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!

DD is doing classics, modern history and maths which you could switch to Spanish-apparently universities quite like a language to do history

Unless she has a very good reason to do textiles I would personally go for an academic subject to maximise choices at Uni as she has high predicted grades. It's correct that many Unis theoretically don't mind what a 3rd subject is but more competitive courses may prefer an academic one.
From the list I'd definitely go for history and Spanish. I wouldn't discount Chemistry without Maths, ask school. If not I agree consider if any new subjects may be available at A level. My dc did Philosophy with History and loved it. Or English Language?

Is Art not an academic subject? My dd wants to do Fine Art A level alongside Eng Lit and one other (Philosophy, Sociology or Psychology). Are these three all equally weighted by unis?

Textiles is not a traditional A level subject and for job applications even in your 20s in some of the higher paid careers employers still look at A level subjects taken.

The traditional A level subjects are theses. No matter what universities say about it being fine if you do art, textiles and film as your three do not listen to them and so as many of the traditional ones as you can. Also look at your nearest state grammar school and look at what subjects their pupils did, not just those on offer but those they took.

biology
chemistry
English lit
geography
history
maths
modern and classical languages
physics

So I did history, English lit and German. All of my 5 children did at least 2 on that list - so 2 traditionals and then combined it with in two cases economics which is quite a well regarded additional A level.

My daughter who like I am is a lawyer by the way did chemistry A level without maths.

So in this case history, English lit and Spanish would be a good combination (or if she really cannot manage English lit then do chemistry and if not that then classical civilisation).

@chrissycarol it really depends on what your dc wants to do after A levels and what level of Uni they are aiming for.

Clearly if they wanted to do a degree in History if Art then an A level in Art is totally relevant. If your DC wanted to apply to a non Art related degree at a competitive Uni they may improve their chances by choosing something else.
A further comment, and i have no evidence for this, but my dc has been told Sociology may be considered a weaker A level for more competitive Unis so Art and Sociology if your DC doesn't want to do Art and wants to apply to a top Uni may be restrictive.

@Disneyvillain It's quite a tough one and agree with the advice above about looking at what courses you can do with those A-level choices.

You can find more inspiration about Chemistry here, and how important this subject is here.
stemettes.org/zine/tag/chemistry/

I would also recommend your daughter to sign up for the Stemettes Society where she can get advice from young women who have recently completely their A-levels in Chemistry/other subjects and how they've found it. I definitely found the jump from GCSEs to A-Level will vary by subject, so well worth finding out.

stemettes.org/zine/stemettesociety/

Good luck!

Thanks @SelPav I will definitely take a look.

If she has two solid academic subjects then doing textiles for the third option is fine. Obviously she is ruling out most science degrees by only doing one science and no maths, but most arts/humanities/social sciences would still be open to her.

My daughter did English/German/Art (and Maths AS) and is now studying at Oxford. Art is quite similar to textiles!

The only thing I would say is that Art/Textiles and other practical, project based subjects require an enormous amount of work, self motivation and organization. My daughter found it vastly more stressful than all the other subjects put together. She wishes she had done French instead.

I didn't say the degree subject as didn't want to "out" her too much. But it isn't Art related. And she got an A* for Art, so achievement wasn't the issue - just the work and stress!

Thanks @irregularegular that’s very reassuring. She really does love textiles and has been predicted a 9 so it will be hard for her to give up. Her school will allow her to take 4 A levels or 3 and an AS/EPQ. I have a feeling it will be a choice between History, Spanish, Eng Lit and Textiles but yes, the workload! In the end we will see how her GCSEs come out as her school will allow her to swap quite late.

History and Spanish are a good fit, English would make that a classic combination but there's not much point if she hates the exams! Can she do a further academic subject and then do textiles as a serious hobby outside of school? If she's artistically inclined, and it's available in her school, what about art history?

Chemistry at A-level may be quite tough without maths. It gets really quite mathematical quite fast.

Doing all 4 of those would be very demanding. My daughter started with Eng Lit/German/Art/Maths before stopping Maths (and just taking the AS) after one year and she found it an awful lot despite getting almost all 9s. Most of her friends went down to 3 A levels after one year and they are mostly very academic. If your daughter is not sure what she wants to do then it's worth trying all 4 initially with a mind to dropping one, either at an early stage or after an AS, if that is possible. Not all schools/subjects will allow an AS so it is worth finding out. AS Art wasn't an option for my daughter, for example.

