40 replies to this topic

[herbeey]

What subjects are pointless to take for my final year in school, if (hypothetically) all I wanted the subjects for, is to get the grades for getting into a uni.












ninja time!

[Dave]

now there is a question and a half

to aviod arguements i have to say that it depends on the uni and course you want to sit.

for example if you wanted to do medicine i doubt they would except admin, art, pe or music

[bred]

A very good question indeed. However, unless a university specifies in their prospectus subjects that specific subjects are exempt from their standard entry requirements for the course (eg. AAAAB) I wouldn't have thought there would be any problem with having Admin, Art & Design, or Music as one of your Highers. PE on the other hand would probably not be looked upon so kindly for the majority of courses at the majority of universities. I'm sure universities such as Oxbridge and Durham would turn their noses up at subjects like Higher Admin though and look more kindly on the person with, Higher History for instance.
Slightly irrelevent perhaps, but I applied for MA Geography (entry this September) and 5 of my 6 offers were conditional. I am doing 3 Highers and 1 Advanced Higher this year (Geography) and none of my offers were interested in my Advanced Higher grade this year, only my Highers.
Herbeey, what course(s) were you interested in anyway and what subjects to study in S6?

[herbeey]

I shall be taking advanced physics next year.
Probably retaking higher english too, although the probability swings the other way if I find out I have passed my Textual Analysis, which is quite possible.


In uni, the 3 things I might be interested in currently would be either Secondary School Teaching, Business Studies related course, Media Studies.
To be honest, I have decided very little in terms of my uni course.

[Dave]

to prove our points i got a conditional offer and they want me to get CC in my two advanced highers for Meng Computer Science

[Ally]

It purely depends on what university and what course you're applying to, but you'll probably find that the majority of SQA courses offered in school are accepted by universities. Have a look at prospectuses - they'll tell you which subjects are accepted/not accepted.

This table from Edinburgh University tells you which subjects are approved/not approved. As you can see there are very few which aren't approved.

[bred]

Cheers for the link Ally. Officially then, Edinburgh should take into consideration all the courses mentioned so far in this thread.

[abigaildav]

Glasgow Uni especially does not like advanced highers. one of the girls in the year above me applied for english at glasgow, she was takin 3highers plus advanced higher english and they gave her an offer on her highers. she didn't quite make them but got an A in her english and still got rejected!

But advanced highers are needed for most english unis which makes it hard if ur hopin to apply to scottish and english unis!

x

[Discogirl17]

The business school is Strathclyde has a list of preffered highers. This list does not include PE/Art but does include Admin and Drama. I suppose its all subjective which courses are good and which are not.

[Terrence]

x

[Discogirl17]

Lol. Drama helps you to develop argueing skills as well as being able to project your voice and sacm ... I mean act... your way out of any situation! They are useful skills for accountants. Before any potential accountants start lecturing me, I'm going to Strathclyde to study accounting and thats not really the way I think about them.

[Paul]

Art is also a subject which develops your skills to express youself....

Glasgow Uni especially does not like advanced highers.

i have to disagree. My mate applied ther for accountancy last year and was offered a conditional place which asked that he got A in AH Accounts, and B in AH Maths and also a C at Higher English

In uni, the 3 things I might be interested in currently would be either Secondary School Teaching, Business Studies related course, Media Studies.
To be honest, I have decided very little in terms of my uni course.

Secondary School Teaching doesnt come in a course of its own, u must specialise in a subject. Business Studies is a course which would accept Admin. Admin is an accepted subject at Glasgow Uni. I was accepted unconditionally with an A at H Admin as being one of my grades.

[broughy]

Glasgow Uni especially does not like advanced highers. 

plus, practically all offers made for medicine at Glasgow are conditional based on advanced higher grades

[Ally]

plus, practically all offers made for medicine at Glasgow are conditional based on advanced higher grades

Yup, BBC @ AH even when people have met the academic requirements.

[Acaila]

The business school is Strathclyde has a list of preffered highers. This list does not include PE/Art but does include Admin and Drama. I suppose its all subjective which courses are good and which are not.

Conclusive proof that Drama is far better than Art.

