AS Level alongside Access, improve chances of acceptance?

Hey everyone,

I am looking for your help! I am a first year Access to HE Diploma Nursing & Midwifery route student, hoping to study Children's Nursing, entry year 2016. I'm currently unsure whether to take on an AS Level alongside my studies, and if this would improve my chances of acceptable onto the course.

My local college is offering evening classes in AS Psychology and AS Religious Studies, one evening per week for one year. I was thinking of taking the AS Psychology course, however have been advised by an old form tutor to do Religious Studies, as it's more of an academic subject and would be respected more by the University, she suggests.

I was wondering if you thought taking on an AS Level alongside my studies would benefit me in any way in terms of my applications to universities? Also, which of AS Psychology and AS Religious Studies do you think nursing schools would prefer?

Thank you for your help!

Grace

Reply 1

carlaraptor

Hi Grace,

I will leave it to the more experienced students on here to answer your question, but my personal opinion would be to choose Psychology. Considering you're going to be working with young children, a knowledge of psychology would surely be beneficial? I'm not taking Psychology in my Access course, but the tutor did mention that in childcare/teaching, Psychology (or at least, behavioural psychology) is very useful. If I didn't already love my existing subject choices so much, I'd have considered taking it as a module.

I'd also make sure that you're not taking too much on with studying an AS level alongside your access course. :smile:

As long as you think you can handle both, then I don't see why you shouldn't take the extra AS level.

Hope that helps! x

Reply 2

RobertsClan

I've just completed an Access Science course and I resat GCSE maths at the same time. Towards the end of the course I found it really hard to find time for revision for the exam as well as completing all the work needed at the end of the Access Course. There were numerous final assignments due at the same time as GCSE and A level exams were on. Personally I would have found it difficult to study A level and Access at the same time. Most of our class were in the library late at night and over the holidays on assignments so there was little time for other study.

Have you spoken to the University about the entry requirements? The reason I as is that there were two people on my course who had asked the uni's they wanted to apply to about completing an additional course or resitting an A level. They were told that if you undertake an Access course they will only look at the Access results anyway so there was no point.

I'm not going to do midwifery in Uni so admission for me is different but I was studying alongside someone who is starting a midwifery course this September. The requirements from the Access course are very high compared to many other courses but alongside that they really want to see relevant work experience whether paid or voluntary. That is often the difference between receiving an offer or not.

If you receive an off then the grade needed on the Access course will be high (often 30 Distinctions and 15 merits) and although achievable if you take an A/S or A level alongside the grades then one or the other will definitely suffer. If they then add I to your offer that they expect A or B in the subject you choose you're going to be under a lot more pressure than may even be necessary. You need to be sure before you start that you can definitely get the required grades and can devote pretty much all your time from at least Easter to studying.

I think a lot of people underestimate what work you will do on an Access Course. When speaking to the A level Science students we found that a lot of the things we were doing were also studied at A level. However we had maybe one or two lessons on a topic and needed to do quite a lot of research at home while A level were taught a lot more in the classroom. If you're going to need a majority of Distinction credits to get into Uni then you will need to put in a lot of research.

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(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

mark_18

My personal suggestion would be to concentrate all your time and effort on doing an access course only. If you do well, as you hopefully expect to do, then you shouldn't have any problems getting on the course that you want at uni, not unless your chosen uni has specific requirements for your course.

I have just finished and access course and I wouldn't have even considered studying something extra at the same time.

Reply 4

GraceOHan

... Thank you so much for all your help and kind guidance poster RobertsClan, I greatly appreciate it!

Reply 5

GraceOHan

Thank you all very, very much!

Reply 6

RobertsClan

Original post by GraceOHan

... Thank you so much for all your help and kind guidance poster RobertsClan, I greatly appreciate it!

You're welcome and if you have any other questions just let me know if I don't know I can ask my friends who have gone on to nursing and midwifery for you. Above all enjoy the course, we were invited back to college to speak to the new Access students yesterday and although all of us are excited to be starting Uni we all agreed we were a little jealous of those people starting Access this year. It was hard work and we were all pushed to our limits but we all thoroughly enjoyed our time on the course.

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