Doing 4 a levels

[Lunchonawagon]

Dd currently doing 4 a levels- history, maths, biology and chemistry which she started with the premise of doing maths to AS and then sticking with the others for A2. However, she’s now saying that she really loves all her subjects and wants to opt out of the maths AS exam to do the full a level (have to let the school know), saying that she doesn’t want to stop doing maths and also that she’s much more likely to get a place on her chosen degree (medicine) with maths. My concern though is that she will have much more work than her peers, who’ll be sitting the same exams having had more time to prepare, with less free periods (5 hours a week less) to study in. Am I underestimating her or am I right to be concerned about her mental health and grades next year?

[rubyroot]

Oh and people talking about the new linear and not being able to do 4 under that system. I did a levels under the old linear system when it was harder to get As etc and although I only did 3, I can remember quite a few people doing more and some genius kids doing up to 7.

[sendsummer]

Mumsneedwine completely get the timetabling issue and all the cases I know of 5 have included FM. However it is happening in some schools who are used to being flexible for a very able cohort and those I know of are capable of doing the extra work very efficiently and fast and still get the top grades. For these there is no more time spent out of school working than the average able student doing 3.
There are also loads of cases where trying out 4 or 5 for a term or more has clarified preferences. Again only some schools can cope with that unfortunately.

[khaleesi71]

@mumsneedwine speaks good sense - those thinking their DC will somehow be better if with 5(!) or even 4 at sift are doing them a disservice - on the whole it is not something that makes them standout......

[Hoghgyni]

Taking 5 for PPE? Oxford offer AAA, so the extra two are pointless. Do they have any time left for fun? DD has 5 hours of contact time per subject & is expected to dedicate the same amount of time to self study. That leaves her enough time for a part time job and playing sport 3 or 4 times each week in the evenings.

A key risk in taking 4 subjects is that university offers may specify 4 grades. Meanwhile you may get a reduced offer on 3 subjects if you also take an EPQ and get A/A*. DD's school will only let you take 4 if one of those is FM. It doesn't seem to affect their offer rates for top ranking courses.

[Parisa5]

“Hang on, she got all 9s? This tells me she can cope. “

I’m not sure about that at all. My son got ten “9s” this summer, but he’s just a reasonably bright boy who worked very hard. He’s in a superselective in London where he always felt very average. Actually in Maths he was in the second to bottom set out of ten sets and, despite what anyone told him, would have described himself as struggling in maths and sciences. Many of his friends got all 9s too. Nobody is doing 4 A-levels as the school strongly advise against it, regardless of GCSE results. The only exceptions would be FM possibly; or one girl who is doing Russian as she is basically Russian. There is another girl whose parents are hell-bent on her going to Harvard and have insisted she do 4 A-levels. They also sent her on Harvard summer courses for the last two years and she’s doing SATs as well I think, at the moment! She is doing Economics, Politics, Maths and Chemistry, even though the school are not too happy about this.

[ZandathePanda]

‘Actually as humanities are more unpredictable only concentrating on three may not guarantee all A stars even for the best.’ mumsneedwine That’s why Dd spent hours going through exactly what AO spec point each question needed. She went through every exemplar and mark scheme with a fine toothcomb. It does require patience and time though. And a clear head in the exam. To be fair, there weren’t that many exemplars due to the new exams but she was very clear how to write each question and the style the exam board liked! Her teachers asked for her folders and notes at the end. Her grades were predictably high.

The amount of information Dd needed to retain for 3 humanities at that level was too extreme for me though. I just wouldn’t have the memory. Three is enough for humanities.

The only time I can see a case for 4 is FM when already doing maths.

100% of the people that I know, who did 4 A Levels this year, didn’t do as well as they were predicted. But I only know of four people who did 4 and that’s across 3 schools. The saddest is the one who lost his medicine place as he got a B in Chemistry (apparently that is the most important one and he was just off the A he needed). The two people that I have spoken to are gutted and wished they had done 3.

