A level choice advice please

[Disneyvillain]

Good morning, can anyone offer me some advice on how to help my DD regarding her a level choices? She does well across all subjects, lowest grade is a 7. Doesn’t want to continue with maths or physics, she loves history, but apart from that she doesn’t know what to take at A level. Her other subjects are chemistry, classics, English lit and Lang, Spanish and textiles. She doesn’t know what she wants to do as a career. She is gifted in verbal reasoning but does not enjoy English literature exams. Her current thinking is history, Spanish or chemistry and textiles. I feel textiles would lessen her chances of getting a place at a ‘top’ university. But she loves the subject and also finds it a welcome break from the more academic subjects. Any advice please? Thank you!

Have a look at entry criteria for various universities to see what they require for (say) a history degree. That will give you an idea.

I would sound a note of caution around Chemistry - if she wants to study this, it would probably be beneficial to study at least core maths - this was mandatory at several sixth forms we looked at.

Doing Textiles as a third subject won't make top univiersities think any less of her as long as her other two subjects are relevant to whatever she eventually decides to study.

Studying chemistry without maths or another science will reduce her chances of going onto do something scientific at many places, but if she is heading towards the humanities it will be fine alongside an essay subject such as history.

Thanks for the tip about chemistry, that’s very useful.

Chemistry pointless unless she adds another science and wants to do a STEM degree. Textiles fine along side other two - but caution over workload!

Why not something new instead of textiles? Sociology, Psychology? Media?

Classical studies might work (though not offered that widely)? Or would that be too like history?

Thanks for all your comments, they’re all very helpful. I will do some research on university entrance requirements. It’s hard when they don’t know what they want to go on to do. I’d like her to give herself the wisest choice of degree options, but at the same time there’s no point her studying something she doesn’t enjoy - I was advised to do maths rather than English and hated it (and got a terrible grade as a result).

Putting History, Textiles & Spanish into Informed Choices brings up the following degree options:

Based on one or more of the subjects you've chosen, these degrees may be open to you
American Studies
Anthropology
Archaeology
Architecture
Art and design
Business Studies
Childhood Studies
Chinese languages
Classical Studies
Drama
Education / Education Studies
European Studies
History
History of Art
Italian
Japanese
Law
Linguistics
Management Studies
Marketing
Media Studies
Occupational Therapy
Philosophy
Planning
Politics
Portuguese
Religious studies / Theology
Russian
Social policy
Sociology
Spanish
These degrees have no essential subjects and may be open to you
Accountancy
Anthropology
Archaeology
Architecture
Art and design
Business Studies
Childhood Studies
Chinese languages
Classical Studies
Drama
Finance
History of Art
Law
Linguistics
Management Studies
Marketing
Media Studies
Nursing and Midwifery
Philosophy
Planning
Politics
Religious studies / Theology
Social policy
Sociology

Oh wow! That’s very reassuring thanks

What are her hobbies & interests?
e..g does she like:

• debating
• travel
• museums
• thinking about how people think
• 'green' issues
• drama

etc.

Can you think what types of jobs she might enjoy based on them?

• fashion journalism
• any other journalism
• teaching
• politics
• law

etc. Then at least make sure she doesn't rule those out by A level subjects.

I did History, Maths and Religious Studies, went to Cambridge for History. Now I am an Economic Analyst

Although Comefromaway's list looks reassuring, I'd still be concerned that history/chemistry/textiles is rather disparate. If a degree course specifies only one subject, it could then make that subject grade critical. If she drops a grade in the specified subject, I suspect that a good grade in a related subject is going to count for more than unrelated ones.

Has she looked at subjects she hasn't done at GCSE? It's always a bit risky starting out in a new subject, but looking at that list of uni courses, she might well end up doing that for uni.

I think there's a difference between not having all 3 subjects being very similar - and having what looks like she has no idea what she likes.

History, chemistry & textiles are really different and I think could mean that she doesn't look on paper to some unis that she has a drive towards any of the subjects in particular.

@lanthanum

Although Comefromaway's list looks reassuring, I'd still be concerned that history/chemistry/textiles is rather disparate. If a degree course specifies only one subject, it could then make that subject grade critical. If she drops a grade in the specified subject, I suspect that a good grade in a related subject is going to count for more than unrelated ones.

Has she looked at subjects she hasn't done at GCSE? It's always a bit risky starting out in a new subject, but looking at that list of uni courses, she might well end up doing that for uni.

