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Feedback on IGCSE subject choice

Hello! I will be doing IGCSE as a private candidate and will be self studying most of the subjects. Please give feedback (and even advice on being a private candidate or studying the subjects!) on my subject choices:

Exam board: CIE
- First Language English (0500)
- Literature in English (0475)
- Mathematics (0580)
- Biology (0610)
- Chemistry (0620)
- Physics (0625)
- History (0470)
- French Foreign Language (0520)

I'm still unsure about what major I want to pursue in uni, so I just chose subjects that will give me a good balance of stem and humanities. I'm more into traditional school subjects so I didn't really choose ones that are more vocational. I wanted to take subjects like art and design or drama but I couldn't because of the assessments that I can't do as a private candidate.

I chose to do individual sciences than combined science because I wanted to challenge myself and explore. (who knows I might develop a passion for it!) For Humanities, I chose to do History and English lit because I really like the syllabus and I'm assuming these humanities subjects are enough for me to gain skills I need like essay writing for future humanities A level or IB Subjects. Wanted to take geography but didn't really find the content appealing. Sociology was also on my options but someone told me that it's seen as an easy filler subject so I just disregarded it, and ended up with these subject choices.

For french, I'm still finding schools where I can do the assessment since it includes a speaking test. If I can't find one then I'll just drop it and maybe replace it with Latin?

I will be taking the exam at the British Council in my country and I'm hoping to do these in May/June 2026 sessions. Please feel free to give advice! Thank you!
Original post by janajuliette
Hello! I will be doing IGCSE as a private candidate and will be self studying most of the subjects. Please give feedback (and even advice on being a private candidate or studying the subjects!) on my subject choices:
Exam board: CIE
- First Language English (0500)
- Literature in English (0475)
- Mathematics (0580)
- Biology (0610)
- Chemistry (0620)
- Physics (0625)
- History (0470)
- French Foreign Language (0520)
I'm still unsure about what major I want to pursue in uni, so I just chose subjects that will give me a good balance of stem and humanities. I'm more into traditional school subjects so I didn't really choose ones that are more vocational. I wanted to take subjects like art and design or drama but I couldn't because of the assessments that I can't do as a private candidate.
I chose to do individual sciences than combined science because I wanted to challenge myself and explore. (who knows I might develop a passion for it!) For Humanities, I chose to do History and English lit because I really like the syllabus and I'm assuming these humanities subjects are enough for me to gain skills I need like essay writing for future humanities A level or IB Subjects. Wanted to take geography but didn't really find the content appealing. Sociology was also on my options but someone told me that it's seen as an easy filler subject so I just disregarded it, and ended up with these subject choices.
For french, I'm still finding schools where I can do the assessment since it includes a speaking test. If I can't find one then I'll just drop it and maybe replace it with Latin?
I will be taking the exam at the British Council in my country and I'm hoping to do these in May/June 2026 sessions. Please feel free to give advice! Thank you!

- First Language English (0500)
- Mathematics (0580)
- Biology (0610)
- Chemistry (0620)
- Physics (0625)
The STEM subjects are highly recommended in any country. First Language English is more or less recommend should you wish to study in an English university.
The above are more or less mandatory should you wish to study any course at university level (at least in the UK).

- Literature in English (0475)
- History (0470)
- French Foreign Language (0520)
The above are optional, and to me inconsequential. These are your choices and you should pick subjects you like the most and can obtain the highest grades in. I'm personally a fan of French, History, Geography, and Latin.

The thing is with iGCSEs is that most unis only require the bare minimum from you e.g. English Language, Maths, and possibly a few STEM iGCSEs at specific grades for specific degrees. So long you meet the grade requirements in these subjects, you're usually more than fine.
The institutions that would most likely make the biggest fuss over your subjects and grades are colleges where you intend to do your iALs at. Most who are fussy would be looking at the STEM, English Language, and Maths subjects, as I have pointed out above; since you have these you should be fine. If they do have general grade requirements, they would be looking at your grades for all your iGCSEs to see if you are academically capable. In this case, you would want to pick the subjects where you get the highest grades for subjects that aren't considered essential towards any possible course that you want to do e.g. if you can get a higher score in sociology than geography and you don't need it for your iAL choices, then pick sociology.

Other than CIE, you can do iGCSE Geography with Edexcel and OxfordAQA:
https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/International%20GCSE/Geography/2017/specification-and-sample-assessments/9781446958360-int-gcse-geog-issue-3.pdf
https://www.oxfordaqa.com/qualifications/international-gcse-geography/
Whilst the exam centres and schools aren't as common for the above exam boards as CIE, they might be a viable alternative if you look into them. Having said that, the iGCSEs should be somewhat similar across all exam boards, so even if you don't like CIE's specification chances are you won't like the others either.

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