Should I take an advanced higher? S6 course choice

So we are doing course chive for S6 at my school and I had thought of picking 3 highers and and participate in the young enterprise course in my school to lessen the pressure.
I’m doing 4 highers and 1 Nat 5 this year and I’m predicted A’s in all 4 highers.
However the university I really want to go to is very competive especially for the course I want to study which is psychology. Should I replace the young enterprise programme with
the advanced higher instead? I really don’t know how much Scottish universities look at advance highers?

I would definitely do an advanced higher! I don’t know the psychology courses well but Unis like Edinburgh and Glasgow often like advanced highers. On a general note, having done 3 advanced highers in my 6th year, advanced highers give you a much better impression of what Uni will be like and give you a step up towards independent study which I found so helpful! In terms of what advanced higher to pick,there are definitely harder and easier ones (by quite a big difference) for example, history is very difficult (I still enjoyed it, it just took a lot more work) whereas English is relatively easy. Equally if your school offers psychology AH that’s probably the way to go. I also don’t know if this applies to you, but I’ll mention anyway- English unis require advanced highers mostly so I would check any prospective choices very carefully before selecting subjects. Hope this helps xx

My school sadly doesn’t offer advance higher psychology. But the only reason I’m asking this question is because I don’t want to be stuck doing an advanced higher that I don’t really need. If it helps for competitive uni’s then I may just have to suck it up and do one I feel like I can pass.

I would definitely do an advanced higher! I don’t know the psychology courses well but Unis like Edinburgh and Glasgow often like advanced highers. On a general note, having done 3 advanced highers in my 6th year, advanced highers give you a much better impression of what Uni will be like and give you a step up towards independent study which I found so helpful! In terms of what advanced higher to pick,there are definitely harder and easier ones (by quite a big difference) for example, history is very difficult (I still enjoyed it, it just took a lot more work) whereas English is relatively easy. Equally if your school offers psychology AH that’s probably the way to go. I also don’t know if this applies to you, but I’ll mention anyway- English unis require advanced highers mostly so I would check any prospective choices very carefully before selecting subjects. Hope this helps xx

Hi, I'm currently debating whether I should take AH English next year. I don't know if I should, I'm pretty much in the same boat as the OP haha I'm doing alright at higher, it's not great, and I definitely find close reading easier than essay writing which is not amazing since AH consists of mainly essays as far as I know. Do you think it is manageable? Is it worth it? Thanks xx

AH is definitely manageable, and I would go as far as to say it’s one of the easier advanced highers. The exam is fully essays. The first paper consists of one essay which is one on your class texts eg. Shakespeare plays or poetry etc and there’s a second paper which is an analytical essay on an unseen text (similar to what you write at higher for prepared) but I wouldn’t let that put you off. The biggest positive of the course is that it’s 60% course work, 30% dissertation (an analytical essay of your two personal chosen texts and you have unlimited time and conditions for) and 30% creative folio (exactly like at higher only advised to be longer), so it’s definitely good if you don’t enjoy being put on the spot. The only situation where I would advise against it is if your planning on doing several other exam based AHs (I took 3 and an EPQ) as that’s a huge amount of work, but AH English is very worthwhile otherwise. Hope this helps, feel free to PM me if you have any further questions x

Hi - out of curiosity, how were you able to do an EPQ - I was under the impression that was only available in England?