Three or four A-levels where one is Further Maths?

[Mutakirorikatum]

This was touched on in another current thread, but I'd like some specific advice, please!

DD wants to do Physics at university, possibly Oxbridge or Imperial. Clearly Maths and Physics are essential A-levels, and the general advice from schools (we're looking at several schools and a 6th form college) seems to be that university Physics departments really value Further Maths but can't actually insist on it because of some schools not offering it. Advice also suggests that the content of FMaths will help with Physics, both at a-level and at university.

Dd is good at Maths, but not totally in love with it for its own sake, but seems to have accepted that taking FMaths is likely to be a good move. The question now is whether Maths, F Maths and Physics on its own is enough of a workload, or whether people doing further Maths would usually do a fourth subject?

Dd is keen to do French or possibly Chemistry as a fourth, for variety and because she likes the idea of something that is a bit of a contrast, but obviously doesn't want to overload herself and/or risk dropping grades in her other subjects.

Any thoughts or advice on the Further-maths-as-a-full-A-level conundrum?

Could she do 4 to start with and then see how it goes? Dd is doing 4, one of which is further maths, but the advice tends to be to do 3 and get good grades. However, dd reasoned she could try out the A levels in subjects she liked and drop one later. Whereas swapping to a different A level would be difficult once the course had started. Atm, dd is keeping up with the workload and enjoying all her subjects.

I would say chemistry fits in better than French and gives her the option of dropping that or further maths and still having 3 science based A levels.

We were advised that further maths would be required if the school offers it. Oxbridge certainly requires it - no point in applying there for maths or physics without it, regardless of whether your school offers it.

DS is doing physics at uni. He did 4 A levels inc. further maths and has found it very useful to him now so even though his final grade was not A or A* he is pleased he did it. Not sure how it affected his applications (he got reduced offers though) and he managed with the workload including doing an EPQ in year 12. I would have thought if your DD is looking at Oxbridge she is capable of the workload and willing to work hard?

I'm a physicist, and would def advise taking FM if it is offered - back in my day (a million years ago) it was def the case that you were expected to have done FM if possible. My school didn't, and it was a lot harder in the first year of my degree.

If she does a 4th, I'd do whatever she enjoys more - I did biology (am a medical physicist), most did chemistry, and a friend from school did french. She then did joint honours physics and french, followed by a low temp physics PhD so it didn't do any harm at all!

I think for those courses you may well find that they say FM isn't essential, however they will assume at the start of the course that everyone was up to that level anyway. That's what people who did physics/engineering at those places told me anyway.

If your school doesn't offer it, then they will consider you, as that is a reasonable reason for not doing it. However if the school does offer it you would need a good reason for not doing it.

Do what she enjoys most as a fourth.

Mine is doing maths, further maths, biology and chemistry.
It is a LOT of work
He does sport to a high level to and bloody mandarin GCSE so is really pushed

If yours likes Maths then they will love FM as mine does - he says normal Maths a level is lots whereas FM is less but harder content

the teenage me is horrified to be opining on maths

Thanks all!

This all confirms what we thought and had been told about Further maths, so that decision is kind of made. We can definitely see the logic of choosing chemistry over French, but otoh it would be a break from the relentless science, and she's had a bit of French immersion so has quite good fluency already. And her long-term ambition is to work at CERN, so she wants to be fluent in another language.

And actually if she did need to drop the fourth subject, at least with French she would still have that additional language skill even without the A-level.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether it would be looked down on for a high-flier to do three subjects if two of them were maths and FM?

DS went to the physics admissions talk at the Oxford open day last year (decided not to apply there). The message given was that if your school offers Further Maths A-level, they would expect you to be studying it.

At his school, the only way to take Further Maths is as a fourth subject.

Plenty of people take Maths, Further Maths, Physics and one other. If someone is applying to study physics at Oxbridge or Imperial then the workload of four A-levels shouldn't be a problem.

french people will speak better English than she will French to be brutally honest
I would add french as a hobby

French is useful if she can do a course where there is a year out to do French. My DD went to the University of Geneva. So look at courses with links to CERN. She wasn’t a physicist but the university had links I believe.

It’s better to have FM. Do you know what proportion of students on these courses at the top universities don’t have it? Ask them if they don’t publish the info. My suspicion would be that it’s quite a high proportion!

Also check how your sixth form teach Maths/Further Maths.

At my son's school, for those doing FM, they do A level Maths in lower sixth and FM in upper sixth, so they're not actually doing 4 A levels at the same time, they just do both Maths at a faster pace to get through each in 1 year not 2, which makes it more feasible from a workload point of view than doing 4 different subjects.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether it would be looked down on for a high-flier to do three subjects if two of them were maths and FM?

Can't remember which Uni open day it was (Durham maybe??) but they said that if you do FM, they basically ignore the Maths A level, so they were looking for a total of 4, simply because they wanted 2 different subjects as well as the FM (i.e. Maths and FM were counted as the same subject not two!).

Can't advise on what is current, but when I did Further Maths in the late 1990s, we covered the Maths syllabus in the lower sixth and then the Further Maths syllabus in the upper sixth. This may vary from school to school - so speak to the school. I did Natural Sciences at Cambridge and although I didn't do physics past the first year, having done FM was definitely helpful. My DH read Maths at Cambridge and did Latin as his 4th subject alongside Maths, FM and Physics, but I'd say that another science such as Chemistry would likely be more useful (there is overlap between the two subjects depending which part of physics she ends up specialising in) than an unrelated subject like French if your daughter is planning to read Physics as opposed to Maths

As for language fluency - our experience with the likes of Duo Lingo has been far better than what we encountered at school with language teaching - doesn't A-Level French have a lot of literature content?

