A level physics or economics?

I'm going into year 12 in a few weeks and therefore need to decide my a level options. I will be doing maths, bio and chem because I want to apply for medicine at uni but the sixth form that I am going to make you choose a 4th a level to do the exam at AS level and drop it after. My options for the 4th are physics and economics. Before it was always going to be physics but I have heard that it is extremely hard and I don't want to put pressure on myself for the 4th option when I don't want to do 4 anyways. I am predicted a 9 for GCSE in physics and maths but apparently the step up is big?. Economics sounds really interesting but I didn't do it at GCSE, however, its the only other subject I would take and essay based subjects were fine for me. Any recommendations with reasonings would be really helpful! Is physics AS that hard? Is Econ a softer subject to do to add onto maths, bio, chem? Is Econ hard if you haven't done it at GCSE??

Reply 1

Bo77 Tman

13

Do economics. Physics will take your soul and make you hate yourself. What I always say is, never do physics unless it is required by your dream course.

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

21

Original post by Grace love

I'm going into year 12 in a few weeks and therefore need to decide my a level options. I will be doing maths, bio and chem because I want to apply for medicine at uni but the sixth form that I am going to make you choose a 4th a level to do the exam at AS level and drop it after. My options for the 4th are physics and economics. Before it was always going to be physics but I have heard that it is extremely hard and I don't want to put pressure on myself for the 4th option when I don't want to do 4 anyways. I am predicted a 9 for GCSE in physics and maths but apparently the step up is big?. Economics sounds really interesting but I didn't do it at GCSE, however, its the only other subject I would take and essay based subjects were fine for me. Any recommendations with reasonings would be really helpful! Is physics AS that hard? Is Econ a softer subject to do to add onto maths, bio, chem? Is Econ hard if you haven't done it at GCSE??

Take whichever you prefer. Also note that you don't need to do a third STEM subject at all for medicine (except for Cambridge) - maths isn't required specifically either for any medical school (Cambridge accepts either maths or physics as the third subject).

Other medical schools don't care waht your third subject is normally - you could do economics, English, art, sociology, whatever. As long as it's an actual A-level and not a BTEC or WJEC Certificate or something (some like UCL may prefer it not to be an applied/vocational course like accounting/food tech or similar though), it won't affect your chances of being admitted (except as noted for Cambridge, where statistically you are unlikely to be a competitive applicant without a third STEM subject).

As for taking a fourth subject, it's not required and outside of possibly QUB (I think they changed their scoring over COVID though for this) you won't get "bonus points" for doing a fourth subject or additional AS, so just pick whatever seems interesting to you and drop it ASAP. Having something that you could see yourself continuing to A-level in case you need/want to drop another subject may be pragmatic though.

(edited 8 months ago)

A level physics or economics?

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