Year 9 Options - help with choice! Which GCSE subjects have more 'points' for Uni selection

[fimac1]

My daughter is in the middle of making her GCSE optional choices (4 subjects in total) and we are finding the info from the school not really sufficient to help her in her choices - she is G&T in many of her subjects which actually makes it harder to choose

• one of the questions is should she opt for triple (pure) science or is the standard double science which they have to take anyway enough? She is G&T in Science - would she be able to achieve a A or A* in the regular class?

For instance I believe Media studies does not weigh highly as an A level with Uni's?, as you can tell she is our eldest and we are struggling to help her - as she is bright we want her to achieve the very best she can, she is also very good at Drama and Design studies

Many thanks to anyone out there - parents/teachers!

Sorry, remove the word core from the above post, I meant all the subjects. I have one eye on CBBC as I type this!

As long as she will have the required GCSEs to do the A-Levels she wants, let her do what she wants from the rest of her options. Unis really only care that you've got a reasonable number of GCSEs at reasonable grades. I know many people on my course (Warwick University for an undergrad Master of Mathematics) who's GCSEs went a bit wrong but managed to get 5A's at A-Level.

The subjects start to matter at A-Level. If you want to get a place on a serious course at a serious university you need to have take A-Levels in traditional subjects. General Studies for instance is not accepted as an A-Level by many of the older universities.

Unfortunately nowadays so many students get(or are predicted) the 3 As at A level required for the most academic courses at universities, that I think they DO look at GCSEs to a certain extent. It is very different now to when people of my age were applying to university.

janeite - delighted to hear your take on Drama. We encouraged DD1 to take Drama as she loves it and we felt it will help her confidence. It is nice to see it isn't too 'fluffy'!

DD1 sound similar to yours and has also given up Spanish, which was a little diappointing but as she still has French and Latin I guess she is keeping a balance. She also decided on single sciences as we were persuaded by her school that they encourage their most academic students to do that and that she is capable of good grades in each subject. Also, I discovered that many highly academic independant schools don't offer double award.

It is lovely now the decisions have been made

Thanks for all the replies - daughter is G@T in Science and we have been thinking that if the brighter students opt for pure (triple science) then it will change the group that she would be in which is destined for level 5 or above at end of year 9, and 'may' affect the overall pass mark of the group, double science, she is G@T and loves design studies so is probably going to take Art and Design which is a broad spectrim course, and French, which she isn't so keen on but we dont want her to drop languages altogether, lastly Drama, which she loves and is pretty good at, it seems looking at the posts that it won't be thought of as a soft option and I am pretty sure she will take this for A level too. Still have to speak to her teachers in a couple of weeks, and would like to speak to the G@T leader at the school for advice,

If it's any help, my own daughter was G&T and did Double Science, Art, and Drama for GCSE, amongst other things, and also AS level Dance whilst she was doing her A Levels, all of which she enjoyed enormously. She's now at Cambridge doing Politics. So in this household we have practised what we preach, and it seemed to work!

If she's very bright and a good self-learner then I'd hazzard she will get her A*'s in science whichever group she is in. If a little less so, then being in a more able group might help her in my opinion. Watch out for if other subjects are set according to the science option too - in dc's school some unrelated subjects are set according to the science option for timetabling reasons.

BoffinMum and Snorkle

Thanks - interesting BoffinMums daughter is doing Politics as DH did Politics at Uni, and we can imagine DD going into something Legal related or a career where you are dealing with people as a main part of your workload, thanks!

My daughter is currently doing options (she is year 8 but they start the GCSE course a year early at her school).

At the science presentation we went to the teacher said that it was perfectly possible to go on and do Science A levels with either double or triple science. However, he reckoned that with triple they had a slightly better start and this sometimes influenced AS results. Apparently unis do look at AS levels.

She opted for triple science in the end as she enjoys the subject anyway.