A-Level Option Trawl Help!

Okay, so if youre not aiming for Cambridge/lse and are not keen on taking further maths that’s absolutely fine! There’s no point pushing yourself toward a subject that you dont feel passionate about because it’ll make your life a lot harder.
If you do 4 subjects you’ll have more homework (and you can get about 5 hours a week at a level depending on the teacher/subject) and less free/study periods. These differences make it harder to get the same high grades with 4 subjects compared to 3. For example, say if you did 3 subjects you might get 10 hours per week non-class (free/study period) time and 15 hours of homework. So if you worked all the time at school you’d have 5 hours of homework to do outside of school. If you did 4 subjects you’d have say 5 hours of frees/study periods and 20 hours of homework so 15 hours outside of school. Obviously it will vary how many study periods and how much homework you get depending on your sixth form but that’s just to give you an idea of how it affects timings!
I do both biology and maths for a level and what i will say is that biology has an insane amount of homework and content! It’s only a term into year 12 and i have over 1000 flashcards already for Biology alone if that helps you put it in context. Maths is less of a struggle because i already know a lot of the content from fsmq which i did in year 11 but you do need to dedicate time outside of lessons to do practice questions regularly or you will just forget how to do stuff. If you’d like to know anything else about maths/bio let me know 🙂
My advice would be to plan to take all 4 and see how the rest of year 11 goes. You might study a topic in biology/chemistry later this year which you hate and decide that its not for you, or you might do the opposite and love a new topic which edges one science over the other. Ultimately, the rest of year 11 will likely be a test of how much you enjoy your subjects because when you really have to put the hours in you’ll start to know which subjects are better for you than others. Even if on results day youre still not sure about what subject to take, you could start year 12 with all 4 and then drop one when you’ve got an idea of how the subjects are at a level or once you’ve made a decision about what degree youre more passionate about.
When i was in year 11 i was undecided between astrophysics or something in biosciences so i took some online courses and watched some documentaries which lead me to decide I preferred biosciences over physics and wanted to pursue that (keeping learning about space and astronomy as a hobby!). So I decided not to do further maths to save myself some work! Over the next few months or the year 11 summer it might be worth doing the same with econ and medicine and seeing if it helps you to decide.
Unis dont care whether you’ve done 3 or 4 subjects unless almost everyone in your sixth form has done 4 and you do 3.
Hope that helps 🙂

https://harvard-ukadmissions.co.uk/applying-from-uk/who-are-we-looking-for/
For Harvard: "We do prefer that students take the most rigorous programme available to them, so an A level student, for example, should normally take four A levels rather than three. But we do understand that in some schools three A levels are the norm, and in fact sometimes four are not allowed. We would not penalise a student if their school limits them to three. For students in England and Wales, taking an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) on top of three or four A levels is always good – it’s looked upon as a good preparatory exercise for university where that kind of research and writing will be required."
FAQs: https://harvard-ukadmissions.co.uk/faq-links/

Thanks for your patience! Yes I think I will take all 4 and then see whether I can manage it or not. I think I might be able to because I do 12 GCSEs now alongside 9+ hours of hobbies weekly. So yes I think I will do all 4, then maybe I'll drop one if I want.

Glad you’ve made a decision- best of luck with your GCSEs btw!

Thank you very much. Aah yes, I am also going to be doing EPQ, so that will be 5 haha. I am doing HPQ right now and it's not too difficult at all 🧿. So I do not think it would add too much pressure if I do EPQ as well.

I do these GCSEs: Further Maths, English Lit, English Lang, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Economics, Psychology, German, Music and did my maths GCSE in year 9.
In my Year 10 and 11 mocks, I got all 9s (except for further maths)
I want to go into like Economics and Finance/ Business and Economics (in like Bocconi Uni or any other really good economics unis) or a field like that, but I also want to keep some sciences in case I want to go into medicine or dentistry because I am thinking of that career path as well.
I was thinking of doing Maths, Biology, Chemistry and Economics but I'm not too sure because I feel like they're very demanding subjects. I was thinking of potentially dropping one of them to make sure that I can get top grades in all of them, instead of picking 4 and getting Bs instead of picking 3 and getting As.
Can anyone help me?

No worries, gl and have a great holidays 😊

You don’t need economics for an economics degree you, but you do need maths. Further maths is very important for 2 universities-Cambridge and lse, and helpful (but definitely not necessary) for some others.
For medicine/dentistry, biology and chemistry are both important.
On that basis it would make sense to take biology, chemistry, maths, and possibly further maths(and I very much agree with you that 4 a levels should not be taken unless they include further maths, and even then only if you really like maths). If you don’t want to take further maths don’t suffer through it-though it will rule out LSE economics courses.
An economics epq could be a good alternative to a full a level in the subject, as there is a lower workload and you can explore what you find interesting. Wider reading in economics can give you enough knowledge before starting university, where they’ll teach from the ground up.
I read through some replies. DO NOT take 4 a levels and an epq, or at least don’t expect to. 12 GCSEs is not comparable to 3 a levels, let alone 4(not even close). A levels are so much more work.
I can understand taking bio, chem, maths, econ(though I wouldn’t recommend that high of a workload). And like I said, 3 a levels + epq is a great combination. But I think, like a lot of people including myself, you are seriously overestimating the amount of time you could or should devote to a level study. There is no reward for breadth of subjects at a levels-by design specialisation is encouraged and far more manageable. An epq isn’t particularly useful on top of 4 a levels besides maybe teaching you how to reference, which isn’t hard. Essay competitions would develop the same skills.

