Year 12 - Further Maths or EPQ for Medicine?

[StableCable]

DD has just started Year 12 at a new 6th form. She got 9 Grade 9 and 1 Grade 8 at GCSE. She did Statistics and Further Maths as well as Maths and got 9s in all of them.

She is considering applying for Medicine (although not definite) and so has started A Levels in Biology, Chemistry and Maths. She has also started Further Maths due to her Maths enjoyment. College also offer an EPQ and she attended the introductory talk for it this week.

She is not getting any guidance from her new 6th form as to what she should keep doing and what she should drop, especially if aiming for Medicine. Most uni details seem to focus on a 3 Grade offer and nothing else, so is it better to drop FM and EPQ to maximise 3 grades?

She may not go for Medicine and do a Maths Uni degree and the presumably FM would be handy.

Why do people do an EPQ?!

Neither

She should focus on getting relevant work experience and prepping for the UCAT which is the medicine entrance exam.

Yeh if she wants to go for medicine then that should be her focus. No need for FM nor an EPQ, there are lots of other things she does need to do.

OTOH if she wants a maths degree somewhere great (presumably, with those GCSE grades) then FM is probably needed. As in, even if not asked for at COWI, pretty much everyone will have it and you risk being on the back foot without it.

I suggest now is the time to decide if she really wants to do medicine; it's not really a choice to be i doubt at this stage as yes, she needs to do well in the UCAT.

Thank you.

Coming from a non medical family I do think it is a big ask to be sure of something at age 16. Especially when she has been head down studying for those gcses until now. We have booked open days at several unis in October so that she can seriously consider what it entails but that may be too late to decide what to drop or continue with.

Why do people do EPQ?

Maybe for now she should continue FM and review that after uni open days, so by half term?

To answer your question, why people do an EPQ, there are loads of reasons:

Try before you buy - how do you know you are going to like something you have never studied but are applying for at uni? Do an EPQ in it! If you hate it, you haven’t wasted any money. Example from my teaching is a student who wanted to study dietetics who produced the most beautiful recipe book designed to support families with a specific medical issue. She is now a dietician in a hospital.

Use it to progress your uni application. Example from teaching is a guy who wanted to study at a particular college at Cambridge. He looked up the area of research of the admissions tutor for his subject and wrote an EPQ essay on that. Yes, he got in. Another this year produced a very niche artefact directly connected with a niche course at Cambridge. They too were offered a place and will be heading there after a gap year. These students are already demonstrating commitment to their courses.

Skills. Learn how to research, how to analyse sources, how to reference before you go to uni and are expected to do all these things. EPQ doesn’t specify which referencing system a student should use as long as it is “recognised”. I always suggested to mine to look at the Library section of their 1st choice uni to see which system their chosen subject used, then do that.

I could go on, but won’t. I taught EPQ for 8 years, leading it for 4. We regularly achieved 90%+ A star/A grades on cohorts of 75+ students so knew what we were doing.

I can’t really help around medicine requirements other than saying what the previous two posters have said sound right from what I’ve heard.

But regarding why they do an EPQ - there are quite a few reasons:

There are a number of uni courses for various subjects that include it in offers in some way - in that a very good EPQ means you can drop a grade in one other subject. For instance this sort of thing from Birmingham: https://admissions.bham.ac.uk/knowledgebase/article/KA-01332/?level=undergraduate
Or if your offer is made on ucas points, like one of my son’s friends, the EPQ comes with ucas points so it can help make up your required offer.

(It isn’t necessarily the case as well that “if you’d not done the EPQ you’d have got higher grades in your 3 subjects” - maybe for some but for others it’s more about spreading your bets, and adding in something that is entirely coursework rather than relying totally on a short time period of intensive exams).

It can help build interest and “personal statement material” in a subject you’re applying for, that isn’t directly linked to one of your a levels. Eg one of my son’s friends was studying something like history, eng lit and maths, and was applying for law, so he did his EPQ on a law based topic.

The EPQ also teaches them v relevant skills for uni / life - doing a biggish piece of research, documenting it, drawing conclusions and writing essentially a dissertation. Even if you don’t need the points / grade for anything, this can be a valuable skill to start building.

