Dosent like one of a levels in year 13

[Rox20]

My dd, does bio, chem and maths and she is quite a bright student who achieved mostly nines and a few eights at gcse. Although she is happy with bio and chem (wants to do dentistry), she wishes she did philosophy instead of maths as she would enjoy it more and find it easier. Often, she is angry and regretful about this choice. Is it worth retaking a year or not?

If she’s at A/B now, get her a tutor and consider one of the residential courses. She’ll probably need an A for dentistry and it sounds like she’s capable of getting there with some additional support.

Maths A level isn’t easy except for a very, very small percentage of students who are likely to study maths or physics at university. It probably comes as a shock for someone who has 8s and 9s at GCSE to find themselves struggling with something. It sounds like she’s fixed on an idea - that philosophy would have been easier. She’s right, it would, but that’s something you can fix by switching in the first term of an A level course, preferably before the half term break. It’s too late.

Universities expect A levels to be taken at the same time. They also expect the course to be done within 2 years. Any anomalies need to be explained. Serious illness that led to months off school would be an acceptable explanation. Your DD having to explain to university admins that she decided after over a year of A levels to drop maths for philosophy would not do her any favours. It makes her look flaky and like someone who gives up when things get difficult.

Yes I agree with everyone (I think!) else, she needs to suck it up for five-six more months of maths and then she’s done.

Btw can I take issue with “quite a bright student” all 8s and 8s is a very bright student indeed. As a pp says, if you do v well at GCSE, A level can be a shock. But the best thing for her future career is to do maths this year. Yes get a tutor if possible to support her to an A.

Has she already applied or is she planning to apply next year? If she’s applied, what grades does she need?

I'd just tell her to get her head down. She could jeopardise her whole career if she starts arsing about with her A levels now.

She can join a philosophy group when she's at university.

My dd is in year thirteen and their internal UCAS deadline is this Friday. This is not the time to be changing your A levels.

OP honestly I was your dd in year 13. Hated maths. But I decided it was too late to change - got a tutor and worked hard and got the grade I needed (B).

The philosophy course is already well underway so she'd have a mountain of catching up to do.

Can she get some additional help with the maths? As people have said a course like dentistry probably wants 3 at one sitting so she needs to understand that fully before making any rash decisions?

yes, she does need an A. I have enough faith that she can get there, it just depends on herself and how much work she puts in. She found the first term of maths pretty straightforward, wondering why everyone said it was a hard a level, and was shocked later on

yes, she was thinking of doing a philosphy course in the future

Hi, yes, she as applied already and she needs 3 grade As. Unfortunately in year 11 when she chose her subject choices, she didn't think as much about things and has now found herself spiralling around this regret. Do you have any suggesstions for how i can help her mentally? going to the gym has helped her but im not sure what else can be done.

her top choices are liverpool and leeds

thats true. do you think she can go from a B / A to an A / A*?

She's got about 15 school weeks left until study leave. 75 days. She needs to see it through.

do you think she can go from a B / A to an A / A*?

Doing lots of past papers can often pull up maths grades. I think that may be particularly the case with mechanics.