Anyone know about psychology A level

[Restlessinthenorth]

Looking for opinions. My daughter is only likely to achieve a 3 in science GCSE (much stronger in other subjects). She is hell bent on doing psychology A level. Her school sixth form will not allow her to do this without a 5 in science. As a result she is going to leave and go to the local sixth form college as they have no mimimum science grade (but do require a 5 in English). I'm suspicious of this and it makes me question wether they are taking the right students who are likely to have success in order to fill the course.

id love to hear the experience of any teachers or parents of A level psychology students in terms of how important success at GCSE science is to succeeding in A level psychology

Psychology A level is hard is all I will say. My son found it really difficult and very theoretical

I’m a psychology lecturer at a uni. There is a subset of students who are drawn to the subject because they think it’s all personality profiling, crime drama, and helping people. They want to fix themselves and learn about extra sensory perception. I would bet my life that if we ran a degree that did all that and mixed it with a bit of counselling, animal behaviour, and horoscopes, we’d be inundated with applications.

In actual fact, there’s A LOT of statistics, biology, and biochemistry. I started out at uni doing biochemistry and genetics and switched to psychology which I’d taken as an option and loved. It’s not all Freud and the deep thoughts, though there is a bit of that. You do need to clued up scientifically, and be able to do statistics AND write essays. It’s seen be some as an easy touch, but I’ve known students doing joint maths and psychology who had to switch to single honours maths because they couldn’t get to grips with the essay requirements.

I think the majority of teenagers are drawn to the subject by a) pop psychology and b) wanting to fix themselves.
Then they either adapt to the harsh reality of the actual psychology undergrad or drop out.

I think the first stem could be looking at course specifications and trying to figure out if it's doable.
For example, Pearson BTEC in applied psychology has Research Methods as Unit 2, and you would usually need a good understanding of statistics for research methods even in social sciences (psychology is not necessarily close to social sciences, it can be nat sci heavy so even more research background would be required).

This is a myth. Not sure where you got it from, frankly.
All Psychology degrees are accredited by the BPS and include statistics.
I really wouldn't recommend a science A level without an old style C/5 in GCSE science.

Posters saying why teenagers are drawn to psychology for slightly misguided reasons are on the money.

It's science-based, but at A-level stage isn't enormously highly regarded. It's viewed as a bit 'lite' compared to other sciences or maths, and number of very academic schools don't offer it at A-level for this reason. It might be a recommended subject, but a lot of unis don't require it as an A-level, even for psychology degrees.