But like you say, it does depend a lot on what the student wants to go on to do. My eldest was going on to engineering so it was a no brainer for him to do further maths a level instead. My youngest is thinking about law and while he’s very capable of doing FM a level, he is sure he doesn’t want to go in a maths-based uni direction, so is doing an EPQ to build his dissertation writing skills and get some law type research under his belt to add to the other law type things he wants to do for applying that they need to do to be competitive.

It sounds like for either your DD’s options of maths or medicine, it wouldn’t really help to do an EPQ - for maths definitely the FM would be a far better choice. And for medicine I don’t think the EPQ is as helpful for anything - I think that medicine entry reqs don’t tend to lower entry requirements with epq as much as other courses. Though do check that - just something I saw in passing.

Thank you for all the input.

In case anyone thinks I wasn't valuing the EPQ - it isn't that. Learning for learning's sake is always good anyway! But I was trying to understand the thinking if/when universities don't include it as a criteria and if it takes away from study tome for the grades that offers are based on.

EPQs give you additional ucas points I think? Equivalent to half an A level?

You can also do your EPQ on any topic you want and it can be presented in many different forms, written, an art piece, etc. so if you're especially good at something that's not an a level topic, it's another way to demonstrate your talents/get a good grade. You can only do one EPQ which I think is a shame as many would struggle with A levels but fly with EPQs due to the flexibility around subject content and presentation.

My medics do an EPQ if they are taking 3 A levels. That is the expected route in that school. I have supervised projects such as antibiotic resistance, personalised medicine, mild traumatic brain injuries and widening access to medical training for under-represented communities from my aspiring medics. Whilst it is true that universities do not consider EPQ in their offers, the research has offered a great way in to their personal statements.

Great posts from @Malbecfan and others as to why an EPQ is a positive thing to do.

I don't personally think that it will make that much difference to uni offers for your DD - I am assuming that she will be aiming high and not that may unis lower the offer for a high EPQ grade, although some do.

I think it is a great thing to do if there is something that interests and engages a YP that's not covered (or coverable; DD did an NEA for Eng lit A level that would have also worked as an EPQ) in their A level course. And yes for sure it develops useful skills.

Neither of my two A levellers did one as they had it all on to get the grades they needed in their A levels and didn't really have time to work on anything else.

In terms of why should she be able to choose this early @StableCable – tbh, while I agree that 16 does seem early to choose your career, I think there are some exceptions and medicine may be one. If you are genuinely drawn to the idea of being a doctor with all that entails, I think you might well know that at 16yo. I certainly knew I have absolutely no interest in the area at all. So would imagine the converse could be true?

Whatever, if med is on your radar there are things you need to do (or ideally need to do) at age 16 and one is choose the right A levels. Another (over the next year os so anyway) is experience and a third is prepping for the UCAT.

Wrt FM – I always think, rather than going from "I want to do a maths degree; oh better take FM then" it should be the other way round. Surely the desire to take FM comes from love of maths? I took an extra exam in German; DD would have happily taken further English lit if there were such a thing. So if you love maths and excel at it enough to take FM, then great, take it. Then see if you want to continue down that path.

I would ask, how hard did she need to study for maths/fm before making a decision. Some kids really are natural mathematicians and therefore the extra FM A Level should not take too much more effort. My son is actually having to teach himself because the school don't offer it and he wants to do computer science. He didn't need to do any maths or FM study to get full marks on his GCSEs, to him it's natural and he enjoys it. However, if he had to work hard to get those grades I don't think I'd want him to put himself under any more pressure than he needs to.

I think, for medicine, preparation for the UCAT and work experience would be much more beneficial to her application alongside 3 super strong A Levels than the extra A Level or EPQ, especially if they ended up being a time hog.

Definitely FM if she is considering a maths degree.

If medicine is on the table is she getting some work experience or volunteering?

I think she needs to make a decision now. To be honest, don’t most dc know they want to be doctors? It’s not something they suddenly think about is it? A bit like vets - they just know. If she’s needing to think about it and visit unis, is medicine really an interest at all?

Maths gives many career options and why not go for a maths degree if that’s what she loves? It seems more akin to her academic strengths. Then it’s the extra tests for entry to the COWI universities and no volunteering, work experience, no epq, and no interviews unless Oxbridge of course. She just needs FM.

