Does Subject Choice really determine life chances?

Is university entrance now the real National Lottery? Trevor Fisher, Head of History at a Midlands Tertiary College writing in 'the Independent' (17/9/09) is posing this question in the light of changes to A Level grading in 2010 and the lack of consistency regarding university entrance requirements.


An A* grade has been introduced for those students sitting A Levels in 2010, yet the Government does not want universities to use it for entrance purposes for at least THREE years! At the recent Open Days at both Queens and University of Ulster, Careers Teachers were informed that A* would not be used this year as part of their selection criteria.

Politicians, however, have no power to enforce the three year proposal, and at least three UK universities; UCL, Imperial and Cambridge have said they'll do so when selecting applicants in 2010! However, it is open to individual subject and admission tutors to decide whether to use the A*. Students interested in applying to these universities need to discover whether courses demand A* or not.

The problem of 'hard' and 'soft' subjects, rejected by the government as non existent, remains important for students to acquire each admission tutor's views on 'soft' subjects. Potential students now have to wade through individual department requirements to discover whether subjects are accepted. Universities like LSE, has published its list of subjects and combination of subjects. Our understanding must be that university application arguably starts with choice of GCSE subjects!

The applicant for university in 2010 is encouraged to scrutinise the fine print of the university prospectus.  In future, might this have to be done before choosing subjects at GCSE level, AS and A2 Level? Students could find that one university will admit them for a course which another university will bar them from taking, with exactly the same qualifications. Finalising one's choice of course requires quite an intense level of research and needs to begin much earlier than Sixth Form.

In Tom Morgan's article in the 'Daily Telegraph' (21st. August 2009), he argues that students are bidding to make themselves recession-proof by plumping for A-Levels such as maths, economics and Chinese.While the likes of French and German have fallen in popularity, languages from developing economies have gone up.  Overall, other modern languages - including Russian, Chinese, Urdu and Polish - have all soared by almost 7% over 12 months.

There was a perception that students pick A-Levels which they think will help them to 'open up routes of opportunity' to them in the future, as well as choosing subjects they enjoy.

One of the subjects to benefit from the economic downturn was maths. People who do maths A-level earn more. Particularly in a recession, more people will do mathematics as there are more opportunities available. I would encourage you to inform your students of the web sites enclosed.
www.mathscareers.org.uk
www.moremathsgrads.org.uk