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?

A levels have changed and are far harder than they were even a couple of years ago.

Dd"s excellent indie says 3 unless you are a super genius or wanting Further maths.

I remember my friend's son at grammar saying 4 or 5! was expected and being quite dismissive of 'only 3'. They didn't bother with the epq either, was very sniffy about that. He only got 3 out of 5 offers and the three he did get asked for 3 x As. So that 4th A level a complete waste as he got A*ABB.

The point being was that he, and his dad, were CONVINCED that university would be more impressed with 4 than 3, and he'd get more offers. He didn't, and arguably would have got his 3 x As if he'd stuck to 3.

@Trewser, more or less exactly what I said.
Only students from countries like France or Germany who do the Baccalauréat, or the Abitur find more subjects easy. I was also given foreign students, by the way. They felt they were on holiday in the UK as they were used to doing 9 subjects for their final exam.
One even had time to be Deputy Head Boy!

I like the IB. Sadly dd's school has stopped offering it.

Hmmm! IB!!! HMMM! Some unis like it some don't, your remark about emailing the unis will show which side of the fence they sit on on this.
(The IB is not as much like the baccalauréat as people assume. by the way.)
Anyway, good on you, you seem really switched on.

26mcjrfm if you did your A levels 10 years ago they were modular, so you sat 4 half A levels in year 12 and 4 half A levels in year 13. Whereas now they are all linear so students sit 3 or 4 full A levels in year 13. You can’t compare A levels of 10 years ago to today.

StanleySteamer what were the stress levels of these overseas students who were sitting the Baccalauréat, or the Abitur?

Some unis would consider A*AB to be the equivalent of AAA, but then others wouldn't. Just shows you are right, you have to get EXACTLY what they ask for.

I agree Stanley. Some universities won't accept students for some subjects with anything less than an A regardless of the subject.

Anyway, good on you, you seem really switched on

Thanks that's having a first child who wasn't massively academic so looking into every single possible combination of A levels, BTECS, courses, unis !

@Ginfordinner, the stress levels for students doing the Baccalauréat are legendary in France. Parents ask each other "How are YOU coping", never mind the students!
This year about 90% of candidates passed, varying slightly depending on which "bac" you took, but do not forget that the schools do not put you in for the bac unless they think you are ready for it. See www.education.gouv.fr/cid143435/resultats-de-la-session-de-juin-du-baccalaureat-2019.html for more details (if you read French)

Stress levels are really high partly because without a "bac" your chances of further success is minimal. In France you absolutely have to have a qualification of some kind to get a job and unemployment here is really high among the young. I once saw an advert for a supermarket manager on the shop door specifying "Bac +4" which meant you had to have a bac and 4 years further ed!

Also in France, if you pass the bac you get to go to uni, no questions asked, no UCAS nothing like it. BUT they have massive "chucking out" exams, especially in things like medicine, so there is a massive waste of resources especially in the first year and in oversubscribed courses, you get students sitting through some other lecture, not even on their course, just to bag a seat for the NEXT lecture which IS part of their course. At least at a UK uni, once you are in you'll get the degree, unless you are a prat and have chosen the wrong course, (and been accepted on it!) OR you massively prat about, miss lectures, don't work etc. Then you'll probably still get a 2.1!!! This is also what I put in my book, about how you absolutely have to go to the right uni if you wanty a decent job afterwards. But if you read the correct media you will know this already. RG rules unless you want to do a specialised course like the Meistersinger, or others which are only done at one place, Equine Veterinary Science I seem to remember was another, and another on Fashion Journalism, (Nottingham).

Thank you for your insights Stanley they are very interesting. I'm thankful that we aren't in France

I would also take issue with the poster who said A-levels today are far harder than AS and A-levels taken up until recently.
The "new" A-levels are much the same as A-levels used to be before the invention on the AS level.
Before then we even had S (for "scholarship") levels, which I personally think should be reintroduced. (Further, more difficult, papers which students took along with their A-level.) This would be very handy for the unis who cannot sort out the wheat from the chaff, even with the introduction of A*. This is so old fashioned now that a quick search on Wikipedia came up with nothing, yet I remember myself sitting the Chemistry S level, barely understood the questions!
I am SO old!

Why DO the unis need to sort 'the wheat from the chaff'? Surely any student with 3x As is probably going to be able to cope at uni. They don't have a pupil cap now fees have been introduced.

And introducing S grade just adds another layer of stress to already over loaded teens.

What we were saying earlier about the absurdity of 'well being week' whilst simultaneously piling expectations on!