[No, honestly, there's no rivalry or petty hatred between the Drama and the Art students at my school. And honestly I'm not a bitter Drama kid who resents the Art kids for always getting to the lifts first ]

Essays and such from Higher Drama are probably even more scary than Higher English essays. Referring to multiple texts, and the questions being about things like social change and gender issues and that requires a good deal of maturity. As well as the wider reading, confidence and all that you get from it. Plus you're likely to get involved with the drama scene at uni and they'd probably like that.
Art is just for kids who think they're cool to swan around and hang out in art rooms rather than in the common room. Snobs!

[Terrence]

x

[Discogirl17]

I like the art kids but didnt study art, art kids have benefits!
I like the drama kids... I sooooooo wish I'd took Drama.... Drama is the best!

[Acaila]

Acaila! Not seen you around here for quite some time, fellow Drama kid!

I totally agree about Drama essays being scarier than English. They're horrible. Although, as they're only out of 20 as opposed to 25 in English (and History. Oh my. History essays are loathsome.) they seem less.... daunting?

How did your acting exam go?

Strangely enough, I think I might have had your drama teacher for it! I'm pretty sure she was from Elgin anyway.

I did the Antigone/Creon/Ismene scene from Antigone, and as I said earlier, the second Brodie/Mackay scene from Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Antigone scene was cool cos I did it as a punk (made my own choker out of safety pins and stuff like that). My friend that played Creon kept on hurting me when we did it though - in our prelim video my cheek is bleeding, our nab/second prelim he stood on ...my chest, and we did a kinda showcase thing the evening after our exam and he punched me in the mouth during it. This being the bit that one of our tutors pretty much choreographed in case one of us got hurt! bah! I think it was decent - I got 15 in the prelim for it, and apparently the second prelim was the best they had seen it and the exam was better so {fingers crossed}. I'm told the Brodie scene was good, although I was in the play myself 3 years ago, so I was always comparing myself to our Mackay in that, and was never sure about myself in it. But I managed to sustain Edinburgh accent I think Apparently the examiner was laughing along with the scene so that was good. And my mum liked it therefore it must have been wonderful hehe
What about you? What did you do and how did it go?

[Terrence]

x

[Acaila]

Well, my teacher is an examiner so it may well have been her! Did your examiner have short brown hair and tartan (or other, equally as patterned,) trousers? If so, that was probably Ms James.

Sounds like you did really good in your acting - well done Ouch @ bleeding cheek & other injuries, though!

I did House of Bernarda Alba (yawn) and Bondagers (erk). In the pre-lim I got about 17/18 out of 20 for them (how I managed that I have no idea). But I sort of messed up the exam! House went okay, but Bondagers was not so great. One of the other girls in Bondagers forgot to say one of her lines so that part of the play got a bit muddled up as everyone began saying whatever line they could think of and I couldn't for the life of me think what line to say! After we'd finished, the examiner made us do that bit again cos I "mucked up, as usual" (those were the examiners words. I realise now that he was just having a laugh but at the time I was feeling a bit sensative and was raging at him! Haha!)

I'm just hoping to do well in the writing to compensate for the acting. My teacher's said she thinks I'm capable of a high A No pressure there then...!

She definitely had short brown hair, not sure about the trousers. Her first name was Melissa btw(our tutors have a habit of going by first names). She seemed pretty cool, and told us we get our acting marks back in August woohoo!

17/18 is a really great mark! The highest in our class on our Antigone prelim was a 17 and there's loads of us, so very well done
That was soooo mean of the examiner! Especially when you're that stressed - I had a couple of people yelling at me because I *didn't* have stage fright, and my tutors were getting all teary on us. A couple of people in my class really had problems with lines and I think they were still making it up as they went along in the exam. Improvisation keeps things interesting
I'm going for a high A as well - 83% in the second prelim we did, with apparently some harsh marking on the dramatic commentary, no mention of set in an Antigone essay about design concept, and only spending half an hour on my contemporary Scottish essay. Hopefully my practical will be up there as well {crosses fingers}
Our teachers are quite the opposite on predictions - they wanted to predict me a B before I whinged a lot, and my friend got 16 on his acting and 74% on the prelim, and they originally predicted him a C/B (the /B only being there because they thought he was a versatile actor and would do well on the other acting piece).
How are you getting on with revision?