The Student Room Group

A Level choices

I’m unsure whether to do 3 or 4 a levels.

At my current school they advise doing 4 and then dropping one after the first year. But at another school I visit they strongly believe that 3 is a good amount to do and discourage doing 4.

If I did 3 A levels I’d do maths, history and economics and I’m unsure what I’d do for a 4th.

What are the benefits of doing 4 as I think that doing 3 would be okay. If I stayed at my current school though they’d definitely push me to do 4 and I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do.
When I went into sixth-form and did my A-Levels we HAD to do 4 for the first year, and drop down to 3 in our second year, if we did well enough. If we had been given the choice to do three or four then, personally, I definitely would've gone for three.

I'm by no means a very academic person, but I really struggled trying to do all the work for four different A-Levels.

I would say that doing three is your best bet, unless you really feel like you would be able to do four.

Good luck!!
I was considering doing four because I really wanted to study media studies on top of my other three subjects but I was unsure about the workload of doing four. Then someone basically told me something along the lines of that “it’s better to get 3 As than 2 As and 2 Bs”
So yeah I would recommend you do three and put your absolute effort into them and don’t spread yourself thin by doing four just for the sake of it. There’s literally no advantage to doing four and if you’re thinking of going to uni they will only ask for three A-levels so like it just seems like a whole load of extra work for nothing tbh.
I strongly suggest you say no to 4 A-Levels. Universities will only ever require you to do 3. The only exception to this I'd say, would be if you can take an A-Level in a language you're already native in (so Arabic, Polish, etc.).

Otherwise, it really is a waste of your time and effort, when 3 A-levels are already difficult, and will be extremely demanding for those who have whizzed past high school with A*s and a night of revision before each subject (be there, done that, sis.)

If you have a specific career in mind already, before picking A-Levels on Induction Day, please go to https://digital.ucas.com/search - find some good Russel Group universities and see the A-Level requirements for each degree/subject they offer. They never change throughout the years (especially in hard subjects, sciences or standard routes like English, Law, Psychology etc., perhaps in the more liberal arts they possibly may accept new A-Levels.)
I say Russel Group ones, because they are very good universities to consider, and set a de-facto standard for the other unis to base their stuff on sometimes.

Then, choose the A-levels that will get you accepted onto this subject. You will also notice that none of them require you to do 4 A-Levels - and would much rather you get good performance in 3 than mixed grades in 4.

Hope this helps :wink: Any more questions about A-Level choices, feel free to ask.

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