Hey,
I am having second thoughts over my A-Level choices. I was previously going to take Maths, Further Maths, History & Philosophy for A-Level but am now considering whether to take English Lit. instead of Philosophy. I want to study Maths & Philosophy at university (hopefully at Oxford) and thought Philosophy might help, but according to Oxford's website:
There is no obvious advantage to having taken Philosophy A-Level beforehand, at least from the perspective of how likely you’d be to obtain an offer of a place. Those who have studied these subjects tend to know a little more about philosophy, but this is not something we test for or are all that interested in at the admissions stage. (Two reasons: it doesn’t much matter to us at this stage, and knowing about philosophy before you come doesn’t seem related very clearly to ability as a philosopher.) It seems to have conferred no obvious advantage on candidates, whether they have studied philosophy as part of AS/A2 ‘Philosophy’ or ‘Religious Studies’.
There is no direct disadvantage of studying Philosophy A-Level. If it’s a disadvantage at all, it’s often because studying philosophy will usually be at the expense of studying something else, and the ‘something else’ might be a better preparation – might better develop the skills and aptitudes we are looking for. To give one example: studying English literature ought to involve a development of skills of careful reading of, and critical engagement with, texts, which we value, and it seems to do this to a higher degree than A level philosophy. So there can be an indirect disadvantage; by studying philosophy, there is less time for mathematics, history, languages, and so on, studies which may support an application for one of our degrees involving philosophy better, and may in fact be better indicators of success in studying philosophy at university.
How seriously should I take this advice?
I received my GCSE results last week and got 99.5% in English Lit. and I do enjoy the subject; nearly as much as Philosophy and so I don’t know whether it’s best to take English Lit. instead, especially as the course looks probably more challenging and I could probably learn more from it, and it is probably more respected and leaves more options open; and then I could just read up on Philosophy in my own time. So is it better for me to stick to taking Philosophy A-Level or instead do English Lit? Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.