Should I stay at sixth form another year to study Further Maths?

I am currently in year 12 doing Maths,Chemisty and Physics and I want to do Physics at uni. From researching online and reading tsr forums it's become pretty apparent that it will be difficult to go to a good uni without doing A level further maths.

Do you think I should stay at sixth form another year to do Further Maths a level or just apply with the three a levels I am doing.

Bearing in mind I want to be successful at my degree and go to a top uni. I love maths and I wouldn't mind doing further maths but I'm not sure how much it is worth it when doing a physics degree. Also it would mean that I would be left behind with all my friends going off to uni :frown:

I know that a physics degree is basically just an applied maths degree, but is doing a level maths enough if I want to be a competitive candidate.

If any one has any advice on physics at uni without further maths or spending another year in sixth form it would be really helpful :smile:

Reply 1

Gerry-Atricks

Could you pick up AS further maths next year?

Reply 2

S2M

Original post by mabelxxx

Depends what university. However, you can pick AS up which might help your application.

Reply 3

mabelxxx

What modules do you think would be the best. At the moment I'm doing m1 for as and m2 for a2 maths a level. Would it be better to do stats or more mechanics, or the further pure modules.

Reply 4

Gerry-Atricks

you must do fp1 for AS further maths, if you like mechanics go for m3 but be warned its tough, s2 is a cakewalk

Reply 5

almostmaybe

Original post by mabelxxx

It depends on what your definition of a 'top university' is, but I think it's the case that most undergraduate physics entrants don't offer Further Maths, and I'm not aware of anywhere where it is a formal requirement because many (perhaps most) schools won't teach Further Maths. So from an admissions points of view, you can certainly go ahead any apply without it.

From the other point of view of how much it will help you with the degree, it will certainly give you an advantage in the first year. But is that worth a whole year out? I guess it would depend if you have other plans of what you want to do in that year. But I think you could get most of the benefit by looking through the content of the first year maths courses, and doing some self study over the summer. If you're happy with complex numbers, integral and differential calculus (including partial differentiation), ODEs, vectors, basic vector calculus (grad, div and curl) taylor series, basic linear algebra and a bit of Fourier analysis, you'll find the first year straightforward. And if you don't know all those things, you'll learn them as you go along, like I did!

Reply 6

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

FM is common but it's rarely an explicit requirement and still an uncommon implicit requirement. Having prior knowledge of matrices, complex numbers, and Weierstrass substitutions is helpful but they'll teach you the former two (and possibly the latter but they may just leave you to figure that out the hard way).

Unless it's specifically stated as a requirement in the prospectus they should at least consider your application. You can always apply and then if you don't get in, do FM as a "year 14" (which is possible as long as you're under 19 when you start your course usually; you may need to pay a nominal exam fee though).