Could any teachers, or people with experience of University admissions offer some guidance please?

One of my daughters is “doing great” academically at the moment, strong gcse results and currently in lower 6th studying Maths, Chemistry, Biology and Physics. No issues. She hopes, ultimately for a life in pathology 😯
(State school btw) but:
My missus has heard that a few local private schools are not allowing their kids to take a 4th subject and instead focus on getting better results on three – depth of knowledge rather than breadth…

This is where we have a conundrum and seeking guidance – have mentioned it to daughter and she appeared fairly flummoxed as she’s enjoying all four and now suspects we have doubted her ability to cope!
She has said she wouldn’t know which one to drop (convert to A/S?) in any case.
Leave as is – go for four?
Refine and focus?

Thanks muchly!

Wrong forum sorry

Northwind northwind northwind

Most unis are only after 3 subjects but a few will look at four especially if similar type of subjects.
My eldest did Maths, further Maths, Physics and Chem. This was viewed as easy by some Unis as very similar. He needed to do both Maths for his Engineering modules. Oxford/Cambridge are interest in both breadth and depth. Others less so. He managed without any problems or chasing but he was very structured in his approach.
Youngest just gone through the same predicament changing his mind several times between 3 & 4. Decided to go with 4 based on the fact that with more study to do he would actually be more focussed on it. He has gone with Maths, Further Maths, Biology and Geography.
My advice would be to stick with 4 if she is a high achiever, review at year end and see what progress she is making.

Sounds to me like those schools are playing the statistics game. Stopping kids studying more subjects so their pass rate is higher. If your daughter is doing well and enjoys the subjects what is the problem?

I’m a uni admissions tutor for a management school and we only focus on 3 grades. Four gives you more flexibility/background but three will get you onto the uni degree.

This sounds like an impossible question to answer now because clearly four good A levels are better than three good ones. If she is going to do well at four then that sounds like the better bet. As to dropping to three then most courses will put more weight on some A levels over others so it’d be worth finding out what matters for pathology degrees and make sure she has those.

It also depends on where she is applying. The more popular the uni the more likely that having four will be the basic cost of admission. Similarly with the course.

NB: I am not a teacher or admissions officer and I have not played either in a movie.

Our students normally study three at A level, with only the odd exceptional student doing four. I don’t really see the benefit to a fourth. As far as I’m aware admissions are always based on three. Certainly three good A levels are better than four OK a levels.

…more info (sorry).
She spoke to head of 6th form yesterday and he did agree that there’s a choice to be made. With the 4 vs 3 plus an EPQ (an extended project qualification) where she would spend further time focussed to support ‘depth of knowledge’ of one of her core subjects.
Effectively deeper project work.

Sounds tough that tbh – I interview students for university entry [including some exceptional kids right at the academic top end] and don’t think I see 4 A-levels like that v often. Maths and further maths, or 3 serious one soft, yes, but you’re talking about the four pillars of science there.

Saying that, I would be inclined to let her get on with her studies and see how she copes. Being passionate and ambitious about learning is hugely important and it sounds like a bad idea to step in without any evidence that there’s a problem. You just need to skillfully communicate to her that it’s an unusual workload and she shouldn’t feel tied to the mast with it if it starts to be a struggle.

Might carry some weight with an Oxbridge interview if she was interested in that direction? If the studies go well this year then a state school girl crushing maths and the 3 sciences makes for a v strong candidate.

I teach A-level physics in a large sixth form college.

Since the reforms to A-levels, we’ve been steering students towards three subjects unless they’re especially able. There’s some overlap between maths/physics and physics/chemistry and biology/chemistry so, in theory, this combination isn’t as difficult as studying four completely unrelated subjects, but they’re all subjects with a traditionally high workload.

If your daughter’s happy and doing well, there’s no reason not to continue with four but most unis will just require three.

Any uni that usually asks for, for example, AAA for students doing three will just ask for AAAA if they’re doing four…

The odd thing is that I see top Uni’s only need 3 A’s but lesser unis will look at 4 and combined points. Which means high achievers are best served by 3 and the less able by 4 which is slightly crazy to say the least. If she knows what sort of courses she wants to do then look at their entry requirements.

