is taking 4 A-levels worth it??

10

I'm currently making my choices for what A-levels i want to do next year and I was set on my choice to do History, Biology, and Psychology but today I've been to my school's open evening for sixth form and I've discovered that Law is an option and would help me in the future since I want to do forensic psychology, but since I don't want to not pick any of the other subjects I REALLY want to do, I'd be allowed to pick all 4 but I'm sure whether it'd be worth it since many unis don't give advantages for more than 3 A-Levels. any advice??

Reply 1

BigFriendlyKid

14

Original post

by 5pr1nkl3r

I'm currently making my choices for what A-levels i want to do next year and I was set on my choice to do History, Biology, and Psychology but today I've been to my school's open evening for sixth form and I've discovered that Law is an option and would help me in the future since I want to do forensic psychology, but since I don't want to not pick any of the other subjects I REALLY want to do, I'd be allowed to pick all 4 but I'm sure whether it'd be worth it since many unis don't give advantages for more than 3 A-Levels. any advice??

you can pick 4 and drop one after year 12 if it becomes too much.

Reply 2

username6993523

1

Hi! Ultimately, its your decision but I have a few things that might help.

1.

Law isnt an extremely rated or helpful A-level to most univeritieis: it is rarely offered and offers a niche variety of skills. EG. History shows you are capable of reasoning, writing, extracting information etc; law doesnt have the same breadth. I am not sure about this being worth the extra work of a fourth A level.

2.

That said, you can always take the fourth A-level and drop it. If you are going in with this mindset, it isn't the best sign, but is a useful fact to remember.

3.

Unis do not give any advantages at all, that is true. They will only ever offer with three grades. What does give an advantage is a qualification like an EPQ.

Essentially, I don't think there is much benefit in terms of university to taking a fourth A-level. The reason you should take it is if you think you are very passionate about it, and you find it interesting. The other reason would be to open more course options up to you, but that is non-applicable here since you have already made your mind up.

I hope this helps and dont stress too much! I had major panics in my first few weeks of 6th form wondering if I made the right choice, but you'll find that A-levels are a lot mor versatile (and busy) then you may think

Reply 3

Bethliography

14

Original post

by 5pr1nkl3r

I'm currently making my choices for what A-levels i want to do next year and I was set on my choice to do History, Biology, and Psychology but today I've been to my school's open evening for sixth form and I've discovered that Law is an option and would help me in the future since I want to do forensic psychology, but since I don't want to not pick any of the other subjects I REALLY want to do, I'd be allowed to pick all 4 but I'm sure whether it'd be worth it since many unis don't give advantages for more than 3 A-Levels. any advice??

Hey! In my experience, I really don't think doing 4 is worth it. It doesn't really give you any advantage in looking for Unis. I didn't do History or Biology but they're very essay-heavy subjects, and for Psychology which I did do there is such a large amount of content to learn that I don't think it'd be worth the extra stress for another A-level.

As others have said, you could always pick 4 and then drop 1. However, when it comes time to pick whether or not you do an EPQ you could always centre that around Law in some way if that's something you're interested in. It's completely up to you, good luck with everything!

Reply 4

tasha.ki

5

Original post

by 5pr1nkl3r

I'm currently making my choices for what A-levels i want to do next year and I was set on my choice to do History, Biology, and Psychology but today I've been to my school's open evening for sixth form and I've discovered that Law is an option and would help me in the future since I want to do forensic psychology, but since I don't want to not pick any of the other subjects I REALLY want to do, I'd be allowed to pick all 4 but I'm sure whether it'd be worth it since many unis don't give advantages for more than 3 A-Levels. any advice??

In my experience it wasn’t worth it bc it was a lot more stressful, dropped it before y12 even ended (3 months in). I would say pick 4 if you are still not 100% sure, idk how your sixth for is like but for me once i got a feel for how all my courses were structured i dropped the one i disliked most. I would say the only disadvantage to taking only 3 is that if you dont like one of your 3 subjects and wanna switch it out to something later on it’ll be really difficult to catch up workload wise, so i’d just take 4 since you can easily drop it anytime. But id say take 4 with the intention of dropping one once you’ve decided, like others said no point in doing 4 and in my opinion theres no point in doing 4 for a full year, i dropped mine pretty quickly and was happy that i did it when i did it

Reply 5

BookWorm578

12

Do what you will enjoy. If 4 ends up being too much then just drop one once you have a better insight. Having said this know yourself and your limits

Reply 6

GenKun1311

7

Original post

by 5pr1nkl3r

I'm currently making my choices for what A-levels i want to do next year and I was set on my choice to do History, Biology, and Psychology but today I've been to my school's open evening for sixth form and I've discovered that Law is an option and would help me in the future since I want to do forensic psychology, but since I don't want to not pick any of the other subjects I REALLY want to do, I'd be allowed to pick all 4 but I'm sure whether it'd be worth it since many unis don't give advantages for more than 3 A-Levels. any advice??

I only did 3 alevels but from what I've heard from others it can be quite overwhelming. Majority of unis won't care if you've done 3 or 4, and doing 3 gives you more free periods and more time to do extra things to boost your application. If you are really passionate about all 4 subjects then it might be worth it for you, but if you're hesitant on one and don't need it for your future degree I would say drop it. My older sister does computer science at uni and she did 4 alevels. She ended up getting A*AAB. The B was in chemistry because she gave up on it and realised she didn't need it. It honestly depends on your capabilities and passion because some people can handle it. I know I wouldn't be able to as I'm not good at taking exams and I find the amount of revision for just 3 quite stressful.

Reply 7

GenKun1311

7

Original post

by GenKun1311

I only did 3 alevels but from what I've heard from others it can be quite overwhelming. Majority of unis won't care if you've done 3 or 4, and doing 3 gives you more free periods and more time to do extra things to boost your application. If you are really passionate about all 4 subjects then it might be worth it for you, but if you're hesitant on one and don't need it for your future degree I would say drop it. My older sister does computer science at uni and she did 4 alevels. She ended up getting A*AAB. The B was in chemistry because she gave up on it and realised she didn't need it. It honestly depends on your capabilities and passion because some people can handle it. I know I wouldn't be able to as I'm not good at taking exams and I find the amount of revision for just 3 quite stressful.

It could be worth taking 4 in the beginning and then dropping one if you find it too much, a lot of people at my sixth form ended up switching out of courses pretty quickly after starting year 12

is taking 4 A-levels worth it??

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