options for a level - pls help

hi nandini here
- i think ive asked this question before and can't find the og chat thread and needed a bit mroe advice!
so for my a level options i know im taking bio chem maths
i want to take further maths, because i enjoy maths, however ive been told by many people that there is no reason for me to take it unless i want to at uni..
however i have a reasoning for this
- under the circumstance i do not enjoy the medicine route, i am aware many unis have economics courses that require maths and further maths so that opens another pathway for me
however i just want to know- is it the correct decision - am i better of taking psychology or doing epq?
i appreciate any advice!!

hi nandini here
- i think ive asked this question before and can't find the og chat thread and needed a bit mroe advice!
so for my a level options i know im taking bio chem maths
i want to take further maths, because i enjoy maths, however ive been told by many people that there is no reason for me to take it unless i want to at uni..
however i have a reasoning for this
- under the circumstance i do not enjoy the medicine route, i am aware many unis have economics courses that require maths and further maths so that opens another pathway for me
however i just want to know- is it the correct decision - am i better of taking psychology or doing epq?
i appreciate any advice!!

Hi there, from what I could tell by looking at your GYG, you don't really do that well in geography. Geography GCSE has a decent bit of economics I've heard. If you really are a STEM based person you are better of being a STEM based person. This is truthfully something I wish someone had told me at the beginning of Year 12. I personally was projected to get an A* in Maths during year 12 but I got an A due to the stress that being terrible at economics caused me. My predicteds are now AAC with an A already achieved in Maths. STEM people should just stick to stem. Don't put yourself through essay based trauma like I did so please don't go for psych. 🥲
On a side note I remember a bunch of psych students who literally cried to my form tutor about their predicteds. Physical tears. It was a terrible site to see. Chem is decent but without an efficient revision system from the start you'll fall apart and Bio is content heavy. I once looked at what the Bio students had to memorise and it was this large thick booklet, they then told me this was only one of the many booklets they had to memorise.
If you have any questions about further maths I could answer aswell.

Many medicine applicants take further maths as well.
Something to note, a faltering dedication to the hardest and longest course and career isn't even going to be enough to get you into the medical school, even if you do you have 5ish years of studying at medical school, then practical exams and then exams while you are a doctor to get a fellowship and then exams to specialise and then exams to progress up the ranks. All while working far more hours than the average person and not getting paid much for it. You either really want to do it or you shouldn't at all.
Best of luck.

hi yeah i completely agree! i do want to go into medicine, but i just wanted to keep a fall back option yk )

Hi there, from what I could tell by looking at your GYG, you don't really do that well in geography. Geography GCSE has a decent bit of economics I've heard. If you really are a STEM based person you are better of being a STEM based person. This is truthfully something I wish someone had told me at the beginning of Year 12. I personally was projected to get an A* in Maths during year 12 but I got an A due to the stress that being terrible at economics caused me. My predicteds are now AAC with an A already achieved in Maths. STEM people should just stick to stem. Don't put yourself through essay based trauma like I did so please don't go for psych. 🥲
On a side note I remember a bunch of psych students who literally cried to my form tutor about their predicteds. Physical tears. It was a terrible site to see. Chem is decent but without an efficient revision system from the start you'll fall apart and Bio is content heavy. I once looked at what the Bio students had to memorise and it was this large thick booklet, they then told me this was only one of the many booklets they had to memorise.
If you have any questions about further maths I could answer aswell.

Hi Nandini! Obviously everyone has their own experience but just wanted to contradict this view. I SUCKED at Geography and even though I wanted to take it as a GCSE, I was advised not to purely because of how rubbish I was at it. I'm now predicted an A* in Economics. But yeah, I would agree that there is some crossover with Economics and Geography, specifically human geography. Another thing I would say is that at GCSE I was a hardcore STEM student but now I have offers to study Economics at university. Yes, you have to write essays for Economics A Level but it is very formulaic in the way you write them, you just have to write chains to reasoning (this leads to this which leads to this which leads to...) and work in a few real-world examples along the way. Also drawing diagrams is a great way to get marks and waffling will get you nowhere, it doesn't feel like a typical essay-based subject (to me at least, everyone is entitled to their own opinion). I don't do psych but a lot of my friends do and I haven't heard them say anything bad about it (for most of them it's their fav subject). Also I do further maths and although I'm currently not doing great, I think it's manageable if you do regular practice and stay on top of the work (don't start playing 2048 cupcakes in class otherwise you end up with a C in your mocks like I did lol). As long as you're systematic in the way you revise and you make sure to address any gaps in your knowledge ASAP I don't think further maths is that bad. Let me know if you have any more questions!

hi nandini here
- i think ive asked this question before and can't find the og chat thread and needed a bit mroe advice!
so for my a level options i know im taking bio chem maths
i want to take further maths, because i enjoy maths, however ive been told by many people that there is no reason for me to take it unless i want to at uni..
however i have a reasoning for this
- under the circumstance i do not enjoy the medicine route, i am aware many unis have economics courses that require maths and further maths so that opens another pathway for me
however i just want to know- is it the correct decision - am i better of taking psychology or doing epq?
i appreciate any advice!!

