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Does taking 5 A- levels give an advantage?

Hello there! My question is- will taking 5 A- levels be useful to me when applying for Oxford? Also, I am mainly interested in the three sciences- Chemistry, Biology and Maths. Can I take a non- science subject when applying for medicine or should at least 4 of 5 of the A- levels be sciences?

Reply 1

Louise_f121

Original post by Fudail

Hey, what does your sixth form offer in terms of how many A-levels you can take?

Reply 2

0le

I am not sure whether it gives an advantage or not, but doing 5 A-Levels will be a lot of work, regardless of what subjects you select. I would suggest that you have a very long hard think about this before making any definitive decisions.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 3

username1234560

Original post by Fudail

If you think you know how hard A-levels are, you probably don't.

Reply 4

username54

Original post by Fudail

It doesn't, I think some medical schools give an advantage if you study 4. I'm not too sure tho. It's better to stick with 3 A levels, focus on UCAT/BMAT and extra curricular. If you want, you can do an EPQ or choose a subject with less workload. However, remember AAA is better than AABB.

Reply 5

OctoberRain7

Three A Levels is plenty for Oxford, and taking more can actually be to your disadvantage if they drag down your other grades or mean you can spend less time on other aspects of your application. You should take the required or highly recommended subjects for your course but other than that it's really up to you.

Reply 6

X1LDN

For medicine, taking 3 is just enough. 5 will definitely increase your workload to an arguably, unhealthy amount. This could lead to underachievement had you have done 3 a-levels instead.

Many unis only give out offers for 3 a-levels anyway, with certain courses requiring 4 (main for the STEM subjects like engineering). Which mean 5 will be necessary in your case since you want to do medicine.

For these reasons, doing 5 subjects will not give you an advantage, more so it could potentially put you at a disadvantage because of the intense workload. Doing 3 will not only give you a lot of free time, but that time could be used to work on your own enrichment, which really matters the most - not the amount of a-levels you do.

If you want to know whether you should do 5, don’t.

Reply 7

mnot

Universities Forum Helper

No, your offer will be for 3 a-levels.

Achieving 3 top grades is more valuable to 5 good ones.

I think their is sometimes a benefit to 4 if you want flexibility to drop one, but taking 5 is just not necessary.

Reply 8

nexttime

Original post by Fudail

Why do you want to do this? Just to show you can?

No it will not be directly useful. Two sciences is good enough for every med school, though for BMAT unis especially Cambridge there is a correlation with success if you do 3.

Reply 9

leviticus.

Taking 4/5 A-levels (excluding EPQ which is useful for medicine because it might lower the grades you need) is not beneficial for any degree in the UK and doesn't give you an advantage. There is maybe 1 exception and that is Cambridge Natural sciences (physical pathway) in which Maths, Further maths, physics and chemistry can be a very strong selection

Reply 10

micholate9

Your offer will be for 3 A-Levels. It's better to focus on 3 or 4 to try and get highest grades than spread yourself too think over 5 A-levels!

Reply 11

eeeli

As somebody who took 4 A-levels, taking 5 is a bad idea. It's a load more work (4 was unmanageable at times, I dread to think what 5 would be like), might bring down your grades, and Oxford don't care that much about how many A levels you have as long as you have 3. When I got my offer it was for 3 grades, not 4. Chemistry, Biology and Maths are a good set of three (and meet Oxford medicine's subject requirements), but the workload for all of them is very high. I took those and French - juggling those 4 was extremely difficult, taking 5 would be nearly impossible I think. It will also affect your application to Oxford negatively - applying to Oxford is very time-consuming, if you do 5 A-levels either your A-levels or your application will suffer during applications season. If your maths is very strong, taking Further Maths as a 4th makes sense, but other than that taking more than 3 isn't really worth it. You'll just end up with 5 decent A-levels when you could have got 3 fantastic A levels, and universities including Oxford certainly prefer the latter.

Reply 12

khadejaaslam18

Hi.. I've taken 5 Alevels and thank goodness got through it with 4As and 1B.. Do you think that these grades are good enough to land me a scholarship and admission into a good college.. Also, my subjects were biology, chemistry, physics, English literature and accounting.

No there is no need

Original post by Fudail

dont take 5 a levels

taking 5, yes it would be amazing if you get top grades in all 5 but its really unlikely and will affect your mental health

instead of 5 a levels, do supercurricular activities as oxbridge would rather you do stuff related to the degree that doesnt include your a levels to show you have genuine interest

Reply 15

khadejaaslam18

Original post by 0le

Hello. So I've finished my Alevels with 5 subjects;physics, chemistry, biology, English literature and accounting, and I've got 4As and 1B.. Do you think that this will by any chance land me a scholarship and an admission in a good university.

Reply 16

JustSomeGuy:/

Original post by khadejaaslam18

Admission yes (depends how good of a university we're talking), scholarship no (there are still other things like bursaries). If you had done 3 or 4 and got more A*'s then most likely yes to both. Universities only care about 3 A-levels 99% of the time...

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 17

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

No, taking extra A-levels does not score you "bonus points" at Oxford or Cambridge (or indeed almost any other uni; I think Cardiff medical school and maybe QUB medical school do score extra points in selecting for interview for having additional AS/A-levels, but these are very much exceptions).

Also you don't need to take 3 STEM subjects at A-level for any medical school except Cambridge. All others have no preference what your third (and in some cases, second; and in the case of Newcastle, any!) subject is, provided you get an A or A* in it.