Stressed about uni and my a levels

I don't know if anyone can help me, but I wanted to just get this off my chest. I can't imagine many people are in my position, but if anyone has advice, or can just read this and reassure me or something then I'd be grateful.
I currently do Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and EPQ for my a levels. I want as many A*s as possible but definitely A*s in Biology and Psychology. I got a 9 in maths gcse and an 8 in further maths. I have always been good at maths, and I liked it for a while, but my gcse maths teacher was sexist and really put me off maths. Now, I find it kind of boring but quite easy in some cases, or at least manageable, but I am severely out of touch.
My dilemma is that to get into Cambridge to do the Biological Natural Sciences course, I need maths a level. I want to do a regular biological sciences course (this is the only one Cambridge does but it is quite similar) and I am also looking elsewhere but I think the Cambridge lifestyle would suit me very well (I won't go into details but it just sounds perfect for me). I know Cambridge is hard to get into, but I still might want to apply.
To do maths a level, I'd have to catch up on a half term's worth of content alongside my 3 other a levels, and I don't want to drop EPQ just yet in case I change my mind. Maths would help with biology and chemistry and my brother (he got a*s in maths and further maths a level and he now does comp sci at ucl) said he'd help tutor me in maths. At the moment, I have quite a bit of free time at home - I usually do all my homework in school and I rarely revise at the moment. I could put in the effort and try maths for a little while, then decide whether it is worth dropping EPQ for - EPQ would help me get into other unis, but maths is necessary for cambridge.
Anyway, if anyone can help in any way then I'd appreciate it.

Heyy, I know how you feel! Don't worry. I'm in near 13 right now studying French, Spanish, and English lit, but I only switched to doing French one half term into year 12 (exactly this time last year). It definitely is possible to catch up and now I'm predicted an A*. I was super stressed when making this decision at the time though, and spent sooo long debating it. I think I found the workload of catching up overwhelming at first, but it's possible and you need to start somewhere.
For the record I was doing an EPQ at the time as well. If you have free time and not a lot of extracurriculars, I think you ABSOLUTELY should. If this is for a dream course at Cambridge, go for it! Smart of you to look at the entry requirements this early on. I've applied there too.
It's totally possible and I think more or less if you catch up a bit every day when you can, you should be exactly where your class is in 2ish weeks (or more, but it shouldn't be too difficult). Dropping your EPQ in case it gets too much is a really good idea. In hindsight I wish that I did this time last year, but I ended up dropping mine at the beginning of year 13 - it took far too much time, and it wasn't related to what I want to study (languages).
Good luck!

hello 🙂 as someone who applied to natsci (physical) at cambridge this year, i'd really like to emphasise that you do need maths if you want to study this course. i know you already realise this, but even at other universities that don't require maths a level for biological sciences, you will have a lot of catching up to do if you don't take maths, so i really highly recommend that you take it. i actually think maths would be one of the easiest a levels to pick up at this point because (at least at my school) we were only doing topics that were included in the gcse until around this time anyway. so you mostly should have missed out on gcse recap and should be fine (unless your school timetables the lessons differently).
i think you probably also realise that 4 a levels + epq is very tough. if you really love your epq then absolutely keep it, but i think people overstate its value in university applications. the way i see it, an epq is still a school-related activity whereas (for example) writing and publishing your own articles is something that shows you are passionate about your subject. again, it's completely your choice, but don't think that you'll be disadvantaged from uni applications if you drop your epq. i've found four a levels (without epq) manageable but, that being said, i don't do any essay subjects so my content load is significantly less than yours
you clearly love psychology but please remember that you can still do it at uni without keeping it as an a level. cambridge's natsci course can let you do some psychology, or you could combine biology with psych in lancaster's natsci course. it's worth considering that you can still participate in the subject without taking it as an a level. i would have loved to take bio but i wasn't allowed to do 5 subjects (for good reason). that didn't stop me from continuing to read extensively about areas i was interested in, which naturally gave me a lot of material for my personal statement
hopefully this is helpful, and best of luck

I think my drive for doing psychology is that I am good at it. At GCSE, I scored 90% on both papers and got the highest in my school. I was over the grade boundary for a 9 by loads. I do enjoy it, but not enough to do it as a full course at uni - why I think cambridge is good (among other reasons) is that I can have one psychology module in the natsci course. At other unis that I am considering, I can't really do that. I love neuroscience, which is why I continue doing psychology, but I don't want to specialise just yet so I want to do a biological sciences course at uni (biology has always been my favourite and I love genetics and molecular biology too). Also, biology has lots of 'hot topics' at the moment like stem cell research.
My head of 6th is being sort of helpful with this, but the issue is that I can't just do maths a level on top of my subjects already because the blockings in my consortium put psychology and maths at my school in the same block and there is no maths in the empty block. I'm trying to decide whether it is worth putting so much effort in for Cambridge, knowing that I might not even get in.
The thing with EPQ is that my school has told us to get a first draft written by christmas. Maths a level doesn't really step up until after then. So, in theory, I could do 4 a levels + EPQ. I like being busy and having something to work toward. And if I decide that cambridge isn't right for me/ I'm not doing too well in another subject, I could swap one of them to AS.

i get your reasoning with psychology - since you're clearly so passionate about it and good at it, i'm sure you'll be happy enough to study for it even alongside your other a levels 🙂 as long as you don't feel like your workload is inhibiting you from getting the predicted grades you need, it seems like a good subject for you to take
out of interest, which other unis are you considering? there definitely are a few other than cambridge that would let you combine psych with bio even if you don't apply to cambridge (though i don't think you should rule it out this early on!) maths is really a very helpful subject, especially if you go into molecular bio, so def try to do whatever you can to take it.

I was looking at sheffield, warwick, york, bristol and others like that. I am good at psychology and I enjoy it at the moment, but I couldn't imagine doing it as part of my course at uni. I think the good thing about cambridge is that I can do one psych module rather than a bio + psych course. I'm more focused on finding courses with lots of neuroscience but not too much that it takes away from the other topics (that's why I don't want to do a pure neuroscience course) like genetics. I went to the warwick open day and I didn't really like it - the accommodation was bad and it didn't feel right for me but I loved the course and the people were nice so I will still probably apply.

good that you're thinking about your options so early 🙂 it might be worth noting that if you're not interested in doing too much psych, a lot of unis will let you take modules from a separate course to the one you're studying from your second year onwards. so if you end up mostly interested in doing bio (check with specific uni's) you can normally take modules from different subjects even if they're not a part of your course (so if you wanted, you could apply to pure biology and then take modules from the psych course).

I will keep a lookout for unis that offer this. Do you know if they offer the psych modules as an extra module or just as a replacement of another optional module in that course? I’m sure it’s different for a lot of them but I just thought you might know. Thanks