Economics Degree

Hey,
I am probably going to be doing some sort of economics degree in the future, possibly E&M at oxford or LSE. I might even decide to do PPE (not too sure yet). I'm in year 11 right now and am aiming for mostly A*s for my GCSEs. I am also deciding A-Level choices and have provisionally chosen Economics, History, Politics, Maths and Further maths. There are a few questions I do have.

1) Are those options well suited for the path I want to take?
2) Which would be better for an Econ degree, politics, physics or French? (I really like politics and I don't mind French but I'm not sure if politics is considered a respectable A-Level- I don't really like physics but I've heard its good for econ)
3) Is further maths really that hard and is it necessary for an econ degree? (I know a lot of unis say it is preferred)
4) Which is better for econ, Oxford or Cambridge?

Thank You :smile:

Reply 1

TSR Jessica

Sorry you've not had any responses about this. :frown:

Are you sure you've posted in the right place? :smile:

Here's a link to our subject forum which should help get you more responses if you post there. :redface:

You can also find the Exam Thread list for A-levels here and GCSE here. :dumbells:

Just quoting in Puddles the Monkey so she can move the thread if needed :h:

Spoiler

Reply 2

joddcfc

1. Those subjects are absolutely fine. I'm wanting to do an Economics degree too, and in year 12. I've picked Maths, Economics, Geography and History (dropping History for A2 though). Would have considered politics if it was an option too. I wouldn't go for all 5 subjects though, it's far better to concentrate on 4 (ideally 3 for year 13). Out of those 5, I would definitely do Maths (needed for an Economics degree) and Economics. Out of History, Politics and Further Maths, probably the least "respected" by universities is Politics because it's not a facilitating subject. Further Maths would probably be the best subject to make you stand out from other candidates, but just be aware that it's very hard and requires a lot of work. If you're really not sure which of the 4 you want to do then maybe do 5 for induction week or the first couple of weeks in September or whatever and see how you feel then, although, like I say, I really wouldn't bother with all 5 in the long term.

2. Not too much in those subjects really, although as I mentioned, politics isn't classed as a facilitating subject. Because there's very little between French and Physics I wouldn't go for Physics if you don't like. There's even the argument that French would be great because investment banks value modern languages due to doing business abroad.

3. As mentioned, I don't do FM but have heard it is quite hard. Certainly not necessary for an economics degree but would look more impressive than politics for example. Have a look at this link here http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-cambridge-c05/economics-3-years-9000-l100-13240 - it says that 69% of people doing Economics at Cambridge did FM at A-level. That's quite high compared to other universities. For example Warwick (number 3 for Economics according to the university guide mentioned in question 4) - http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-warwick-w20/economics-3-years-9000-l100-79893 - it's at 58%. Nottingham is a uni I'm considering and FM isn't even shown here - instead its History at 18% so I'm guessing History is the more popular subject there. (http://university.which.co.uk/university-of-nottingham-n84/economics-3-years-9000-l100-57103). Have a look around at other unis on university.which.com to see what A levels students tend to study, it's really useful.

4. The Complete University Guide has Cambridge as the best for Economics, followed by Oxford.

Hope that helps, happy to answer more questions if you like. Good luck with any exams you have left :smile:

Reply 3

ujjaval_d

Thank you so much! That has been very helpful and I think I'm probably going to go with french and drop french and history at a2 (maybe further maths if it is too hard)

Reply 4

joddcfc

Original post by ujjaval_d

Thank you so much! That has been very helpful and I think I'm probably going to go with french and drop french and history at a2 (maybe further maths if it is too hard)