@26mcjrfm you were unlucky with your failure to get into medical school, especially if you had followed the syllabus advice and done the right A-levels.
However, there is a lot more than just A-level grades to getting onto oversubscribed courses. This is why so many more Public Schools have success on these. This is why I wrote my book and put in it all the other stuff you have to do and then put in your personal statement and get referees to comment on, to get on the course.

I predate modular A levels as well. I agree that bothe GCSEs and A levels standards are probably going back to what I had to endure in the 70s, but I think it is still fair to say that you can't compare the difficulty of sitting today's A levels with sitting the modular A levels of recent years.

Didn't the S stand for Special, not scholarship?

DS did IB. Got 44. Oxford offer was 42.
DD did 3 A'Levels, dropping the 4th at first 1/2 term. She did continue her instrument though. Got 3 xA* and grade 8 distinction. Applied Cambridge in the gap year and offer was unconditional. Biggest bit of irrelevance was the EPQ.

To be fair we just sent them to excellent schools. Loved them, nurtured them and encouraged them. And took the advice of their schools and left them to it.

@trewser, until the advent of the A they really did have a problem knowing who could cope, the more students get 3 A the more this issue will reassert itself. The A has more or less replaced the old S- level but to get A you "only" have to get lots of marks on the same questions as all the other students are taking. The S-level had far harder questions in it.
One of my students who got 100% on an A-level Maths paper went to interview at Imperial and met other students who also got 100% on their papers. So A* is not that great a differentiator. (He got in by the way!)
Uni admissions tutors fall into two groups, the "choosers" and the "fillers". The choosers can be VERY picky, and for them, sorting out the wheat from the chaff is their daily job. They cannot just take on all those who have 3 A as they get too many of them. I know it seems unfair, but such is life. I devoted 2 chapters to UCAS application as there is so much more to it than A grades. I am sorry you obviously feel a bit upset about this and the pressure on today's teens. But, in my book I tell my students how to work SMART as well as hard, which gives them built in free time and stops them panicking. They all had other lives outside of study and indeed you need that to put all the right stuff in your personal statement. If a student really cannot cope with the pressure of the grades, then maybe he/she should think about what they want to do at uni. I have had students with exactly this problem and in the end we were able to find them suitable courses where they were happy. Remembering the baccalauréat and the Abitur, if foreign students can cope, ours can! But if intellectually they are not up to succeeding in obtaining an A* in a certain subject that is not the end of the world, we cannot all be geniuses, and all of us are happier working at the level that suits us. Tough love, but true.

Interesting story which I put in my book. A friend of mine had a mate whose dad was admissions tutor at a fairly prestigious medical school, as he was Head of Sixth he asked the guy if he could look through the (quite high) pile of rejections. In there he came across a student who was straight As (before A*) had been Head Boy, etc etc the whole 9 yards. He couldn't see it so he asked him why he had been rejected. The guy looked at him scornfully and said "He can't spell "badminton!" that was all it took. My stepdaughter is a Head of Department at Southampton Solent (Non-RG!) and she backs this up. You have to believe me although there are courses which use fillers at most unis, RG unis have almost all courses that are choosers. There may be no cap on admissions but unis up and down the country are making lecturers redundant, my step-daughter wasn't even sure she would have a job at the end of this summer and she only lectures to post-grads. So many courses are having to be cut or be very fussy over applicants.

Right, must take the WiFi box back to Orange now so no more from me for a while!

until the advent of the A they really did have a problem knowing who could cope*

But since then the student cap has been removed. Any child getting AAA or A stars will cope academically. The not coping comes from not being able to learn independently, not coping with living away from home, going mad socially and not going to lectures. A level grades don't tell you that, even if you go to 11.

That knowledge MIGHT come through interview.

Absolutely no need for an S level.

The not coping comes from not being able to learn independently, not coping with living away from home, going mad socially and not going to lectures.

I agree. I'm not sure how you can prepare a young person for this.

Dd is now saying if she shouldn’t do 4 (which she is still quite set on) she doesn’t want to take the AS in maths at all as she thinks if she doesn’t get an A in it it will look bad on her application- is this silly or does she have a point?

Lunch my Dd didn’t do the AS or a 4th A Level. Neither are needed as qualifications in themselves though the Maths element may be relevant depending on the course she’s aiming for. The EPQ A grade really helped in terms of dropping her offers a grade (although she didn’t need it in the end, it was nice to feel there was a bit of leeway). The EPQ is useful in terms of independent study, analysing the validity of source material, doing a bibliography. Sets them up well for A Level coursework and university essays.
Yes all grades have to be declared on UCAS forms. I don’t know if this hinders.