Will not doing FM be a disadvantage?

Hello, I am in Year 12 studying Maths, History, Biology and Psychology. I have recently been regretting my sixth form choice as I was lead to believe when I applied that they offered Further Maths, but by the time it was too late I was told they do not offer it.

I really want to do a Mathematics undergrad course at a good university but I am scared they will not accept me as my AS subjects are so broad and I do not have Further Maths. I doubt my sixth form will incorporate Further Maths next year so I won't have a chance to just do the AS.

I was wondering whether taking a Gap year after year 13 would be a good idea so I could do a full A-Level in FM?

Any advice would be good thank you.

Sure your gap year idea sounds good. You might also want to think about getting a personal tutor and study further maths alongside your a levels. You should definitely try to apply to uni after year 13 even if you dont have further maths to see if u can get in.

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I was thinking about asking my sixth form if I could sit the FM exams there and self-teach myself at A2, but do you think I will survive doing Maths A2, History A2 and Further Maths AS+A2?

I was thinking about asking my sixth form if I could sit the FM exams there and self-teach myself at A2, but do you think I will survive doing Maths A2, History A2 and Further Maths AS+A2?

Hate to bring bad news, but you will not survive doing that. I'm in Year 13 and took Maths, History, Economics & Politics at AS-Level, and that was a big enough work load. I dropped Politics and considered taking on FM but it's much better to just concentrate on your Maths and get your A*. History is THE most demanding A2 course going, in terms of the knowledge you have to recall in the exam. Hope this helps

It's definitley doable!! As long as you plan well!!

What exam board did you do for History? And thank you for the info! I am looking at Universities and most of the top ones want FM, but some to atleast AS!



Thank you!

Have a look at some of the universities that you want to go to and their entry requirements. They may require at least an AS in Further Maths and a certain grade in STEP. I would say it's not too late to teach yourself the AS this year but that would depend on how you're finding the workload already. I think my teachers made sure to include in my reference that I was self-teaching FM as my school did not offer it, which probably helped with my application for Maths.

Whether it's doable is up to you, I s'pose. I took up AS and A2 in Year 13 along with A2 Maths, Physics and Chemistry and I'm studying at Bath. Good luck!

Edexcel is my Hisory Exam board. Doing FM to AS will definitely be doable, and you can inform your Uni's that you weren't able to do it to A2 for specific reasons.

Have you spoken to your sixth form about taking part in the Further Maths Support Programme?
My school don't offer A2 FM, and timetable clashes meant that I couldn't do AS FM in Year 13, so they put me and one A2 FM student into said programme so we could do them.

I have never heard about that Programme before, I am finding it hard to understand what it does could you explain please?

Oh! what grades did you come out with after year 13? So you did A2 Maths, A2 Physics, A2 Chemistry and AS+A2 FM? That seems like a lot more than what I was going to do!

Yeah, I did all of those. It helped that Maths and Further Maths felt similar in terms of what was expected of me, as did Physics and Chemistry. Not sure how balancing History instead of Physics and Chemistry at A2 would've worked or whether the two combined requires more work than History..

I ended up with A*AAB with the A* in Maths and the B in Chemistry. It took alot of work juggling 5 things at once. My school advised me that I was spreading myself out too thinly. Yeah, I could've done better but even with that workload I think by exam time I was like.. nope, I've done all I need to, I can't say that I didn't work hard enough, etc.

I originally planned to do BOTH AEA and STEP (before I knew what they actually were) but ended up not doing either. Phew. Again, whether you need to take those exams should affect your decision.

So yeah.. I'd recommend doing at least the AS. It shouldn't be too stretching if you're doing A2 maths and you pick the right modules for it. It's also never too early to start looking at unis, courses and entry requirements.

I have never heard about that Programme before, I am finding it hard to understand what it does could you explain please?

Wow! Congratulations on your amazing grades! I don't think History would be more work than Chemistry and Physics together, I will definitely try to do atleast AS in FM, I have heard about AEA and STEP but I don't really know what they are or what they test as my school or no one has informed me yet