It’s happened in the last year. A levels all moving back to a linear course with no AS halfway through (you can study an AS as a stand alone qualification bit it doesn’t carry through into year 13 like before).

There is additional rigour and content in a lot of the new syllabuses and the general consensus is 4 is too much now.

We are allowing all of our students to do 3 with the possibility of doing further maths as a 4th but as an enrichment course with only 3 hours of timetables study.

Because students have typically gone for 4 at AS and dropped their weakest one at the end of year 12 we are used to students doing 4. However if you think back to 18 years ago before AS was introduced then people mostly only took 3 A levels…the universities will probably only look at their best 3 in 2 years time anyway.

My advice as an experienced teacher would be to take 3 and really focus her time on them rather than spreading it across 4. But I don’t know her and she could be very academic and hard working in which case 4 could be ok.

We only have one student in our lower sixth doing 4 this year.

Hope that helps

anagallis_arvensis – Member
The odd thing is that I see top Uni’s only need 3 A’s but lesser unis will look at 4 and combined points. Which means high achievers are best served by 3 and the less able by 4 which is slightly crazy to say the least. If she knows what sort of courses she wants to do then look at their entry requirements.

That is partly to do with gaming the league tables. ‘Average tariff points’ is used in their calculation, so including 4 can boost the numbers depending on the methodology. Some places also include other qualifications which qualify for UCAS points.

Having an extra subject can also help a-level students who feel less pressure to do great in just three a-levels, even though it is extra work.

In my subject area (human geography) what, or how many a-levels a student has goes out the window as soon as they start as degrees are so different to a-levels and learning at uni is different too.

Some of our second years are dropping from 4 to 3 after coming back from uni visits and interviews. We still have quite a few doing four (though mainly with further maths as one of them), but we’ll probably have hardly any in our next intake.

With the decrease in courses, we’ve been able to increase contact time to five hours per subject per week, from 4.5 previously.

Why would a state school student not crush maths?

Rotor (I think) covered it. If she can cope and it doesn’t effect her top three results. GFI. If not, drop one.

As an employer extended essay are much more interesting for me.

If she keeps doing four for now, she has the option to drop later. If she drops now, she probably can’t pick one back up.

Thanks all for the balanced thoughts and input**
Plenty to think about for us over the next few weeks.

As referred to above, if there’s anyone can deliver against the four it is her, and she is massively motivated for a Medicine degree but there may be “adequate” workload (!) in requesting permission to go for an A/S (probably in Physics) and then concentrating on the 3: Maths, Chemistry and Biology with a targeted EPQ project.

** the STW hive-brain delivers once again!!

Or daughters experience at Cambridge and Oxford was that they just wanted 4 A* or A grades refer than three. She wasn’t looking at science though.

Or daughters experience at Cambridge and Oxford was that they just wanted 4 A* or A grades refer than three.

Really, hmm, always want to know more so I can bw helpful when the kids ask. Could you let us know when this was, what she was applying for and what a levels she did. Being a state school bio teacher almost exclusively see top kids apply to vet or medic courses so I could be in my own little echo chamber.
Thanks in advance.

A-level maths teacher and 6th form tutor.

Lots of good advice above, if she was my tutee I’d encourage her to stick with 4 until end Y12 (with the caveat that she’d drop one quickly if grades in any of them started to suffer or she was stressed) and then definitely drop one at the start of Y13 (with her AS results to guide her and perhaps Uni visits and discussions with admission tutors).

Obviously I’d be on the internet and phone to the Unis she’s interested in to get their opinion, they hold the keys in this situation.

Good luck, there’s lots of tricky decisions to make around this time. I always try to remind my students that although it feels like these things are binary in a happy/not happy sense actually whether they are happy in later life has got very little to do with these decisions. Better to make the best decision you can then keep moving forward.

I teach A-level physics in a large sixth form college.

Same here

Mike which one? I’m at Luton sfc

Often at this time of year we find students getting offers for 3 results when they are doing 4. This can be a real pain for students and staff as they realise that they are putting time and energy into something that they don’t need to be doing

Are you not better asking what employers want amd your daughter enjoys?

teachers IME have rarely had experience outside of middle class, fixed career in teaching. Therefore offering little insight to ‘real world’ of work.

