A level Psychology?

[ChnandlerBong]

Keen to get some input on this one please

dd is in Y11 and has been completely dazzled by the idea of doing psychology at A level.

While I agree it's an interesting subject, am a bit concerned about how it would be seen when it comes to UCAS forms etc.

FWIW she's a bright kid. She plans to do history and German as the other 2 subjects but I wonder if English lit or economics would be stronger options. She likes both but psychology is currently winning out.

I took Psychology A level over 20 years ago, and went on to get a degree in it, I had no issues with getting offers from good universities. I think it was probably the hardest of my A levels (others were maths, German and English Lit).

As others have mentioned, it’s a broad subject which needs maths, science and essay writing skills

@521Jeanie

I had some friends who went to university to study psychology and they said the first year of their degree was just what we had covered at A level

But at least they'd road-tested the subject and not signed up for three years studying something they had never done before!

Yes I just meant that it's not a soft option as from what my friends said it was equivalent in difficulty to the first year of their degree.

dd's already doing further maths GCSE. AS maths is an option but like I said she's really not keen

OP, this was my DD too, she did maths, further maths and statistics GCSEs but was never keen enough to take the subject any further.

She's slightly different from your DD in that she's a hardcore scientist (BSc, MSc, currently applying for PhDs) and did psychology along with biology and chemistry, but has never regretted it and has never found it to be anything other than positive in her subsequent academic career.

Sorry, meant to add, the 3 maths GCSEs were more than adequate to cope with the maths element of psychology.

I did psych AS and A Level (along with history and English) and it was my highest scoring grade. I loved it, so interesting and varied skills needed. I still quote and talk about things I learnt in it.

I went onto do history at Leeds, got a 2.1 and ended up working in the NHS. Got offers from all the RG unis I applied for too.

I think it's a nice contrast to the other subjects she's taken, and is seen as academic. Nice to learn something different too!

I did psychology as an a level. I went on to do a law degree and am now an in-house lawyer at a FTSE 100.

I would encourage your daughter to pick the subjects she's interested in. Consequently, she'll be engaged and do well.

If she finds psychology so interesting, I would highly recommend doing Maths A-Level instead

Psychology is also a really hard A-Level to get top results in compared to Maths

I have to disagree with these two comments. Maths A level is much more difficult, and not recommended unless the student can achieve an 8 or 9 at GCSE.

IMO part of the reason Psychology is such a popular A level choice is because it is a new subject, and often 16 year olds struggle to choose their 3rd subject.

DD really wanted to study psychology. It was the first subject she definitely wanted to do. Then reality hit, and she hated it. She found it boring, extremely content heavy and unchallenging. Loads of students dropped it after a few weeks. DD stuck it out until AS levels then dropped it after achieving an A, much to the chagrin of the (lovely) psychology teacher who told her she was throwing away an A*.

DD had started with 4 A level subjects, and she wasn't coping with the workload so dropping down to three was the sensible option because she upped her grades in two of her other subjects at A level.