Choosing A Levels under AS and A2

The question families ask is which three subjects. Here that is the wrong question, and asking it produces a worse answer than the system deserves.

Why the shape is different

A CCEA A Level is made of AS units, sat at the end of Year 13, and A2 units, sat at the end of Year 14. The AS units carry 40 per cent of the final grade. Under the linear qualifications the English boards offer, the first sixth form year contributes nothing to the final grade at all.

So the real choice is two-part. Which four subjects are worth a full year of work each, given that every one of them produces a certificated grade next August. And which three of those four should carry on into a second year, decided in the summer of Year 13 with real results in hand rather than in the spring of Year 12 with a guess.

That second decision is the gift in this system. It is made once a year of the actual course has been done and marked, rather than on GCSE grades and a hunch.

The fourth subject is not a spare

This is the mistake, and it is common. A student picks a fourth subject as an insurance policy, treats it as the one that does not matter, and puts the least work into it.

Its AS grade is published like the others. It goes on the certificate and onto the university application, and a poor one sits beside three good ones asking to be explained. If a subject is not worth a year of work, it is not worth starting.

What actually influences an offer

For most courses at Queen’s, offers are made on three A Levels. A fourth AS Level is only necessary for Medicine and for Actuarial Science and Risk Management, and the Extended Project Qualification is accepted in its place. Two AS Levels will not stand in for one A Level.

For the most competitive courses the university says emphasis is placed on GCSE performance, with AS results taken into account in borderline cases or where they are significantly better than the GCSEs. That is worth reading twice: the GCSEs already sat matter to selection, and the AS grades are what can improve the picture.

Nothing is wasted

An AS course is 180 guided learning hours and can be cashed in as a qualification in its own right, graded A to E. The full A Level is 360 hours and is where the A* becomes available. A subject dropped after Year 13 leaves an AS on the certificate rather than nothing.

What Fincho does

Pip starts with what the student found easy and what they finished without being nudged, over two years of evidence, before it looks at grades. It then puts candidate combinations against the published entry requirements for courses they are actually curious about, with the link to each university’s own page, and says which combination keeps which routes open. The four-to-three decision comes back as a conversation in the summer of Year 13, with the AS results beside it.