college or sixth form

[Circadia]

When choosing where I wanted to go after high school I only ended up looking around the Sixth Form I ended up going to, I don't recommend doing that but it was because the only other college local to me has a pretty bad pass rate and only does BTEC courses and I wanted to do A-Levels so decided to go to Sixth Form. I applied in the September and got accepted straight away because I already had 5 A*-C's due to starting my GCSEs a year earlier.

Sixth Form/AS Levels are quite a big step up from High School/GCSEs and I absolutely bombed first year, but this was the same across country, my year only got 86% pass rate which is down from 91% last year so its a considerable drop but this is most likely down to removal of the January exams, so I've got to resit some of my exams. I also went from 2 A's in Maths at GCSE to coming out with a U at AS Level... but yeah choose what you think you'll enjoy. If you want to stay with more academic subjects, definitely go with Sixth Form, but if you want to do more vocational studies then go with College

[Kardan]

@Yuxin; - Physics is probably the subject that has the biggest jump from GCSE to A-Level. Maths is also pretty high up there.

[Gina]

@Yuxin; - Physics is probably the subject that has the biggest jump from GCSE to A-Level. Maths is also pretty high up there.

maths is prob 1 id want to do but not sure bout physics then lmao

[Kardan]

A good thing about maths is that there are a number of modules you can choose from, so essentially you can choose the areas of maths that suit you best. Of course, it depends on what the sixth form/college offers - some of them may have a fixed way of doing things.

[Jssy]

yeah @Kardan; my sixth form you needed 4 C's to get in and as long as you got an E in the subject at AS you could carry on lmao which I think is stupid. But they accepted people that got D's at GCSE and those are the ones that made sixth form hell for me, if entry requirements were stricter it probs would have been better

[Kyle]

It would seem that anybody here bigging up colleges either took non academic subjects or went back at a later date. I too have experienced both college and sixth form but since neither were compulsory as they are now I don't know how helpful the advice will be. I went to 6th form straight after school. It was very strict and detentions were given just like in school. Some sixth forms have uniforms, mine didn't. generally there were more people that wanted to learn and do well at that age in sixth form than in college. I finished AS levels at sixth form and returned to college 2 years later to find that people didn't really care for their subjects and weren't very self motivated to do well in them. far more people at college were already in work.

remember that whilst a lot of your education is compulsory, university isn't. take subjects you like learning about, take as many as you like. drop the ones that interest you the least and if you do want to go to university then consider the ones that will be the most beneficial for your course. some are critical thinking and essay based and others are memory based. it's good to have a nice mixture. as some a levels are totally different/huge leaps from gcse to a level, as are they from a level to degree level.

as for law a level well the only university that has actively advised against it to my knowledge is LSE. I had a wildcard choice of law at bristol and got an offer with no sweat with a law a level and 'soft' choices to boot. it's a very interesting an highly applicable a level! you'll only be able to take a language if you have a B in it at gcse. media and film a levels are genuinely useless. they're not required for degree level study but I suppose they are a fast track to an extra few UCAS points.

meh do what u enjoy and go where people that you enjoy learning with will go. all that matters is u don't sell your soul for an education, it's not going to even be that useful for your future anyway!

[Inseriousity.]

oh and about the thing bout people not wanting to be there, went to uni and there were people there who only went for the drinking/social life (they were quickly disappointed after freshers was over) and you've even got to pay for that. it's inevitable really wherever you go that there'll be people who arent as invested as you are. luckily when you get older, they tend to get less disruptive too.

[-:Undertaker:-]

I stayed at the sixth form of my school, wasn't as good as school at all but it was still better than nothing. And certainly better than university.

It all depends on whether you like school or not. I loved school, so I stayed.

[Gina]

I stayed at the sixth form of my school, wasn't as good as school at all but it was still better than nothing. And certainly better than university.

It all depends on whether you like school or not. I loved school, so I stayed.

yeah i love school haha i think ita great i just dont like the early mofnings ;l

[:odey:]

@Yuxin; - Physics is probably the subject that has the biggest jump from GCSE to A-Level. Maths is also pretty high up there.

I did both Physics & Maths at A level too, the jump is giant. But I still enjoyed both.