Yes
Andrew Newbury
Family law partner in Pannone in Manchester

I started doing my A levels in 1983 – history, maths and law. I had good reasons for picking each of them. History was my favourite subject at O level; my father’s science background prompted me to do maths; and I chose law because I didn’t know anything about it and it interested me.

I had no interest in a career in law at the time, but as a subject it clicked more than anything I’d studied before because of the combination of practical and academic. My school had been running it for at least five years when I took it. I didn’t view it as a soft subject at all, and it wasn’t seen as an easy option. I viewed all of my subjects as academic and I probably worked harder at law than at the others. It’s close to history, in that you are learning a volume of information and applying it to different contexts.

I ended up choosing law as a degree because of the A level, and I chose Nottingham University because of an inspirational criminal law textbook whose author was a professor based there. The law A level I did was taught more or less to degree level. At university, I used my notes from my A level for my criminal law exams, and did best in those.

I qualified as a solicitor in 1991 and joined Pannone in 1996. I’ve found that law is still a relatively uncommon A level. About 5 per cent of people we interview have done it and, to be honest, we are more interested in the degree they took. I do tend to find that those who did a different degree and then converted to law later have a more practical approach. But the problem with a law degree is that you don’t know what it’s like until you start it.

People have a misconception of what the law may be from films and books, but by studying it from an early age they understand what it’s about. Law is a dry subject, involving much academic study as well as the practical element. Some people coming into the law who haven’t done A level or a degree are naïve about what the job involves. They don’t really know how law is going to work in an office. So while it’s far from necessary to take law at A level, it’s a good first exploratory step – as such, I’m surprised that some universities don’t accept it as a qualification to do a law degree.

I probably wouldn’t have gone into law if I hadn’t done the A level. It was a springboard to my career as a solicitor – it helped that I made a practical decision to go into law based on first-hand experience of studying it, rather than an idealised image of it. Quite a few students from my A level class went on to be solicitors too. If I hadn’t taken law at 16, I would probably have done a history degree – and I’d hate to think where I’d have gone with that. Perhaps the only downside is that when I went to university I knew more about law than other students who hadn’t studied it at A level, and that lulled me into a false sense of security as to how easy the course was in the first term. But the A level ignited my imagination. I have no regrets whatsover about taking it.

No
Dr Geoff Parks
Director of admissions for the Cambridge colleges

Cambridge offers a fairly narrow range of 24 courses, which are all in relatively traditional subject areas. Our courses are very academic and the A levels that we prefer tend to reflect that. We want students to have the right background, knowledge and skills to prepare them for a course.

We have a view of some A levels which from the nature of the content, skills and the way they are assessed mean they’re not going to be effective preparation for a Cambridge course.

We have published a now-famous list of 20 A levels, including accounting, business studies, ICT and media studies, which we don’t think provide effective preparation for our courses. The advice is “Don’t do more than one of these”. Our assessment is not based around whether they are easier or more difficult, but around the skills they develop.

It is unfortunate that there is now a perception of a two-tier system. They are perfectly valid for some universities, but not relevant for our students. We look for skills in analysis, interpretation, writing and the engagement with the underlying subject matter. The intellectual processes involved in a subject like media studies are very different from history.

Law is on some universities’ lists of “soft” subjects, but not on ours. However, we don’t require it for law students and we don’t think it’s particularly important to have done it. It gives some exposure, but more often students who apply to do law come in with some knowledge of the legal system from reading around the subject. Our impression is that it’s the same as reading a newspaper law supplement regularly. But if the other two A levels an applicant did were more analytical – maths or English, for example – then we would consider it.

The real issue is around giving students the right information so that the A levels they choose match up with their aspirations, and that they don’t choose subjects which they then discover are a handicap to applying. We see combinations of A levels that we would never have recommended. Often it transpires that students weren’t told that the subjects they were interested in would be unacceptable for certain universities. They are trying to keep their options open, but in doing so they are closing doors. We are planning to provide documents aimed at students in Year 11 to set out the subjects they shouldn’t take and the combinations that are good.

There is a problem around transparency. Some universities think in the same way as us but aren’t as explicit. It would be helpful if there was more consistency. It can be very confusing for teachers and students if universities in our peer group are giving the impression that all A levels are equal. It makes it difficult for teachers to know what advice to give. If all universities said the same thing, it would be much easier to choose from a list. Many of the A levels on our list are based around performance rather than academic skills.

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