Choosing Level 3 courses

The most important criteria for choosing your Level 3 courses are:

• Looking at what you are likely to enjoy and be good at. If you enjoy a subject or have an ability in it already, you are more likely to do well.
• Are there any particular subjects and/or grades you may need? If you have a particular career, job, or further study in mind, you may need to choose specific courses in order to meet entry requirements.
• How open you want to keep your future study and career choices?

If you you’re not sure what you want to do in the future, you can still make sensible choices now which will leave you in the best possible position at the end of your Post 16 Studies. Facilitating subjects are a handful of A-level subjects commonly asked for in universities’ entry requirements, regardless of the course you’re applying to – this makes them a good choice to keep your options open.

The facilitating subjects are:

Biology, Chemistry, English, Geography, History, Maths, Modern and classical languages, Physics

If you don’t know what you’ll want to study at university, it can pay off later to take one or two of these.

Be aware, some universities openly discourage students from taking certain combinations of A-level subjects, particularly when subjects are very similar like business studies and economics – something to bear in mind when you're making your choices.