11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi all,
My DD is currently choosing her option. She has been advised by school that to get into a Russell group university to study law she needs to do a language at GCSE. Her current choices are History, Geography, Drama and Economics alongside triple science and Eng Lit and Lang. She is also doing RS a year early. She really does not enjoy languages so can anyone tell me if this info from school is correct? Thanks.

I think you do need to check assorted Uni websites.

Many certainly do like humanities students to have a language and in some cases it is part of the Unis matriculation requirements. When I last looked you either had to have a GCSE in language to go to UCL or take lessons when you were there.

I believe there’s only one uni that insists on all applicants having a language gcse. A reasonable number of schools do insist of most students taking one though.

There may be specific entry requirements for some unis to do law which might include a language, but your best bet is to look at the individual entry requirements for each uni.

X posted with HM

littlejohn wrote:Hi all,
My DD is currently choosing her option. She has been advised by school that to get into a Russell group university to study law she needs to do a language at GCSE. Her current choices are History, Geography, Drama and Economics alongside triple science and Eng Lit and Lang. She is also doing RS a year early. She really does not enjoy languages so can anyone tell me if this info from school is correct? Thanks.

Nope - not as far as I can think! Assumably she is also doing Maths GCSE? Many unis do have GCSE English Language and Maths at a certain grade as part of their general entry requirements.

For eg look at this:
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/undergraduate/ ... quirements" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scroll down for full entry requirements - apart from UCL (which requires it for all undergrad degrees), I'm not sure any require language at GCSE - I checked Durham and they didn't either....

kenyancowgirl wrote:

littlejohn wrote:Hi all,
My DD is currently choosing her option. She has been advised by school that to get into a Russell group university to study law she needs to do a language at GCSE. Her current choices are History, Geography, Drama and Economics alongside triple science and Eng Lit and Lang. She is also doing RS a year early. She really does not enjoy languages so can anyone tell me if this info from school is correct? Thanks.

Nope - not as far as I can think! Assumably she is also doing Maths GCSE? Many unis do have GCSE English Language and Maths at a certain grade as part of their general entry requirements.

For eg look at this:
https://www.exeter.ac.uk/undergraduate/ ... quirements" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scroll down for full entry requirements - apart from UCL (which requires it for all undergrad degrees), I'm not sure any require language at GCSE - I checked Durham and they didn't either....

Lack of Maths would certainly be a much greater problem...

Things may change, of course, but as others have said, only UCL requires some kind of foreign language study, but lack of it to GCSE level still isn't a barrier to entry, assuming all other requirements are met, as you just have to take an extra course once at the university.

If the school is so keen on students going to a particular restricted group of universities and genuinely believes that those universities' requirements are other than the reality, perhaps it should just make a language other than English at GCSE a requirement for all and have done with?

Thanks all, really helpful information. Yes my DD is doing Maths GCSE. Interestingly DD’s school has just made modern languages optional at GCSE.

littlejohn wrote:Thanks all, really helpful information. Yes my DD is doing Maths GCSE. Interestingly DD’s school has just made modern languages optional at GCSE.

I think some schools struggle to get teachers