Psychology A Level - pros & cons?

[AsPerMyLastEmail]

In my day (aka long long long ago) psychology was seen as a ‘mickey mouse’ subject and universities wanted the facilitating subjects.

But now that I’m looking at sixth forms for DD, I see that loads of places offer it and I see from here that a lot of ‘high-achieving’ students seem to take it along with traditional academic options.

So I’m interested to know:

On the whole, is it fully respected by universities now?

At A Level, is psychology seen as a humanities subject rather than a (social) science or is it a mix?

What are the transferable skills it offers?

DC1 does it with music and history and finds it very interesting. Its not that popular at her school but was at her old school. Her old school wouldn't let you take it unless you had 7s in Maths, English Language and Biology/Science.

Let them do what they want. My mum forced me to do a science or I 'wouldn't get into uni'. I got a U and the teacher was fired the next year for misconduct (she used to scream at us if we didn't understand).

I got three A* in the options I chose and now have two degrees and a professional qualification.

Stop interfering and let the person choose their own education.

Hi @AsPerMyLastEmail!

I work with schools and have some dealings with University staff. They regard Psychology as they regard nearly all A Levels: not a problem.

Life skills? My observation of hundreds of sixth formers every year is that such skills come from the personality and the teen's wider life than from academic life.

There really is no need to worry.

My daughter is currently doing it, and loving it. She's doing it along side two sciences, an arts subject and an EPQ. She by no means is finding it a 'soft' option.

It’s like many A levels. Perfectly fine. Depends what else you study with it regarding university courses. Few (If any) require it but none dislike it.

@CorianderBee

Let them do what they want. My mum forced me to do a science or I 'wouldn't get into uni'. I got a U and the teacher was fired the next year for misconduct (she used to scream at us if we didn't understand).

I got three A* in the options I chose and now have two degrees and a professional qualification.

Stop interfering and let the person choose their own education.

Do you get off on being rude or did you misread? If you read my posts you’ll see I was asking mostly for my own general interest as my DD isn’t doing it.

Thank you for all the comments, very interesting & helpful.

My dd is doing Psychology, Maths and Biology and received offers from RG unis no problem. She is planning to study psychology at university and many will offer a slightly lower offer of you do maths or a science as one of your choices. It's not necessary to study A-level to do a degree but dd studied it at GCSE and found that it was advantageous as there was some overlap.

In her experience, her choice of A-levels is unusual and most of the other psychology students are doing Sociology, Business or Geography.

Degree courses in psychology are often BSc. The A-level requires some statistics and biology.

Biology and Maths are the “facilitating” subjects we are no longer allowed to label as facilitating. She would also have got in to study a whole range of subjects including biology. If she had done Photography and Art with the Psychology many courses requiring science A levels would have been off the agenda. It’s always what you study as a group of subjects that leads to degree success. Maths, Biology and Psychology is a perfect combination for Psychology so offers not a problem.

My eldest does it and he hates it. From what I can see it’s massively helpful to do it alongside biology which he doesn’t do. It’s well regarded by universities and he has 4 RG university offers so far

My DD did Art, Photography and Business Studies and got offers from RG universities. It all depends on the course and the subject(s) they want. No subject is really wrong unless you apply for a course that wants something specific, eg maths, and you haven’t done it. Psychology is such a popular subject now, why would universities ignore it?