Oh, and I make uni admissions decisions at a top university. Other than explicitly required subjects, we are actually not allowed to discriminate against A level subjects when we make an offer. GS doesn't count, but that's it. I once tried to make an offer such that the AAA had to be in the three more academic subjects, but was not permitted by the admissions office. Of course, some subjects might be more helpful than others for preparing for tests, interviews etc. and obvoiusly for the degree itself. But we a not allowed to discount art/textiles/sociology if the applicant meets the degree requirements.

Don't do a "practical/art" subject like textiles as one of 4. Anything with big projects/portfolios is a massive black hole for time. Sciences/ maths are "easier" for time management as there's a lot less temptation to keep improving your work until you have no life left. I have plenty of high achiever friends who did art/technology/textiles/music and did unrelated competitive degrees at Cambridge before going on to law/ banking type traditional careers so no issue with doing an arty subject if you have the talent/drive. It is however much "harder" than eg maths, chemistry, history, language would be, even if doing 3 Vs 4!

The traditional A level subjects are theses. No matter what universities say about it being fine if you do art, textiles and film as your three do not listen to them and so as many of the traditional ones as you can. Also look at your nearest state grammar school and look at what subjects their pupils did, not just those on offer but those they took

My children are at a state grammar which offers A levels in all the usual Maths, History, German etc the following:

Business
PE
Drama
Economics
Politics
Psychology
Art
Dance
Music

They only offer subjects the big name unis are ok with. Drama often depends on the board so always worth checking.

Every year students gain places at Oxbridge, Durham, Imperial et al having taken one or more of the A levels listed above - also students frequently do combinations such as Maths, Spanish and Music etc. (School do no AS’s except for Further Maths and with the exception of Further Maths students only ever take 3 A levels).

A levels are hard so it’s important to do things you enjoy.

^ sorry bold didn’t work - bits between the * were quoted from Xenia.

Quote from Oxford Admissions web page. This is in Bold on the page.

Providing that any specific subject requirements have been met, all A-levels are approved for admissions purposes, with the exception of General Studies.

Biology a level is a very different beast than gcse, loads of chemistry to start them off and plenty of maths in there too. I'm a biology teacher but also did history and art for a level. Having such randomly spread a levels made uni choices hard for me, by the time I decided to pick biology it was almost too late, I struggled to find a uni that didn't also insist on chemistry a level. Now they all do.

Yet remember A levels are on your CV for life so not just what university admissions say but what a future employer might think, someone aged 60 from out of the ark kind of person so why take a risk with textiles when you have certainty with a "better" subject?

Could she do the EPQ in Textiles? I believe you are allowed to produce an artefact.

@Xenia I agree that maybe textiles won't sound good but I thought

Art
Music
Computer Science
Religious Studies

Would all be useful subjects in addition to your list.

I have to say that back in the ancient times from which I come many people took art as a fourth a level.

Art is very useful for many creative careers. Remember if you are a graphic designer or an architect or a front end software developer or a car designer it won't always be a lawyer looking at your cv! In other careers different a levels may appear more impressive.

Textiles with history and chemistry would work well for degrees like history of art, archeology or anthropology and is the perfect combination for somebody with ambitions to do museum conservation specialising in textiles. As well as the general benefits a creative subject IMO textiles would look good on a CV for many business careers particularly involving clothing. The question is will she maintain her love for textiles enough for the A level or should she do it as an EPQ.

Xenia is talking from a legal perspective. I’ve previously been involved in recruitment at a big 4 accountancy firm and no one cared about A Levels. In fact, once someone had a few years experience, degree subject was irrelevant too. My best ‘recruit’ had a sports science degree from an ex poly.

Also, maybe in law there are dinosaurs recruiting, but in the big accountancy forms the vast majority of people are under 40.

I struggled to find a uni that didn't also insist on chemistry a level. Now they all do.

That was true for you lalalasee but is not the case now I am glad to say.

My ds2 is hoping to study biology at uni, he does maths but not chemistry. Plenty of unis will consider you with just biology (maybe a higher offer) and all that he has looked at are fine to accept maths as a second science, so he can access the lowest offers and a fll range of courses. This includes RG unis btw. Not saying it's not helpful to have chemistry with biology A level btw, but maths and PE have also been helpful for him.