I am still trying to get into a sixth form college -
and yesterday the helper in my English class took a look at the subjects I chose for A-Levels.
English literature
French
Art
Computing
She thinks I can never handle 4 courses.
Says like nobody in England takes more than 3.
What subjects did you choose?
And what does your timetable look like?
How many lessons do you have per day/week?
Yours
curiously
loons
For the curious, ‘Sixth Form’ equates to approx 11 / 12th grade (ages 16-18). ‘A’ levels are 2 year long courses culminating in exams you take prior to going onto Uni. Uni’s can use the grades you achieve to determine whether they will offer you a place for your degree.
FWIW 4 sounds a lot to me. Assuming you want to go to Uni, it can be an idea to play it pragmatically. If the Uni want only three good ‘A’ levels why stretch your resources unnecessarily ?. 3 good is better than 4 average – think revision time !!
Maybe things have changed since my day…
It’s some time since I was a sixth-former (I have O-levels), but:
Three is pretty much the standard number of A-levels. Some people do four or five, especially if:
(a) two of them are Maths and Further Maths (known collectively as “double maths”),
(b) one of them is General Studies, which requires little or no study and is basically not worth bothering with unless you’re going to fail one of your main ones and need another pass to get into university, or
© one of them is in the your first language, not being English (e.g. French, Urdu; American English doesn’t count :)).
Given that the main purpose for most people doing A-levels is to get into university, and no university will insist on you having more than three (other than double maths, which some places require for maths and physics courses), you’re better off concentrating on getting better grades in fewer subjects.
Also, if colleges and sixth forms are geared up for students doing three subjects, somebody doing four can create timetabling headaches. Three subjects will leave you with a reasonably full week, but allow some time during the college day for private study.
Your best bet might be to see if they’ll let you do A-levels in three of the subjects and an AS-level in the other one. Alternatively, you could enrol to do three as a full-time student and try to take the fourth as an evening class.
Does this mean you Only take 3 classes? That would seem limited. No arts or humanities?
So do I actually have no subjects but those I take for A-levels?
God that cant be true… cause that would be heaven…
However… I quite started to like the 3 a-level subjects idea in the last few hours… especially as my parents didnt try to kill me when I told them I d quit French perhaps.
Hurray! I was ever so bad in that language!
**
TomH saied:
one of them is in the your first language, not being English (e.g. French, Urdu; American English doesn’t count
). **
LOL I know a girl who took her first language as a second language when she studied abroad… I wouldnt do that… must be the hell of a boring thing…
Just wanted to add that I was astonished cause over here you have to take 13 subjects in school. All are compulsory.
You cant choose much about your a levels. You have to do many A-level subjects.
I am too dumb for that… cause
You can choose between maths or french
You have to take accounting, ecconomics,
You can choose between history and geography
Some take chemistry too
You have to do German (native language) and English
And those who fail a subject will just do religion instead.
So it sums up to… at least 5 subjects.
And you cant even concentrate on them cause you ll have to redo all courses if you fail to get the stuff you dont take your a-levels in positive. (Which is 7-8 other subjects)
That would be Handelsakademie school in Austria.
end of whining
wish me luck that the damn embassy will reply soon… I asked them for addresses of sixht forms… cause only three of all the schools I wrote to actually replied… and I can only afford one of them. 
Fuckin skint… whines again
Here I open a thread, having graduated from boarding school where we refer to years by their forms, and I have no help to offer at all. All I can ask is this: how many hours per week are your courses? That might help you to figure out what’s a safe level of classes to take.
FTR, I graduated sixth form a year and a bit ago.
In my day, four was the max you can take without having to take a compressed course (unless one of them was General Studies). If you take three, you’ll probably have one course’s worth of free periods for study. This is useful for studying, or for skiving, if your school/college allows this. Unless you’re likely to get C or above without too much work, I’d recommend having that time free for study.
I took Physics, Maths, Chemistry and Biology in 1992. I’d already got A level English, which I took at the same time as my GCSE exams (preen, preen).
HOWEVER…
Things are changing. Students in year 12 now take 6 AS levels, and then in year 13 choose three (or four) to continue as A2 levels. An AS level is half an A level, and the A2 part is slightly more advanced. An AS and an A2 add together to give you a full old style A level. This change was brought in to give English kids a more rounded education.
Yes, you normally only study the subjects you’re taking for A-level, plus occasionally one other non-examination subject for a couple of hours a week.
I get the impression that our education sustem is a bit narrower and a bit deeper than the US system, but the comparisons are not always easy to make. There might be a case that GCSEs, not A-levels, are the equivalent of graduating high school in the US, in which case there’s not a lot of difference.
A friend of mine took A-Level equivalents in America -
they are taken at the end of highschool. I am sure.
It is quite confusing with the GCSE s and stuff cause they dont exist in Austria at all - and AS levels seem to be what I am makin this year - in 4 subjects.
Only those subjects sounds good. Sounds better than here, were you know a little bit of everything - but just a lil bit.
I d rather be really good in a few things than mediocore in a lot of stuff.
End of Austrian education system hatred.
You guys helped me a lot - if I get accepted everything d be fine…
I d take English literature, Computing and Arts.
Hope I keep on being a lucky bastard…
loons