Anyone know about Statistics GCSE - self study?

[mumsandaunties]

Hello,

My DD is hoping to study Cognitive Psychology and Linguistics at Uni, and is doing Psychology at A-Level now.

Annoyingly, she was in foundation maths and so only gained a level 5. She's now studying to sit the higher level papers in May so that she will have a grade in time for UCAS forms. Most of the better university courses she is interested in require a grade 6 or 7.

She did double science at GCSE and got 5/5 - so she worries that her scores in the maths/science area are really going to reduce her options.

Between her psychology A-Level and her Higher Maths GCSE study - she seems to me to be covering a lot of the statistics curriculum. As a result she is wondering whether to put in a private entry for Statistics GCSE. She feels that doing this will put her in a better position for uni applications.

Obviously time is of the essence, so she basically needs to decide this week...

Does anyone whose kids have done both maths and stats or who has taught both have any insight they would share?

I didn't think GCSEs were taken too heavily into account when applying for Uni? I thought it was the A levels they looked at more.

Has she got enough time to study the extra one? If she thinks it will be super easy to pass then I guess she may as well go for it.

I don't know how much statistics and higher maths are valued in psychology and linguistics degrees though. I knew someone who did linguistics and they were quite poor at maths/science at GCSE. But that was in the old system.

My understanding is that as Cognitive Psychology involves quite a lot of research work, it's really important to have the solid maths background....particularly for the better unis, as they don't want people coming in with expectation of it being all very lovely and human centred, and then dropping out when they find it's a mountain of maths.

Her other A-Levels are Art and Eng Lit.

Time wise, the thing we're not clear on is if you had a Venn Diagram of GCSE Maths/A-Level Psychology and GCSE Statistics - how much would only be in Stats......so how much new content would she need to study.