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Yeah, many schools don't even offer further maths... I had to take it up myself. As long as you do maths in some form or another you have the chance. Having said that, further maths WOULD help :smile:
Reply 2
Without further maths, your chance at a top University is quite low I'd imagine. It should not put you in disadvantages if your school didn't offer Further Maths, but in fact they do. What about Physics? A very respected subject for maths degree imo.
What do you mean by "decent"? Top 10,20 or 50?
emma363
Maths
Biology
Geography
Psychology

I either want to be a maths teacher or go into healthcare and I'm not sure yet. Biology and further maths are in the same option box so I picked biology as I can't choose both
Do I still have the chance to get into a decent uni, or not?


Hey,

Those are very good A levels, without a doubt. However, if you wanted to do maths, you would think you would do Maths + Further + Physics. If you want to be a maths teacher/ healthcare worker, why did you chose geography? I would suggest dropping geog, adding further maths or physics.
Not at a top university. But you could get into a lower one I guess.
Reply 5
You can get onto maths without further maths but I'd recommend doing further maths if at all possible.
You can self study further maths well enough, it'll look good on your uni app, improve your understanding and help you if you do choose to teach. In the very least, perhaps try to do AS over the 2 years.
This year you have to have further maths to enter Warwick.
If you like mathematics enough to be seriously considering reading it at university, why on Earth WOULDN'T you take further mathematics?
Reply 8
How unsure are you of whether you're planning to study Maths or go into healthcare (and by this, do you mean medicine?)
Yes, but as said you should just teach yourself FM. If you are going to be doing a degree in math then teaching yourself FM should be fairly easy.

<3
Reply 10
andy12691
Without further maths, your chance at a top University is quite low I'd imagine. It should not put you in disadvantages if your school didn't offer Further Maths, but in fact they do. What about Physics? A very respected subject for maths degree imo.
What do you mean by "decent"? Top 10,20 or 50?


Atleast top 20 hopefully?
Reply 11
aKarma
You can get onto maths without further maths but I'd recommend doing further maths if at all possible.
You can self study further maths well enough, it'll look good on your uni app, improve your understanding and help you if you do choose to teach. In the very least, perhaps try to do AS over the 2 years.


thanks,
If I did how would I go about self studying, where would I start?
Reply 12
LetoKynes
How unsure are you of whether you're planning to study Maths or go into healthcare (and by this, do you mean medicine?)


Well originally I was looking into nursing, but i'm about 75/25 towards maths now :/
Reply 13
emma363
thanks,
If I did how would I go about self studying, where would I start?


You can essentially work through the text books as a starting point.
Just find a good one and go nuts :p:

You might want to try asking your school, as since they teach further maths they should have some resources. Tbh, chances are your school will probably go out of its way to help you if you tell them your intentions.

AQA also have free textbooks online here for all the core modules except further pure 1. They take things through quite simply, but are scattered with random mistakes( but these tend to be easy enough to pick up on)
Reply 14
Heya, when i was looking around unis i went to the birmingham maths day and they basically said FM helps, but isn't a requirment. They said they cant make it a requirement because not all schools offer it (please bear in mind this was 2 years ago), but that if they could they would because its so useful for the course.

I have a friend doing maths here now and she said the first term is a catch-up for those that didnt do further maths, but that those who had done further maths were generally doing better.

There are a couple of things you can do:
1)I dont know if you're in A2 yet, but you could drop an option at the end of first year/yr12 and pick up further maths AS, or the full A-Level if you can fit it in. (if you can talk to the head of maths and see if you can go to classes that fit around your other lessons, or get 1-to-1 tuition from a maths teacher (I'm taking this from what my school was like, we had 100 people in my year taking FM, thus had loads of different classes for each module)
2)you can study FM outside of school; take a look at this site! http://www.furthermaths.org.uk/student_area/howstudyfm.php

Either way i think FM is a good choice because it makes maths easier - C3 and C4 just make so much more sense when you have FP1 and FP2 backing everything up. You get to know more about the maths and i loved it, especially the applied modules which really helped even though i didnt end up taking maths at uni (statistics helps with any research you may end up doing)
hovisimo
FM helps, but isn't a requirment. They said they cant make it a requirement because not all schools offer it


The problem is that the OP's school does offer FM. Top universities won't like the fact that she had the chance to study FM and didn't take it. It won't make her look very enthusisatic for the subject and won't, indeed, be the best possible preparation for a maths degree.

Take FM, OP.
Reply 16
Good bloke
The problem is that the OP's school does offer FM. Top universities won't like the fact that she had the chance to study FM and didn't take it. It won't make her look very enthusisatic for the subject and won't, indeed, be the best possible preparation for a maths degree.

Take FM, OP.


Just because they offer it doesn't mean a uni wont accept you for not taking it. Admissions officers dont look at every school and find out whether FM is an available option - it's not a requirement so it shouldn't influence the chance of getting a place.
If there's an interview and they ask why you didnt take it, then you may have to justify your reasons, but apart from that the unis wont know
Reply 17
hovisimo
Just because they offer it doesn't mean a uni wont accept you for not taking it. Admissions officers dont look at every school and find out whether FM is an available option - it's not a requirement so it shouldn't influence the chance of getting a place.
If there's an interview and they ask why you didnt take it, then you may have to justify your reasons, but apart from that the unis wont know

Cambridge require FM to AS.
Reply 18
Oh, i just remembered - if you take FM then unis that dont require it usually give you a lower offer then those who dont take FM. I guess that's commons sense, but just incase you want to know!
Reply 19
Small123
Cambridge require FM to AS.


I'm not saying the OP shouldn't take FM, I think they should - i loved it! I just saying it may not be a requirement for all top unis - it wasn't for Birmingham and that's in the top 20 for maths

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