hi nandini here
- i think ive asked this question before and can't find the og chat thread and needed a bit mroe advice!
so for my a level options i know im taking bio chem maths
i want to take further maths, because i enjoy maths, however ive been told by many people that there is no reason for me to take it unless i want to at uni..
however i have a reasoning for this
- under the circumstance i do not enjoy the medicine route, i am aware many unis have economics courses that require maths and further maths so that opens another pathway for me
however i just want to know- is it the correct decision - am i better of taking psychology or doing epq?
i appreciate any advice!!

Hi, I do chemistry biology and English and have 3 med offers! I find the mix between stem and humanities really hard - English was always my ‘easy’ subject at gcse and I did it at alevel in the hope it would be a fairly high grade however am finishing it really hard to balance my revision- I really want to revise bio and chem as those are the most important ones for me to get the higher grades in for my offers however am having to spend time doing English as well (obviously whatever combo you choose you’ll be revising all three, I just find it a drag to spend hours writing essays when I know I need to revise chem for example). This is just my opinion- I know pysch is also really essay based (I’ve grown to HATE writing essays) but I’ve also heard it’s way more interesting than English!! Three alevels is more than enough- I didn’t see your previous thread so not sure what your reasoning was for taking four though.
Sixth form is super busy especially when applying for med so just focus on getting three really good grades, work experience then doing well in your ucat. Maybe see if you can get some sort of medical experience before you start sixth form then you can see if you defo don’t like this then therefore do further maths for economics??

I'm not a stem student so I can't really comment on further maths, but I did take psychology. What I will say is whilst many bio chem maths students took it as there 4th/5th A-level just as many dropped it by year 13. I personally really enjoyed it, but I only took 3 A levels with my most stressful one actually being art, so I didn't have to stress over content amount as much especially when it came to exams. Your subjects are so content heavy, so you'd need to have a strong interest in psychology to be taking that as your 4th because it's just so so much content. As an A-level itself though the questions are easy to get the hang of answering with practice, and the timings aren't too restrictive. Hope this helps!

Hi!, I am doing further maths currently and I am in yr 13, further maths is quite hard but it isnt AS bad as people told me it would be. There are like one or two topics I rlly struggle with but I think most of it is doable. It also depends on what modules you do. Core pure 1 and 2 are compulsory I think and they were ok in my opinion not massively hard . Further mechanics however was killing me 😭 it's basically physics so yh check what modules your school does for further maths.

hello! tysm for this advice- ill defo go for that! so i did end up choosing further maths lol but i lowk might end up dropping it if i dont enjoy it haha but this was very useful! do u ahve any ideas where i could find medical work experience??

hi nandini here
- i think ive asked this question before and can't find the og chat thread and needed a bit mroe advice!
so for my a level options i know im taking bio chem maths
i want to take further maths, because i enjoy maths, however ive been told by many people that there is no reason for me to take it unless i want to at uni..
however i have a reasoning for this
- under the circumstance i do not enjoy the medicine route, i am aware many unis have economics courses that require maths and further maths so that opens another pathway for me
however i just want to know- is it the correct decision - am i better of taking psychology or doing epq?
i appreciate any advice!!

I know we've seen each other before on your GYG but just a couple of things I want to add to this.
I take this combo, currently have 3/4 offers and waiting for my final decision. I took this combo because start of sixth form I wanted to do Med, but was also interested in Maths/Engineering. To keep my options open I did this.
I want to make it clear that most med schools don't count maths and further maths as seperate a levels, so technically for a lot of them you are only taking 3 as they wouldn't care about FM as your fourth. There are still some that do count them seperately.
Either way you only need 3 a levels for med or any course. They won't give you an offer soley because you have a fourth a level, they also won't care what that fourth a level is. They won't even care what your third subject is (excl Chem and Bio)! Only Cambridge requires 3 stem a levels. Every other med school needs Chem, very often Bio, and then they state they have no preference on the third. They cannot assess someone who takes Bio Chem Art differently to Bio Chem Psychology.
So I'd say take this combo to keep your options open for economics in the future. You are welcome to drop one at the end of y12 when you decide which route to go for, or like me you could keep all 4 until the end of your a levels.

hi nandini here
- i think ive asked this question before and can't find the og chat thread and needed a bit mroe advice!
so for my a level options i know im taking bio chem maths
i want to take further maths, because i enjoy maths, however ive been told by many people that there is no reason for me to take it unless i want to at uni..
however i have a reasoning for this
- under the circumstance i do not enjoy the medicine route, i am aware many unis have economics courses that require maths and further maths so that opens another pathway for me
however i just want to know- is it the correct decision - am i better of taking psychology or doing epq?
i appreciate any advice!!