Advanced Highers for Medicine

Hi, tomorrow im picking my 6th year subject. Last year i studied bio,chem,physics,english and maths all at higher. Unfortunately i reckon i may have ended up at AAAAB however obviously i dont know yet.
Next year im thinking of doing advanced higher chem,bio and either physics or maths. Along with the 3 advanced higher im thinking of doing business. Is 3 advanced + 1 higher reasonable. Or should i consider doing 3 advanced higher and 2 highers? ( i could add philosophy higher to my subjects. Also what is easier, maths or physics at advanced higher

thanks

Don't let your potential Higher grades influence your subject choices: you don't know what grades you're going to get, and extra subjects in 6th year won't "make up" for your 5th year results.

Taking extra subjects in S6 isn't going to advantage your application, bar a select few universities in England. If you plan on studying in Scotland, then there really is no difference between 3AH, 3AH + 1H and 3AH + 2H. Just take whatever combination of subjects you'd enjoy and will do well in in S6.

Lastly, don't fret if you do get AAAAB! Plenty of people get into medicine with those grades - if universities didn't accept people with those grades, they wouldn't be the minima.


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thanks for the advice. yeh ive been trying to tell myself that AAAAB may still be ok but im just going through a bit of a shock. 5A's is like an expectation rather than a hope from literally everyone including myself but maths was like hell this year :/
anyway yeh ive decided im going to stick with 3AH and 1H as i quite enjoy business and wouldnt mind the slightly extra work. Wont be doing maths, on old threads I have been reading through everybody seems to do maths and bio chemistry so i might as well offer something different.
Anyway thanks again

thanks for the advice. yeh ive been trying to tell myself that AAAAB may still be ok but im just going through a bit of a shock. 5A's is like an expectation rather than a hope from literally everyone including myself but maths was like hell this year :/
anyway yeh ive decided im going to stick with 3AH and 1H as i quite enjoy business and wouldnt mind the slightly extra work. Wont be doing maths, on old threads I have been reading through everybody seems to do maths and bio chemistry so i might as well offer something different.
Anyway thanks again

Sorry to hear you're feeling under so much pressure with your results, but I can only wish you the best of luck and want to make sure you know getting AAAAB isn't the end of the world!

I think the idea of choosing maths instead of physics is because people don't want to do 3 investigations!! But if you hate maths, don't just take it because you feel like you should.
Business should be a nice relief from the sciences.

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Don't let "doing something different" influence your subject choices. Scottish medical schools don't care what subjects you do in S6 really (but recommend chemistry/biology). In England it is varied, I know that UCL prefer you to choose a contrasting arts type subject as one AH whereas Cambridge prefer all sciences.

As for your maths vs physics choice - having done both I would say I found them the same difficulty wise. Maths can be tricky to get your head round sometimes at AH and physics comes with the extra workload. Remember maths doesn't have coursework but physics has the investigation.

In terms of relevance to medicine - AH level maths and physics won't come up directly, but they both rely on good numeracy/equation handling which is somewhat useful (not really that much).

Overall, I'd pick what you enjoy most and what you think you'd do better in.


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Thanks for the advice. Im going through a serious dilemma between maths and physics. Im worried about having 3 investigations but maths is generally more difficult. If u really really had to choose which would you say is more demanding in both content and workload? thanks

For me, AH physics isn't that hard if you keep on top of the work. It's basically higher physics with a bit of higher maths (calculus for equations of motion) and a few other things like derivations of all the equations. The questions in the exam are also less 'guided' and of a harder standard than higher expectedly. If you're organised there is no reason why you can't do 3 investigations like you could do each of them in a month.

AH maths is different from higher. There is a change in emphasis from knowing methods and applying them to working things out from your understanding of maths. If you had no problem getting your head round higher maths, you should find AH maths manageable. If you struggled to understand concepts in higher maths you will find AH challenging.

Overall, I would say maths is harder content wise and physics is harder workload wise but a lot depends on your own personal strengths. Also, if you enjoy a subject it suddenly becomes a lot easier, so pick whichever you find most interesting if you're not sure about difficulty.


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