Should I retake Maths or do Psychology?

Hi, I’ve posted most of this before, but I thought it relevant to provide some context as I think it might prove relevant to my questions.

So basically I started sixth form in 2018; I attended a completely new school, so had to adjust to new people & teachers, & the 3 original subjects I chose were Maths, Eng Lit & Chemistry. I’d be lying if I said it had all started off as well as I wanted it to in regards to work ethic, but about 2 months in, just when I thought I was beginning to get a grip of what A levels entailed a load of personal life problems started to crop up; my best friend from my old secondary school was killed in a car accident, not long after this my mother had a stroke and my siblings throughout the year just kept on having more and more issues. A lot of these really shook me up, for the entirety of year 12 I just sort of drifted; I felt like I had nobody to talk to & I would honestly just try to get through my lessons, which I didn't enjoy (esp Maths & Chemistry) as opposed to trying to learn. I finished the year with awful grades and I just kept putting on weight. When summer came around I felt a little more focused & decided to try and make a change to try and stop the repeat of year 12 happening in year 13, and decided I’d return in the summer and speak to my school to drop chemistry (my most hated subject, however Maths wasn’t far behind). My school spoke to me & said it should be fine; they said that I could continue in Maths & English in year 13 and complete the exams in the summer as planned, and that I would be able to take history in year 12 and then take a year sort of year 14 where I spend the year only doing history. This was great and honestly year 13, although not perfect, went much better for me; I put more work in and really tried to save my grades (which was a really difficult challenge in itself), but then of course covid happened and halted the entire country.

This proved to throw a huge spanner in the works. I had managed to increase my grades by perhaps one in English, but I was really banking on the fact I would sit the exams in the summer in an attempt to save myself (esp in Maths), however this obviously didn’t happen. I knew I would fail maths as things stand so I just hoped I would get at least a B in English as I could work with that for uni. When results day came around, I would be lying if I said I didn’t know I had already screwed up, and ended up getting a B in English Lit, a B in EPQ & a D in Maths. The two B’s I was content with, but I knew I’d have to retake maths in order to get into any uni, let alone the good ones.

Eventually “year 14” came round (this year) and my focus shifted entirely to history. Now this is where I feel like I made a mistake. I tried to be strategic and clever regarding Maths and I think it may have come back to bite me. Essentially, I went into the year thinking I’d use the lessons at school and learn History with the support of my 6th form, then use a service called uplearn and learn the entirety of the Maths course through that & then sit all of the exams (History & Maths) at the end of the year, however around October time, I had decided I wouldn’t be applying for university next year (to attend in summer 2021), as my Mum’s health still wasn’t great, & instead planned on going the year after (for the 2022 summer) when I'm 20 and thought it might be best if I focused entirely on history this year, then do the entirety of the maths course next year as I knew I wouldn’t be going & then when I did go to apply through UCAS, I would also have two actually A levels & a EPQ to apply with and probably a predicted grade around an A in Maths (as uplearn guarantee and A or A* or your money back).

This is where it gets a little harder to explain really; as the year went on I decided that in order to do maths, I'd need to relearn everything anyway, and realised that it wasn't a required subject for any of the uni courses I intend on applying to, so I decided instead of putting myself through the pain of A-level maths again, that I would probably be better off learning an entirely different subject all together and decided on learning psychology instead; uplearn offer a course on it & its also a subject I've always been interested in.

On results day 2021 and I got a B in history; which isn’t great at all. This means I currently have BBD + B in EPQ (which is a really bad set of grades) which not only means I will definitely need an A in psychology to get into my uni choices, but I would’ve also spent 4 years doing A levels, which Russell group Unis will look down on.

We are now in October 2021 and I’ve done about 20% of the entire psychology course (what it says on uplearn) and honestly I’m enjoying it, however I’m not sure if I would’ve been better off retaking maths instead. I want to apply to law at a Russell group university (hopefully one of Edinburgh, Sheffield and Cardiff; I get widening access for these 3 so I get one grade lower then required) and would have A ( predicted grade) and BBD + B in row as actual grades, however I’m not dead set on law; and I’ve been looking at other courses such as Economics and Medicine with a foundation year courses (I’m about 99% sure I won’t stand a chance for this), but they require maths. What I’m essentially wondering is; is it better to retake then take a new a level? Would I be able to put a predicted grade for maths instead of the actual grade itself? And if any of you are familiar with uplearn, is it possible for me to learn the entire a level maths course from now to exams in the summer from that? Or am I better off just doing psychology? Is it looked down upon if you don’t retake and take a new a level entirely? Do people often do that?

This may all sound like drivel to some people & many of you may not care, but I would love to hear peoples thoughts as well as hopefully getting some questions answered and insight into things. I do enjoy psychology a lot more then Maths but I honestly feel Maths opens a lot more doors. I do honestly feel I’ve messed up at every turn so I’m hoping I can still salvage something from it at this point.

Sorry for the long barrage of information, but I wanted to get it off my chest and I will be very grateful for any help.

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 1

Callmeblackz

Hello,I just want to say what I’m about to say is my opinion and you shouldn’t only take this into account when making decisions.When applying for Russell group universities retakes aren’t accepted(check on UCAS).As for maths,it won’t be easy as you said it isn’t a subject you particularly enjoy but maths will widen your career paths so I would honestly retake it so you have more to work with especially if you wanna do a degree in economics not medicine(need chemistry which you said you didn’t like).I cannot give you an opinion on Uplearn as I haven’t used it.But yh hopefully you got an ounce of use from that and let me know if this helps

Reply 2

kzboy7

Original post by Callmeblackz

Hi thank you for the reply; all of the RG unis I plan on applying to do accept retakes. Honestly, economics aside; does it matter if I take one or the other; is it better to retake a subject or take a new on altogether or does it not matter? Honestly when I wrote this a few days ago Economics was floating around in my mind, I hadn’t looked into it that much and just thought it could be a good option, but I’ll hopefully end up doing either psychology or law. Again thank you very much for the reply; I honestly thought this post wouldn’t receive anything

Reply 3

Callmeblackz

Original post by kzboy7

so sorry for the wait.I am doing Economics and it is a good subject to take in my opinion.I would say doing a retake is the easier option as you have already familiarised yourself with the subject but if you have had struggles with the subject than doing a new subject is a new idea.Ps, Don't do Econ if you hate drawing diagrams(only joking),Hopefully that was useful.