Hindsight is a bugger.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Taking 5 for PPE?

If that is in response to my example, no, eventually took 4, beat offer comfortably, just started. Started 5 for the start of Y12 (1 more than the school's standard requirement) for this reason: There are also loads of cases where trying out 4 or 5 for a term or more has clarified preferences.

The one of the 5 dropped in mid Y12 was not the one that wouldn't have been taken if asked to choose 4 at the start of Y12, so the choice of subjects to carry on with was hugely influenced by doing the A-level course for a bit rather than a 'blind stab' at the end of Y11.

Continued 4 to the end of Y13, did fabulously, played music at a high level, had a Saturday job, fully involved in 6th form activities etc etc.

I agree that nobody should 'do 4 because it will look better on the CV'. But to do 4 because you love 4 and can do 4 brilliantly and keep the breadth of education you crave - for a very few students, it's the right answer. Not the sensible answer. Not the pragmatic answer. Not the cynical answer. Not the 'functional' answer based on the imperatives of offers and grades - but still the right answer for that individual....

[cantkeepawayforever]

I did 4 - the 'including FM 4' - way back when in the far ago era of not only linear A-levels but also 4th term Oxbridge entrance. I got the highest possible results in all 4, 2 'S'-levels at the highest grade and got into Oxbridge at a stupidly young age due to being year accelerated. It was the 'right' answer for me, even though it was not 'sensible' or 'pragmatic' even then....

[Ginfordinner]

There are an awful lot of not so stealth boasts on this thread.

The "I have an IQ of 250 and did 10 A levels in three months" posts are just not relevant to most 16/17/18 year olds.

Yes, there are some exceptionally bright young peoople, but most 6th form students won't achieve the top grades by taking more than 3 A levels, so the odd anecdote from an exceptionally bright poster or parent of exceptionally bright child isn't very helpful.

I would say that DD is above average, but not super bright. I was deighted that she achieved AAA at A level. Had she done four subjects she would probably achieved the same grades that she did at AS - AABB.

[Lunchonawagon]

Yes I don’t think the all 9s makes her a genius or exceptional in any way. She is bright and academic but not exceptionally so- she has a good work ethic and was very determined to do well in her exams so while natural ability was there there was tonnes of hard work and revision as well

[sendsummer]

those thinking their DC will somehow be better if with 5(!) or even 4 at sift are doing them a disservice
IME the DCs who end up by wanting to continue with 4 or 5 are n’t doing it because of their parents but are self driven. Often it is because of interest in keeping up a humanity or MFL as well as STEM subjects.
As I said, there is time enough at the end of year 12 to make final decisions about how many to carry on, taking into account all the factors I mentioned.
Of course if a student is having to work at full stretch from early on to cope with 4 they should drop a subject as that is not likely to be sustainable.

[Hoghgyni]

Is she going to have time to fit in all the work experience/evidence of caring & practice for BMAT she will need if she continues with 4?

[cantkeepawayforever]

Gin, the boasts were not intended to be stealth.

Yes, for the vast majority of young people, a pragmatic decision to work for 3 A-levels to maximise grades is the right decision.

This does not mean that ALL students need to be restricted to 3 - which some schools now seem to be doing - on the grounds that more than 3 are 'not needed' the school finds it too expensive

It is horses for courses - some exceptionally bright, broad-based students wish to do 4, and will do equally well in 4 as they would in 3. They should not be restricted just because only 3 are 'needed'.

[noblegiraffe]

I did more than 4. Stupid idea, someone should have stopped me. The issue wasn’t just that I didn’t want to drop any because I liked them all, but also I didn’t want to disappoint the teacher of the dropped subject.

I needed a good talking to about not taking on too much and the importance of downtime to your mental health.

[ZandathePanda]

The problem though cantkeepaway is that there is absolutely no way you can prove they ‘will do equally well in 4 as they would in 3’ until after the event. Your reasoning was the same as the failed-to-get-in medical student and his parents. He had never got a B (failed) at anything.