I think she needs to think very carefully about which career will really suit her and decide very quickly.

I disagree that she needs to decide right now. She's clearly very able, and should be able to cope with the four A-levels for the time-being, and maybe all the way through. In a couple of terms, she will need to make a decision in order to decide on where to apply and get the application in. It may be that after a term or so, she is clearer about what she most wants to study.

Graduate entry medicine is a thing (and I know maths graduates who have done it). Maths doesn't really have graduate entry routes, and certainly not funded (now that rules are changing on funding for second degrees) - although I've come across a fair few medics picking up maths later in life with the Open University.

By the way, we discovered that although not doing an EPQ was not a big deal for university applications, it would have been quite useful for internship applications and questions along the lines of "describe a time when you had a long deadline and how you managed that". Everyone focuses on the uni applications and nobody ever mentioned that it might be useful at a later point.

I can reply as a parent of a daughter who has just started her Medicine course.and got 4/4 offers.

• EPQ valuable at some unis as it allow you to drop a grade from A to B in one A level if you get an A in your EPQ. Otherwise offers are Astar/A/A or A/A/A
• FM not particularly valuable as unis just want 3 solid A levels
• focus on UCAT as this with GCSE grades gets you the interview offers
• get some work experience like care home volunteering as this gives your interview content and and shows skills relevant to course.

just one view but hope that helps! Good luck.

My dd did an EPQ and found it helpful for inteview - she chose a medical topic. But agree. You don’t need to do either. Sounds like further maths might be a stronger interest.

If she isn’t sure re medicine at this point then it’s probably not for her. So might be best to continue with FM as not having it will really disadvantage her for maths applications. You have to be so so sure re medicine.

@lanthanum If DD has not thought about medicine before now - it’s late. Most dc are planning how to get to med school before y12 and wondering about maths. There’s not much time to build up a cv before application and with 4 A levels, and delaying her decision. I think planning a strategy will matter and putting it off is just going to add stress.

If she wants to do a maths degree, then to get into COWI, she definitely needs FM. I have had two sons, both at Warwick and FM was a requirement, with A* expected. As well as TMUA/STEP. If she managed 9s in maths and FM at GCSE she shoud be more than capable. If she decides by the end of yr 12, then she could drop FM, but if she is anything like both my sons, and a natural, she'll find it extremely easy and won’t need to.
my daughter wants to do medicine, has known since childhood really, is in year 12, taking biology, chem and history. No EPQ, but is a St John’s ambulance cadet, has WEX lined up at the local hospital and volunteers at the food bank.
she didn’t just start the cadets or volunteer work just for medicine, but a natural desire and motivation. It’s a hard slog getting into medical school, my boys had a far easier time.

Thanks all.

Great info and experiences here. Really value all input. Clearly we are inexperienced and need to do a lot of reading around!

I am not too worried about her CV as she is a very 'live life to the full' kind of person. She plays sport at county and above and is a volunteer coach for younger ones, has done the sports body safeguarding training and full dbs for this, has worked since she turned 16 (autumn birthday), is a qualified lifeguard, a young leader at scouts, doing Gold DofE etc etc. She doesn't have specific clinical work experience as everyone said no pre 16 but she has signed up for formal placement sessions in October half term (she may not get the places but we will keep trying).

We have signed up to a few uni open days and will go to the subject specific talks too.

I think as she isn’t 100% set on medicine she should carry on with the FM for now. That way if she changes her mind she’s still on track for a maths degree, or perhaps something like biomedical engineering.
That is depending on whether she is the type of person who can do FM “for fun” like a lot of natural mathematicians do - if she is finding it difficult and risking taking study time from her other subjects she should drop it and do the EPQ instead (or just focus on getting top grades in her 3 A levels)

Thank you.

Yes I think she is someone who can do FM without it feeling too onerous for now. And she genuinely just enjoys maths!

If she wants to keep a maths degree option open for a while, she has to keep the FM

Don’t worry about EPQ. It gets you reduced grades a few medical schools, but it sounds like as though that isn’t a huge risk area for her. Do FM, get volunteering or casual work experience, read about medicine, do the BSMS online work experience and enjoy sixth form