Uni’s are interested in a) making £9.5k out of you for as many years as possible and b) only having students who will go on to some measurable destination, hopefully earning more £9.5k’s or Research grants and c) also lack a care and experience about ‘real world’.

I say this as a teacher and with sis in law who is head of careers at a uni….

I got paged up there but tbh I can’t add much here because it’s subjects we don’t do, and medicine and the like have their own rules.

But by and large, the university admissions system is built around 3 a levels. Lots of kids don’t have easy access to a 4th so it’d be unintentionally and counterproductively selective to insist on 4, and also there’s just not that many kids choosing to do 4 so you end up choosing from a small basket. For some unis, that’s probably fine, if you’re a super-selective institution that doesn’t care that much about diversity or widening access but that’s a small minority.

Of course a 4th a level could still be valuable, even if it doesn’t make a big difference to applying- the knowledge could be useful. A levels grow a very targeted, narrow student by and large.

Does she have specific institutions and courses that she likes, yet? Generally it’s a really good idea to get their take on it- the reason it’s not simple is that every admissions tutor in the country has their own idea of what makes the ideal student

Or daughters experience at Cambridge and Oxford was that they just wanted 4 A* or A grades refer than three.
Really, hmm, always want to know more so I can bw helpful when the kids ask. Could you let us know when this was, what she was applying for and what a levels she did. Being a state school bio teacher almost exclusively see top kids apply to vet or medic courses so I could be in my own little echo chamber.
Thanks in advance.

My son had exactly this when applying to Cambridge for Mechanical Engineering for this year’s intake. The same applied to Oxford’s requirements from what I remember. My son was studying Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry.

Where’s Gee Budd when you need him?

I agree with most of what is said above. My son went through AS/A levels a couple of years ago, and daughter is in YR12 now.
If she is coping (no…not coping, actually enjoying!) then surely the extra A-level will give her knowledge that will be valuable in some way.
My son did 5 at AS (Chem, phys, bio, maths, further maths), but dropped bio after AS.
Now with the two year A-level I think three is much more common. My daughter is doing four (Chem, Bio, Maths, Further Maths), but the extra maths is taught off timetable as there are only two in the school doing it.
She was considering physics as well, but timetable and sanity prevailed!
The EPQ is also worth doing.
Most Uni’s only want three solid A-levels, few look at the fourth. And Oxford/Cambridge want extra curricular stuff more than a fourth A-level.
So I would say stick with four, but be ready to drop one if the pressure gets too much. Good luck to her!

I teach A-level physics in a large sixth form college.

Same here

Mike which one? I’m at Luton sfc[/quote]

I’m at QE, in Darlington.

Just to add to what was said above, engineering at ‘top’ unis is often the exception to the “just do three” rule, with further maths being the suggested fourth.

Beware any anecdotes from even just a couple of years ago, as we’re now fully into linear A-levels. For current second years, maths and further maths are still taken over the two years with options to resit AS modules, so even offers from this year should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Thanks Mike. I use to live in Darlington, a great place in the world to be. I taught at Northallerton College

Are you not better asking what employers want amd your daughter enjoys?

In the scenario where the A-Levels are the entry qualification to a degree, will employers care what A-levels you did?

Just been to my sons A level selection in a State school with a very good record of sending kids to Russell Group / Oxbridge Unis. The Head of the Sixth Form said he would only advise taking 4 very occasionally – only where kid is taking Maths / Further Maths or has spoken a language other than English in the home since birth and wanted to take an A level in that language. I’m not an expert but he was pretty convincing – his main argument was your child will be competing against kids taking 3 so why would you handicap them by getting them to take an extra one. Even if they have the capacity for the work it crowds the exam schedule.

Thanks Mike. I use to live in Darlington, a great place in the world to be. I taught at Northallerton College

Bizarrely, we’re now in direct competition with Northallerton College for students!

