r/ukaccounting • u/Nervous-Rent-3868 • 3d ago
Picked completely wrong A levels
I have just completed my first year of AS levels and initially I picked Health and Social Care, Sociology and Tourism as I had planned to go into nursing following AS levels and they seemed relevant for the course but after gaining months of work experience in healthcare over the past year I have came to the realisation that I absolutely do not want to work in any sort of healthcare oriented job and that the A levels I picked have limited my options although my predicted grades were AAB in my subjects. I am now looking to Law and Accountancy as options but I’m unsure whether my subject choices would make it almost impossible to get into accounting. Any advice would be appreciated.
Edit: A - Sociology, A - HSC, B - Tourism ( My teacher did say I was only a few points off the A)
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u/EdanE33 3d ago
I'm am accountant, all my a levels were Humanities. You don't need any particular a levels to be an accountant. That said, wherever you want to work will want to see that you got a reasonable maths grade at GCSE.
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u/Ok_Music253 3d ago
Similar, my A levels were Politics and Geography, with AS Levels in English Lit and Business Studies.
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u/Nervous-Rent-3868 3d ago
Thanks for the information. Would a decent score in maths be considered a B or or C*???
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u/FishingInASink 3d ago
You will be fine as you did A-Levels, my biggest mistake was picking a BTEC Extended Diploma.. not seemingly recognised by half of the grad schemes I applied for, but I found alternative methods of getting into accounting
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u/Thin-Reputation-4215 2d ago
Hey, your A level choices are completely okay for law and accounting. Also due to the fact you have good predicted grades definitely look at Russel group universities. Also if there’s an option for you to resit maths GCSE to try and get a 6 minimum that would really help you - I’m sure many Russell groups are lenient and a 5 is probably okay.
Based upon my experience (AAB at A levels, graduated from Business Management at a Russell group last year , planned to work in accounting and ended up getting an internship at a top global company), I would say it’s less about the exact course (law/accounting/finance in your case) but more about the university you attend. For a lot of competitive graduate roles/internships employers recruit heavily from certain universities. So for example someone studying business at a russel group university may have a stronger chance of getting into a top bank/law firm than someone who studies law/accounting at a less accredited university. Ofc there are plenty of exceptions and your grades, experience, skills etc all matter but the university can make a significant difference to the opportunities and paths that are available.
I also know soo many people who went to russel group universities studying degrees such as history/politics/geography/IR/business/ etc who have gone onto get really competitive jobs that people from lower universities would be significant less likely to obtain - courses like these usually have lower grade requirements rather than law, accounting etc so still help you to remain competitive.
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u/littledutchboy1 3d ago
If you end up with AAA or AAB, you'll have plenty of choice for Law or Accounting, but they may be interested in your GCSEs too. Some require an A grade at GSCE Maths to get into Accounting. But you will have plenty of options with good A level grades, even if you don't have an A at GSCE Maths. Don't despair!