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What A levels to do?!

I'm interested in medicine, engineering and pure physical sciences at Uni and I am thinking of doing Chemistry, Maths, Physics and History. My only worry is applying for medicine without biology (I would do it in the place of history, however, as our school has a 3 year sixth form, they are keen on taking a variety of subjects and strongly discouraged me from taking 3 sciences and maths. Anyone got any advice?
Medicine is extremely competitive as I'm sure you know, My old tutor told me about students with 5 A grade A levels who still got rejected. With that in mind I'd start thinking early about where you'd like to apply and look at what the universities ask for. Your choices would be great for the other subjects though. :smile:

If you didn't have the necessary A levels (but you got high enough grades) there are some universities which offer something similar to a foundation year. I've included the link for Sheffield Uni which offers this. https://www.shef.ac.uk/medicine/prospective_ug/applying
Why do you have a three year Sixth Form?! How does that work? :confused:

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I think history is the dark horse in this case, it may not necessarily help you much. But if you really want to take it, I'm not stopping you.
And as a word of warning, make sure you're exceptionally good at Chem if you're doing the OCR board for A-Level. It's unfairly difficult. Only those who were tip-top in it got through fairly in my school, and I have since discontinued it. But I've heard that those in AQA did fine.
Chemistry is the only science required for medicine yet most applicants will have chemistry and biology as well as maybe physics or maths so if you are really serious about doing medicine then I would consider that. However you have a good combination of subjects where you would be able to access a wide range of careers - all types of engineering, pure science, careers that don't need particular subjects- which are your other options anyway. :smile:
Reply 5
I have checked out a few courses - Bristol, Leeds, Edinburgh and Oxford. I think most (if not all) of these only specified chemistry and at least one other science/maths (for medicine). With this being the case I theoretically should not be at a disadvantage (of I get the grades), however I was wondering if someone knew if in practice I would also need biology?
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 6
Original post by Edminzodo
Why do you have a three year Sixth Form?! How does that work? :confused:

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We do our GCSE'S one year early and then have years 11,12 and 13 as sixth form.
I would say, chemistry, Biology and Maths are the subjects you should have to keep your options open, because I know most medicine schools would want Biology at A2 and some would want you to have taken it up to AS level atleast with a Grade B. Chemistry a good option because almost all the science related fields ask for Chemistry and then Maths because its classed as a science and I would say its the less stressful subject, even though its still hard but its mostly application, so you dont have to memorise huge chucks of information like Biology and History. If you dont take physics, it won't make much difference if you wanted to go into engineering, as for leeds for example you can still do all there engineering courses apart from Mechanical engineering, but others unis will still let you do mechanical engineering as long as you got Maths such as Swansea University.
Original post by joeb1
We do our GCSE'S one year early and then have years 11,12 and 13 as sixth form.


I wished we had that lol
Will you be taking 3 A2's in the same year with how your sixth form is configured? Some universities require 3 A2's taken in the same year for medicine.

If it turns out you don't, you could always try and take five over the three years.
Reply 10
Original post by loperdoper
Will you be taking 3 A2's in the same year with how your sixth form is configured? Some universities require 3 A2's taken in the same year for medicine.

If it turns out you don't, you could always try and take five over the three years.


We normally do 4 A2's in the same year (3 if you drop a subject although this is uncommon and if you doing further maths you could end up doing 5 A2's in the same year).
Original post by joeb1
We normally do 4 A2's in the same year (3 if you drop a subject although this is uncommon and if you doing further maths you could end up doing 5 A2's in the same year).


Oh, that seems rather full-on. Maybe instead of doing 4 A2's you could drop History and pick up Biology? If you settle on medicine AS Biology will help your application out, and you've still got the diversity of History in your subjects.
Reply 12
Original post by loperdoper
Oh, that seems rather full-on. Maybe instead of doing 4 A2's you could drop History and pick up Biology? If you settle on medicine AS Biology will help your application out, and you've still got the diversity of History in your subjects.

Sounds like a plan, thanks. So I would end up with A2's in chemistry, physics and maths and an as in history and biology?
Original post by joeb1
Sounds like a plan, thanks. So I would end up with A2's in chemistry, physics and maths and an as in history and biology?


Yep, that's what I mean. Speak to your sixth form and see if they'll potentially be happy to let you do that.

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