Will taking 4 A levels affect my grades?

I am hoping to study medicine and have chosen to study Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Spanish. I would need at least three As for medicine and at GCSE I am expecting 8/9s in Science and 7/8 in Spanish. I would also be working a part time job during college. If i would be better doing 3 a levels, should i drop psychology or spanish?

Will it? No-one can really answer. Could it? Yes. If you are certain on medicine or something in the vicinity (biological sciences, psychology, etc.) there's no loss taking 3 A-levels. If you're uncertain then you may want to start with 4 and see how you get on, (if you want to drop one due to lack of interest or the workload being too large) provided your school allows this.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

psychstudent2625

14

Original post by gracet6

I am hoping to study medicine and have chosen to study Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Spanish. I would need at least three As for medicine and at GCSE I am expecting 8/9s in Science and 7/8 in Spanish. I would also be working a part time job during college. If i would be better doing 3 a levels, should i drop psychology or spanish?

if you're planning to achieve high grades alongside school life, family life and a job, maybe taking 3 is better. 4 may be a little too much and universities prefer 3 a levels well done opposed to 4, as taking 4 doesn't really give you any advantage. Also since you're taking sciences which are content heavy, you'd want to focus most of your attention on them without too many extra burdens. I think psychology may be a better a level as you'll be dealing with people in medicine, it may help you understand people better. Otherwise if you're going to study and live in a place where Spanish or any language a level is suggested or required, then you may want to consider Spanish. Good luck!

Reply 3

username5319484

19

Original post by gracet6

I am hoping to study medicine and have chosen to study Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Spanish. I would need at least three As for medicine and at GCSE I am expecting 8/9s in Science and 7/8 in Spanish. I would also be working a part time job during college. If i would be better doing 3 a levels, should i drop psychology or spanish?

Doing 4 A-levels gives you no advantage apart from at QMUL where you get extra UCAS points. It could absolutely affect your overall grades if you can't balance 4 A-levels and a job. AAA will always be better than AABB, for example. Your third subject can be anything you like excluding languages that you speak natively.

Reply 4

StudyMind

8

Original post by gracet6

I am hoping to study medicine and have chosen to study Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Spanish. I would need at least three As for medicine and at GCSE I am expecting 8/9s in Science and 7/8 in Spanish. I would also be working a part time job during college. If i would be better doing 3 a levels, should i drop psychology or spanish?

Heya! I did 4 A-levels previously but it gave me no advantage and just gave me extra stress and pressure when studying all 4 a-levels at the same time( Maths, Chem, Bio and Econ). It only gave me an advantage much later for my current masters where I'm doing Pharmaceutical with Business :smile:

(having economics paid off!) Usually the universities require 3 a-levels and Russell groups medicine courses usually require high grades for them as well. As people mentioned previously, AAA is better than AABB especially when universities look at it. I would recommend doing one of the a-levels as an extracurricular rather than an a-level by itself perhaps!

You could also try out doing 4 and then drop 1 if you find it too overwhelming later on! Some of my friends did that when they found the amount of work being too much. If you are looking to start looking into a-level material, I would recommend checking out these free resources :smile:

Hope this helps!
Milena G.
UCL PFE
Study Mind

Reply 5

alishachelsea

3

I’d suggest only taking 4 A levels if 1 of them will be an easy A/A* for you. In my case, I took Chemistry, Physics, Math, Further Maths at the start of 6th form and later dropped Chemistry (when I mean later, it was about 5 days later). I have to say this was the best decision I made since I found myself focusing a lot more on my other subjects and saw my grades improve. If you decide on taking 3 subjects and is confused on which 3 to choose, you could always take up an additional subject to see which you enjoy the most and drop the ones you might not be as strong at or isn’t needed for your choice of degree.

Reply 6

Cupcakes12

18

4 A levels is alot of workload, but it does not necessarily mean your grades are going to be lower. I did 4 and it wasn't too bad because 2 of my subjects had coursework so I only had to do 10 exams, I know some people were doing 13 exams which is insane. I will say though, that if you are aiming for 4 As/A*s then you need to be prepared to make other sacrifices, such as not getting a job / working less hours, or giving up some of your social life. I barely saw my school friends outside of school except for occasional birthdays and stuff, but I still carried on going to rangers and guides and orchestra.

(edited 1 year ago)

Will taking 4 A levels affect my grades?

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you