A grade he would need, but which helped build his written and analytical (evidence, argument etc) skills. With 3 STEM subjects in the mix, the workload was not overwhelming, and having a humanity may help convince an employer that he has a broader education.

He also then had the ability to start applying for STEM subjects if he found he was not enjoying economics.

Catslife Valuable skills will be lost if most A level Scientists take 2 Sciences and Maths and have no opportunity to study other areas.

Hear, hear.

DN recently mentioned Marie Curie, a top scientist who was fluent in French, Polish, Russian, English and German. This made it easy for her to collaborate with scientists from other countries.

This made it easy for her to collaborate with scientists from other countries.

But nowadays the language of science and engineering is English everywhere, so being multilingual does not give any advantage to a scientist. Of course it's still nice to be multilingual but A2 MFL does not indicate high proficiency, especially relative to European levels of MFL education.

With regards to whether typical Cambridge STEM candidates have 5 A levels: this depends on the type of school they come from. Admissions tutors would have different expectations for a student from somewhere like Westminster than for a student from a comprehensive with low numbers of students getting ABB+ at A level.

Provided a student has the relevant science subjects, I don't think is much advantage to having extra A2s in humanities/MFL for a STEM degree. Studying a humanity or MFL as well the required sciences is clearly valuable for many other reasons, though.

Marie Curie was not so unusual in terms of language, given the time and place in which she was born and the parents she was born to. It's the English who've always tended to be inward looking.

Disquis I agree. There was no expectation the taking five would increase the chances of a good University offer, though it did reduce the risk of missing grades needed. Inter alia he would have dropped the fifth had there been any sign that this was affecting performance elsewhere.

I also agree that coming from certain schools, not offering four may cause problems, perhaps questions about your ability to handle the University work load.

A students skill set is not just grades. Being able to write well, organisation, maturity, perserverence, ability to work with others, should all help a student thrive. A broader education does not just come from a school syllabus.

NeedMoreSleep - I'm not at all sure why you want to bring French applicants into this discussion? What is the relevance?

I was assuming that your concern about some UK universities not interviewing and relying solely on the paper application was because French Universities operated a different approach.

You have lost me now! I was merely adding what I know about LSE into the conversation about issues with widening access at LSE (for all subjects, btw, not just Economics)

disquis you guess wrong and in fact in a more lab based speciality than yours from previous posts. Although I have to admit I am in a position where I can focus on supervising PhD and postdoctoral student research with minimal teaching of undergraduates. Of course sciences need to have practicals but that can be done in the proper undergraduate course (although IMO valuable practical lab skills are only really learnt when doing research).
My proposal which of course is only a musing rather than proposal) would only be for a science theory catch-up to broaden access to undergraduate courses for students who had insufficient grades or the wrong combination of A levels. It would still be cheaper than a full attendance foundation course.