Computer Science A Level Choices

further maths students tend to be either a lot more engaged and interested in maths than core maths students OR they have a very strong natural aptitude for maths hence they will thrive taking further maths.

take FM if you want to do CS at university because it will be useful.CS uni courses (from my belief) start from scratch and assume you have no prior knowledge of CS

I'm in year 11 and thinking of doing maths, physics and computer science. After having looked at the proportion of students getting a* and a at A level, there is a much larger amount of students getting it in further maths than computing. Why is this and is it better to take further maths or computing for a degree in computing?

Further Maths is a lot more self selecting, very few people choose FM who don't really enjoy maths, and those that don't often drop out before taking the full FM A Level. Whereas there are many many more people who choose CS who aren't that great at it, meaning a much smaller percentage get the top marks. This means that it isn't necessarily easier to get A* in FM than CS.

Personally I'd say if you are only doing 3 A Levels, then taking Maths and FM is a bit risky as in my experience there is a high drop out rate, and if you are only taking 3 subjects you risk not being able to drop it if you find spending 2/3 of your time doing maths too much. Historically CS has not been particularly wanted by unis for CS degrees, however that is changing, and I'd say currently it's on par with Physics for how preferred it is. Maths is the most wanted (and in many unis, especially ones with high entry requirements, Maths is a required A Level) and top unis seem to really like Further Maths. However if you are taking 3 A Levels some unis apparently aren't very happy if two of them are Maths and FM (although I couldn't tell you which or how much of a problem it is as it wasn't something I needed to worry about having taken 4 A Levels).

I'd say the "safest" set of subjects to take for a degree in CS at a top uni is Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Computer Science. But if you don't want to take 4 subjects or for some other reason aren't able to take 4, then I'd say taking CS is probably going to be an easier subject to get a good grade in (my experience at least) and the set of subjects is a bit broader, but FM may be better if applying to places like Imperial or Oxbridge, where the majority of successful applicants will have both Maths and FM (although taking FM will in no way guarantee a place at these unis)