RS or Business studies A level

Okay, apologies for the misinformation. There must have been a change to the syllabi between when my peers and I were doing our AS levels and now, as there was internally assessed work at least 3 years ago for BS.



There actually quite a difference between how BS and RS are regarded. I've yet to find one faculty that does not deem RS to be a strong subject. On the other hand, BS has been listed by a few universities to be of limited suitability for higher learning and is on the LSE's 'non-preferred' subject list. Yes, they still accept it, but would rather applicants offered another subject instead - but won't be discriminated against unless they offer another subject from the same list.



Indeed, that may be true for this thread in particular, though if you browse on TSR, there are definitely other threads where students have posted trying to dissuade others from choosing RS and saying students could better spend their time studying other subjects. And on your note of people "deluding themselves" into perceiving skills being gained - I can partially agree with you there, but that is not to say those skills aren't honed at all and that there is some net development by the course studied. Obviously, like with any academic subject, the skills developed are not exclusive to the subject and can be developed by other subjects too. But the means via which they're developed, differs from subject to subject and are also developed to differing degrees.



Just because BS also develops analytical skills doesn't mean the statement that RS does too is negated. In extension to my point above, I never said RS would exclusively do so. Nor in my prior post did I say that BS is less valued to Economics A-Level.
However, I must stress my above point about the means and extent to which skills are developed. Yes, BS does develop analytical skills, however I would argue it does it to a lesser extent than RS for the following reason:
BS hones such skills via an applied manner whereas the argumentative and discursive skills in RS are more dependent on the fundamental logic and cohesiveness of arguments. In RS, while the content learned is important, the analytical skills take precedence at higher levels, whereas for business - while the skills are still present, majority of the marks and merit for the subject come via the testing of content. This means there is a more limited scope nurturing pure analytical skills in BS compared to RS.

And such skills do pay off. If you do look at some of the top unis (Oxbridge, UCL) which use the TSA for their econ/socio-political courses, you'll find that a lot of the TSA rests upon critically analysing arguments and isolating their fundamental components (premise, conclusions, assumptions etc.) and for such skills, RS will provide a better grasp at tackling such problems compared to BS.

Hope that's clarified by basis for what I said in my previous point and not misconstrued things further.

soft subject[/QUOTE

does your spec of RS cover philosophy or ultimate questions or something like that. That is very interesting I am alos taking RS as well as French, English land/lit and psychology.

Okay, apologies for the misinformation. There must have been a change to the syllabi between when my peers and I were doing our AS levels and now, as there was internally assessed work at least 3 years ago for BS.



There actually quite a difference between how BS and RS are regarded. I've yet to find one faculty that does not deem RS to be a strong subject. On the other hand, BS has been listed by a few universities to be of limited suitability for higher learning and is on the LSE's 'non-preferred' subject list. Yes, they still accept it, but would rather applicants offered another subject instead - but won't be discriminated against unless they offer another subject from the same list.



Indeed, that may be true for this thread in particular, though if you browse on TSR, there are definitely other threads where students have posted trying to dissuade others from choosing RS and saying students could better spend their time studying other subjects. And on your note of people "deluding themselves" into perceiving skills being gained - I can partially agree with you there, but that is not to say those skills aren't honed at all and that there is some net development by the course studied. Obviously, like with any academic subject, the skills developed are not exclusive to the subject and can be developed by other subjects too. But the means via which they're developed, differs from subject to subject and are also developed to differing degrees.



Just because BS also develops analytical skills doesn't mean the statement that RS does too is negated. In extension to my point above, I never said RS would exclusively do so. Nor in my prior post did I say that BS is less valued to Economics A-Level.
However, I must stress my above point about the means and extent to which skills are developed. Yes, BS does develop analytical skills, however I would argue it does it to a lesser extent than RS for the following reason:
BS hones such skills via an applied manner whereas the argumentative and discursive skills in RS are more dependent on the fundamental logic and cohesiveness of arguments. In RS, while the content learned is important, the analytical skills take precedence at higher levels, whereas for business - while the skills are still present, majority of the marks and merit for the subject come via the testing of content. This means there is a more limited scope nurturing pure analytical skills in BS compared to RS.

And such skills do pay off. If you do look at some of the top unis (Oxbridge, UCL) which use the TSA for their econ/socio-political courses, you'll find that a lot of the TSA rests upon critically analysing arguments and isolating their fundamental components (premise, conclusions, assumptions etc.) and for such skills, RS will provide a better grasp at tackling such problems compared to BS.

Hope that's clarified by basis for what I said in my previous point and not misconstrued things further.

Fair enough, good response. First quality post in this thread that would actually help the OP make a good choice.