5 A-levels?

Has she considered looking at a school that does the IB Diploma instead? She would be able to study more of what she loves, without the stress of doing 5 a levels. Please please please make sure she considers doing 5 alevels really carefully, as I struggled with 4, which I then dropped, because I spread myself too thinly. Most universities will not care she has done 5, and they will expect As/A*s in all of them x

There is absolutely no reason at all to take 5. Most universities will only look at the first 3 or possibly 4. In Year 13 she will NOT have time to do gold DoE or work experience. I don't know what kind of school would allow this. If she wants to study medicine why does she want to do Geography? Surely Chemistry, Physics, Biology and a Maths AS would be more than sufficient?

She really does not need to take 5 A Levels. The work for just 3 is a lot. Quite a lot of people who take 4 end up dropping one because of the workload. If it’s something she really wants to do then she should at least try it, but let her know that it’s okay to drop one and dropping one won’t put her at a disadvantage. It’s better she gets 4 A*’s than AAABB.

Thanks for your advice. My typo mistake - the DofE would be yr12! I think Geography is in there because she enjoys it so much as a subject. But workload is the thing here so as you suggest the others alone would certainly suffice.

Not to mention she won’t be able to do Gold DofE or work experience because it’s just too much for anyone X

My daughter is taking her GCSEs this year and in September would like to begin 5 A-level courses in Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Further Maths and Geography. She is a very able student, works hard and has aspirations to study medicine. She is determined to apply for all five courses and she has spoken to her school who seem happy to support her in this as well as provide opportunity to drop subjects if necessary. As parents we want to support her fully but are concerned this will be far too much pressure/work especially when she knows her has to achieve excellent grades to stand a chance of being considered for med school. She also wants to complete her gold Dof E award in Yr13 and undertake work experience. Thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated

There's a reason schools recommend only 3. Tell her to do 3, possibly do Further Maths as an AS (1 year), and if she REALLY wants to she can do an EPQ in Geography. She'll drown and be left behind. A Levels are NOT like GCSEs.

Five 'A' levels is insane, and will only serve to compromise results in the three (or, rarely, four) grades required for a university offer.

I would only ever recommend four 'A' levels if they include Maths and FM. For Medicine, FM seems less relevant, but Medicine isn't my field. She needs to allow enough time for work experience too.

My daughter is taking her GCSEs this year and in September would like to begin 5 A-level courses in Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Further Maths and Geography. She is a very able student, works hard and has aspirations to study medicine. She is determined to apply for all five courses and she has spoken to her school who seem happy to support her in this as well as provide opportunity to drop subjects if necessary. As parents we want to support her fully but are concerned this will be far too much pressure/work especially when she knows her has to achieve excellent grades to stand a chance of being considered for med school. She also wants to complete her gold Dof E award in Yr13 and undertake work experience. Thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated

I’m currently doing 4 A Levels and Gold DofE (Year 12) and am just about coping. It’s also important to remember that in the second year, students will also have to be focussing on visiting Universities/deciding on post-18 study which is quite time consuming.

5 A Levels sounds horrendous. Good luck!

It's possible but I cannot stress this it will be hard. Currently in my School there are 2 people doing 5 A-Levels. What I have to say is being able is good but might just not cut it. Both of those people have minds that just understand Maths too well. If your daughter is a strong strong mathematician then yeah go for it she'll do just fine if the subjects are related like Maths, FM and Physics even Chem. What worries me is the whole issue of medicine being the goal. She should just focus on 3-4 if that's the case as Medicine requires a lot of extra curricular work before hand.

When I was in College, I took 4 'A' Levels, Pure Mathematics, Engineering Drawing, Art and Computer Science. I ended up dropping Art subject after 1 year, due to workload