I didn't put chemistry in, I put Spanish in.

Putting Chemistry instead of Spanish brings up similar options (with the removal of language based degrees) but chemistry on its own did not bring up any science options.

I do agree that Chemistry on it's own with those other subjects is a bit off kilter.

@Comefromaway

Putting History, Textiles & Spanish into Informed Choices brings up the following degree options:

Based on one or more of the subjects you've chosen, these degrees may be open to you
American Studies
Anthropology
Archaeology
Architecture
Art and design
Business Studies
Childhood Studies
Chinese languages
Classical Studies
Drama
Education / Education Studies
European Studies
History
History of Art
Italian
Japanese
Law
Linguistics
Management Studies
Marketing
Media Studies
Occupational Therapy
Philosophy
Planning
Politics
Portuguese
Religious studies / Theology
Russian
Social policy
Sociology
Spanish
These degrees have no essential subjects and may be open to you
Accountancy
Anthropology
Archaeology
Architecture
Art and design
Business Studies
Childhood Studies
Chinese languages
Classical Studies
Drama
Finance
History of Art
Law
Linguistics
Management Studies
Marketing
Media Studies
Nursing and Midwifery
Philosophy
Planning
Politics
Religious studies / Theology
Social policy
Sociology

@Comefromaway could you please share the link for that please? I have DC in year 11 who need to choose A level subject too ! many thanks

In my mind I felt that there could be a link between chemistry and textiles, for example smart fabrics. Loughborough has a whole department dedicated to this subject. But as she definitely doesn’t want to do maths then it may be that she’s not allowed to take chemistry anyway or would struggle with it.

I’m hoping she will receive some useful guidance from school. Thinking about activities she enjoys will also be a useful exercise for her - and she has always loved making things so I think the textiles will stay and the chemistry will go!

Thanks again for all your comments

Informed choices : www.informedchoices.ac.uk/subjects

Also of use is the A Level explorer which suggests possible degrees based on your A Level combination
www.theuniguide.co.uk/a-level-explorer

DD has really enjoyed Sociology alongside History - lots of cross-fertilisation of topics etc. If she had had more of a science enthusiasm we would probably have considered Psychology too as an alternative.

There is also a link between chemistry, history and textiles in forensic archaeology. These include archaeology experts who test fabric remains to determine age.

Also for history- textiles link there are entire museums with people who preserve historical textiles. The V&A museum in London for example has a very large collection of centuries old court gowns, medieval tapestries and so on.

I’m hoping she will receive some useful guidance from school

I wouldn't count on that tbh. Why is she/you restricted to her GCSE subjects though - there's a huge range of other subjects she could do.

I was going to say history/chemistry/textiles could be a really good basis for a degree and career in archaeology or conservation.

@Disneyvillain we were in the same situation, my DD is good across all her subjects all 7 maths 6- she doesn't enjoy English literature or language and doesn't really have any specific interest or ambition in any other subjects. Since she doesn't know what to study at uni either -I know sounds terrible- we couldn't really go through that list either but then she was researching herself online job boards and listed the jobs she would have liked- then looked at the requirements of those jobs and going from there she decided to choose chemistry, biology and psychology to have an open option later for the jobs that she os interested in in the future. As per our research, I agree with others that one science might not be a good idea but again I still think textiles and chemistry also sound logical to me- nano technology fabrics etc good luck 🤞

[quote RedskyAtnight]Informed choices : www.informedchoices.ac.uk/subjects

Also of use is the A Level explorer which suggests possible degrees based on your A Level combination
www.theuniguide.co.uk/a-level-explorer[/quote]
Thank you for these links, so helpful. I have a year 11 child, I didn't go to university myself and its a nightmare trying to figure out how to support him but this is JUST what I needed. I honestly can't thank you enough.

The informed choices thing is a waste - it brings up such disparate subjects.
My daughter wants to do art, history and biology. She'd love to also do psychology, politics and particularly physics (she's on track for an 8 or 9 but really doesn't like math).
Art is her passion, history as she's interested and loves to write, biology because she just plain likes it.
I think you can get to hung up on choices- many university subjects don't require specific A levels, just good results. History and Spanish seem like great can-lead-to-many-options choices, so she should choose her third a subject she loves, without worrying too much about how it sits with the other subjects.

Textiles will blight her life.
She should do History, Spanish (two traditional and good subjects) and ideally English lit. If not the latter then classics which I think is classical civilisation.

@Xenia

Textiles will blight her life?! In what way?