Just been to my sons A level selection in a State school with a very good record of sending kids to Russell Group / Oxbridge Unis. The Head of the Sixth Form said he would only advise taking 4 very occasionally – only where kid is taking Maths / Further Maths or has spoken a language other than English in the home since birth and wanted to take an A level in that language. I’m not an expert but he was pretty convincing – his main argument was your child will be competing against kids taking 3 so why would you handicap them by getting them to take an extra one. Even if they have the capacity for the work it crowds the exam schedule.

I’d agree with this.

…and in taking a #prouddad moment to update one year on. She ended up doing three rather than four A levels.
And she got her results today, Maths A; Chemistry A; Biology A.
She dropped Physics last year, completing it as an AS and passing with an A grade.

STEM for girls from state schools is possible.

Flippin’ chuffed for the school tbh, there’s a bunch of teachers and kids worked super hard and have achieved great results today.

🥳

Smashed it 🙂 And this seems to be a tough year for A level students too. Awesome stuff.

Daughter was in same situation. She’s dropped to three by removing further maths. One of the three still had an a/s criteria which was maths. Picked up the results yesterday and it was an a for her. So this time next year we’ll be hoping for the 3a’s. Lots of work to do.

Congratulations, great work from her and the school – we’re awaiting GCSE results next week to start the same process, but in a different position. Jnr looking at Maths, Further Maths and Physics, but adding Music as a fourth as it’s his passion but unlikely to be a career. He’s already got grade 8 on his main instrument and plays at county level, he feels if he can get an A level in something he’d do for fun then it’s worth it, kind of like a second language at home.

Interesting thread. Working with universities (a lot on the admissions side) and having a daughter receiving her results yesterday, I see a lot of sense being talked about ^^ above.

After AS level culling and the switch to an assessment method which appears to be testing how well a student can retain information and how good their exam technique is, her school really pushed back on 4 A levels. A few students did 4 as a taster and dropped one within two months.

She was really worried about Maths especially with all the changes to the curriculum. No issues at GSCE, struggled at A Level. Needed A A A for Psychology at Birmingham. Spent this week worrying herself silly, ended up with A* A* A in Psychology, Maths and Biology so I echo the OP about girls and science.

It does also makes me wonder if she was adopted 🙂

Congrats to the OP’s daughter and other peeps getting their A-level results.

“girls and science”: I do find this quite a complicated thing to get into. There is far more difference in ability within gender than between genders. It appears to be the social / environmental upbringing aspect that affects girls’ subject choices more than boys; as well as some attitudes by advisors (teachers or people associated with submissions) that suggest you need to be ‘good’ at the subject to take it (i.e. enforced minimum GCSE grade to do A-level) rather than taking it because it is interesting and/or useful. You don’t get that in other subjects except perhaps English. But to re-iterate there is no evidence that females or males are ‘better’ at logical and analytical thinking; there is far more difference across each gender so we really just need to treat people as individuals.

It varied by uni.

My offers were AAA for Cambridge in physics, chemistry and maths. AAB for Sheffield to include chemistry and maths.

I ended up with AAAB (physics, chemistry, maths and geography).

My decision to do all 4 was based on getting an almost perfect score in geography As (I dropped only a handfull of marks across coursework and the exams) so was guaranteed a C even without the final exams. I discussed it with the teachers and agreed that I could treat it as optional and submit homework as and when I had time if it came to it. In the end it was fairly easy as long as I did work the day it was set and used what free periods I had to do work (most people had 2x per day, I only got 1) so I could get at least one assignment out of the way before 3.15 each day.

In the end I got a B in chemistry and went to Sheffield. I requested a re-mark and the paper back and tbh it was bad luck not a lack of studying, it was close and the marks I dropped were quite harsh. Contrary to a poster up there Cambridge weren’t interested in the extra breadth, it was only grades in specific subjects they would consider.

If she’s bright enough to potentially do them all very well and motivated I’d say go for it. If she’s borderline and/or has strict admission criteria to her courses I’d think twice.

Well done grtdkad jr and the rest. With AS not being a thing this is the first year in the last 7 or 8 without an August results day in the house, though we are still in UCAS and open days mode. Youngest wants to do dance so we have to keep up the A level stuff but it’s all portfolios and showreels for him, new world for us.