Applying to russell group psychology degree without the Alevel

Hello I am in year 12 and am thinking of applying to Psychology and linguistics at Oxford and some other unis. However I am currently doing bio, chem, maths and French a levels, and it’s too late to change now. To those of you who do psychology degrees, would you be at a disadvantage without the a level with regards to Russell group uni applications and degree-level study. And are there people who haven’t taken the a level and how do they fare?

Reply 1

eeeli

Original post by arshuu_kxx

I did exactly the same A-levels as you and studied Psychology at Oxford. I also applied for it at several other RG unis and got offers at all of them. So unless a specific uni you’re looking at requires A-level Psychology (never seen one that does, but do check) from an admissions perspective you’re fine as long as you can demonstrate an interest in Psychology from your own independent reading in your personal statement. They teach Psychology at Oxford basically from scratch, you will probably find you’re less familiar with the material to begin with than people who did the A-level but the course rapidly moves past what was covered in the A-level and a lot of A-level Psychology content is kind of outdated anyway. I found having Biology, Chemistry and Maths to be more useful than I think Psychology would have been as I was more prepared for the stats and neuroscience aspects of the course which tend to be harder.

I graduated this year with a First and won a prize for academic performance - hopefully that shows you do not need A-level Psychology to do well studying it at degree level! From my experience most people did do the A-level but I don’t think not having the A-level makes much of a difference after the first few weeks once you’ve got used to studying at degree level.