[cantkeepawayforever]

I think it depends where you set the bar. If its 'obviously A* material without breaking a sweat' that's fine. If it's 'will need to work to get an A', then not.

You are probably only talking about a couple of students per year, even in really good 6th forms.

[cantkeepawayforever]

But I do absolutely take your point - that if it 'appears to be available', then there will be those who 'think they should be doing it'.

As I say, both local 6th forms my DCs have attended start with 4, step back to 3 after a year (in general) - plenty of time for students to explore the reality of doing those subjects at A level and for serious talks about what is realistically attainable.

[ZandathePanda]

cantkeep starting with 4 is what Dd did which was good as she dropped one that she thought she’d like and hated. We did have a bit of a battle though because the school wanted her to keep it on to AS and maybe A Level. I think the ‘prestige’ thing is real with some pupils/schools. She produced a table showing none of the universities she looked at needed it. The EPQ was handy as it dropped her offer down a grade.

[Grufallosfriends]

We had our DD's 6th form info evening last night and all pupils are required to start with 4 A levels without Further Maths and with 5 including Further Maths in year 12.

Pupils can then drop one subject at the end of year 12 after taking the AS.

On the other hand, my ds is currently doing 4 A levels (excluding Further Maths) and, while he has less free periods than some others, he is managing find and predicted As/Astars.

So it really depends on the student but 4 A levels are definitely doable.

[Grufallosfriends]

This does not mean that ALL students need to be restricted to 3 - which some schools now seem to be doing - on the grounds that more than 3 are 'not needed' the school finds it too expensive

It is horses for courses - some exceptionally bright, broad-based students wish to do 4, and will do equally well in 4 as they would in 3. They should not be restricted just because only 3 are 'needed'.

I agree with this.

In most countries 16-18 year olds take a much broader curriculum, and the British system of only doing 3 of 4 subjects is rather limiting imo.

[ZandathePanda]

The problem with doing an A Level to AS then dropping it (like in Dds school) is that you have 2 options: concentrate on it, maybe to the detriment of your other subjects or don’t concentrate on it as universities don’t need ASs anyway. With the latter, Dds friends got a bad result in it, which you have to declare on UCAS form, which wasn’t ideal. Also it meant in some cases that people had spent so much time revising their least liked subject that they changed their mind and dropped one they liked better instead so ended up keeping going with a subject they hated. Dd had to do English Lit content for the AS in class in case anyone wanted to just do the AS, which it turned out they didn’t. So that was a loss of productive lesson time.

All the universities we spoke to said it was not an advantage to do an AS. Manchester admissions advised against it for most of the reasons above. The reason the universities said that they wouldn’t consider them as ASs are not done by all schools therefore how can they judge fairly? Cambridge were the only one that said they would look at it in the context of the whole application, but did say there was no advantage.

[Grufallosfriends]

The problem with doing an A Level to AS then dropping it (like in Dds school) is that you have 2 options: concentrate on it, maybe to the detriment of your other subjects or don’t concentrate on it

I think the schools wouldn't be suggesting that pupils take a subject and not expect them to do well (and concentrate on it!)

The other benefit of starting with 4 is that you may change your mind as to which subjects to keep to A2 level

[ZandathePanda]

Graffalo I agree but what I posted was the reality of what happened to Dds friends. Dd realised she’d rather have 3 good grades and drop the 4th AS/A Level but we had a bit of a fight with the school to do that.

[Fifthtimelucky]

My younger daughter changed her mind about which subject to drop on the basis of her AS results. The AS wasn't going to count towards the final mark, but it made her realise that she would probably do better in the subject she had planned to drop than in one of her other subjects.

[Grufallosfriends]

That's what we were told by the school. About a third of pupils change their mind about which of the four A levels in year 12 they want to continue into year 13. And about 10% continue with all 4.