Thank you. I think I will stick to my 4 A-Levels (not that I'm not going to follow your advice). Economics (because I do enjoy it), Maths, Biology and Chemistry (because I want to keep my options open and I truly do enjoy the subjects. However, I am not sure how difficult the content is and how many papers there are for each. Maybe I will just not do EPQ because I am already doing HPQ. Or I could just work on my EPQ alone or quickly at the beginning of the year to finish it and then focus on my other works. Like I finished my HPQ project during this Christmas Break and it only took me 2 weeks. 1 for the write up and 1 for the presentation. My supervisor just needs to give me feedback and I can act upon it. What do you think because I think I should do 4 A-Levels to also make my personal CV for uni look better.

Okay, so if youre not aiming for Cambridge/lse and are not keen on taking further maths that’s absolutely fine! There’s no point pushing yourself toward a subject that you dont feel passionate about because it’ll make your life a lot harder.
If you do 4 subjects you’ll have more homework (and you can get about 5 hours a week at a level depending on the teacher/subject) and less free/study periods. These differences make it harder to get the same high grades with 4 subjects compared to 3. For example, say if you did 3 subjects you might get 10 hours per week non-class (free/study period) time and 15 hours of homework. So if you worked all the time at school you’d have 5 hours of homework to do outside of school. If you did 4 subjects you’d have say 5 hours of frees/study periods and 20 hours of homework so 15 hours outside of school. Obviously it will vary how many study periods and how much homework you get depending on your sixth form but that’s just to give you an idea of how it affects timings!
I do both biology and maths for a level and what i will say is that biology has an insane amount of homework and content! It’s only a term into year 12 and i have over 1000 flashcards already for Biology alone if that helps you put it in context. Maths is less of a struggle because i already know a lot of the content from fsmq which i did in year 11 but you do need to dedicate time outside of lessons to do practice questions regularly or you will just forget how to do stuff. If you’d like to know anything else about maths/bio let me know 🙂
My advice would be to plan to take all 4 and see how the rest of year 11 goes. You might study a topic in biology/chemistry later this year which you hate and decide that its not for you, or you might do the opposite and love a new topic which edges one science over the other. Ultimately, the rest of year 11 will likely be a test of how much you enjoy your subjects because when you really have to put the hours in you’ll start to know which subjects are better for you than others. Even if on results day youre still not sure about what subject to take, you could start year 12 with all 4 and then drop one when you’ve got an idea of how the subjects are at a level or once you’ve made a decision about what degree youre more passionate about.
When i was in year 11 i was undecided between astrophysics or something in biosciences so i took some online courses and watched some documentaries which lead me to decide I preferred biosciences over physics and wanted to pursue that (keeping learning about space and astronomy as a hobby!). So I decided not to do further maths to save myself some work! Over the next few months or the year 11 summer it might be worth doing the same with econ and medicine and seeing if it helps you to decide.
Unis dont care whether you’ve done 3 or 4 subjects unless almost everyone in your sixth form has done 4 and you do 3.
Hope that helps 🙂

Thank you. I think I will stick to my 4 A-Levels (not that I'm not going to follow your advice). Economics (because I do enjoy it), Maths, Biology and Chemistry (because I want to keep my options open and I truly do enjoy the subjects. However, I am not sure how difficult the content is and how many papers there are for each. Maybe I will just not do EPQ because I am already doing HPQ. Or I could just work on my EPQ alone or quickly at the beginning of the year to finish it and then focus on my other works. Like I finished my HPQ project during this Christmas Break and it only took me 2 weeks. 1 for the write up and 1 for the presentation. My supervisor just needs to give me feedback and I can act upon it. What do you think because I think I should do 4 A-Levels to also make my personal CV for uni look better.

Hey I loved your advice and I’m kind of dealing with the same issue. I’m on a gap year rn and am so confused for my a level subject combination. I’m thinking maths, further maths,chem and bio or maths, further maths, chem and eco. I love maths so I think I might wanna do a math related course Like maths and economics but I also might wanna become a doctor but I just don’t really enjoy biology Like the diseases and stuff are interesting and I like studying about the human body but the plants section just bores me and then I hear med students complaining about the work load and stress which makes me even more confused cuz if I do medicine I wanna become a surgeon and that is one hell of a job.
I did sciences in my GCSE’s so I’m a little worried about eco too cuz what if I don’t enjoy it if I choose it in A levels.
I love chemistry and understand it well maybe it was cuz of our gcse teacher but I wanna keep chemistry.
And further maths I think I can do if I love maths.
Please help me make a decision.

Hi again everyone!
Unfortunately my school sent the a level options and bio and Econ clash!
So now I’m considering going into dentistry instead but having Econ and finance for uni as my backup
Since I don’t need Econ for an Econ degree, I’ll do bio instead but I want to do a fourth one.
I am doing German at gcse already and was thinking if I should do it for a level or if I should do something like business which I’ve never done before or psychology which I am also doing at gcse.
Any advice?