At my son's school, for those doing FM, they do A level Maths in lower sixth and FM in upper sixth, so they're not actually doing 4 A levels at the same time, they just do both Maths at a faster pace to get through each in 1 year not 2, which makes it more feasible from a workload point of view than doing 4 different subjects.

Yes, that's how the sixth form college do it. But it still kind of is twice the workload of single maths because they have double the number of lessons in order to get through the syllabus in a year. The open evenings for the other sixth forms are coming up, so we'll see how they handle it.

Can't remember which Uni open day it was (Durham maybe??) but they said that if you do FM, they basically ignore the Maths A level, so they were looking for a total of 4, simply because they wanted 2 different subjects as well as the FM (i.e. Maths and FM were counted as the same subject not two!).

And yes, that's what I was thinking might be the case. I suspect it will be more the case at the more demanding universities, but it seems like it makes sense to start with four at least, if you're definitely going the Maths-Further Maths-Physics route.

As an extra thought, I had actually wanted to do Geography as my 4th subject (I loved Geography - in the end I did Geology at university!) but it didn't timetable with Maths, Physics and Chemistry, so that's why I ended up doing Further Maths instead! In hindsight, I don't actually think that doing Further Maths is double the workload compared to doing another unrelated subject.

I have a child like this.
Def do Physics, Maths and Further Maths. You then need a fourth A level for a high flyer. General advice is don't do a language as a fourth A level because it'll be too time consuming. Chemistry would probably be more useful tbh.

Dd did 4 a levels, she didn't apply to oxbridge but several of her friends did and all had 4 a levels including further maths

Can't remember which Uni open day it was (Durham maybe??) but they said that if you do FM, they basically ignore the Maths A level, so they were looking for a total of 4, simply because they wanted 2 different subjects as well as the FM (i.e. Maths and FM were counted as the same subject not two!).
Not Durham. Dd's there studying maths with maths/Fm and one other. her friend got into Oxbridge with the same combination.
It does mean that the maths offers tend to be higher because they assume A in maths is easy to come by. Her Durham offer was A A* A.

If she's up to doing Further Maths, she should find the single maths straightforward enough that it won't be a full 4 A-level workload.

Fourth A level - do a bit of checking out of potential universities and what they ask for. In particular, I know that at Cambridge, physics is part of "natural sciences", and having chemistry would probably be a good idea as they don't just study physics in the first year (www.natsci.tripos.cam.ac.uk/prospective-students/admissions). (Some students do start on "maths with physics" instead, then switch to physics in the second year.) However other universities may be quite happy with French as the fourth, and it sounds like there are some arguments for it.

physics is literally maths. if she doesn’t like maths in its own right, she wont like further, and it will either take up lots of studying time which could go to physics or will leave a bad grade on her predicted. what did she get in GCSEs? i say this as someone who got 3A*s and an A at a level in maths further physics and chemistry, the A being in Physics, and is now doing physics at university.

Physicist here. I'd definitely recommend a 4th A level - further maths is conceptually harder, but I think an admissions officer looking at maths, further maths and physics would think "two and a half A levels" rather than 3 (at least that's what they'd have thought back when I was at the applications stage), so a fourth A level would help. You could do physics without further maths, but it would be bloody hard work - you'd effectively be starting your degree with one hand tied behind your back.

Just had a quick look at the current AQA syllabus (just as an example) and it's all bread-and-butter stuff you would need to know in order to do physics - either you learn it in the 6th form, or you try to play catch-up in the first year of university, but whichever way you cut it, you'll have to learn it sooner or later.

So keep the further maths - she really will need it, and add a fourth A level. I did chemistry and found it intensely boring, though I will admit it proved useful to me later on in my life (was relevant background for my PhD, is tangentially relevant in my current job). Having said that if I were doing it again, and had your daughter's interests and choices, I'd opt for French.

but I think an admissions officer looking at maths, further maths and physics would think "two and a half A levels" rather than 3

More likely they'd go 'woo-hoo someone with the perfect subjects wants to do my course' and send an offer by return!

I did maths, f maths, phys, chem (and general studies) for A levels. It was a reasonable amount of work but significantly less than maths at Cambridge. That was much much harder. And from what I could tell from friends, Nat Sci is a similar work load to maths - if not more.

Actually - that is a thought - unless it has changed in the last (blush) 22 years, to do physics at Cambridge there are two ways in. One is the Nat Sci route (Natural Sciences) - where you would need two sciences and would spend your first year doing three subjects (physics, chemistry and materials science was the common combination). The other is via maths and physics in your first year. But she would then need to convince a maths admissions tutor that she worshipped on the god that is maths.

I think Oxford may have a “just physics route” though. (They had a “just chem route” when my mum was looking into it for my brother but he refused to go anyway on some principle that he can’t quite remember now.)

Yes Oxford does single honours physics (which was the deciding factor for me - didn't want to do any more chemistry).

I suspect the maths with a physics option route at Cambridge pretty much locks you into doing theoretical physics (n'owt wrong with that, it's what I do, but experimentalists get to play with toys, and I must admit to suffering toy envy when I see their big shiny bits of kit).