I am also starting college soon, so I may not be the best person to answer this question, but I assume it would be a asset to have.

I'm currently doing A Levels and having a laptop will help you.

They can be used anywhere and without it I'd be 10x more stressed.

No you dont 'NEED' one but its nice to have for college. i have one for college

Bit of an unanswerable question to be honest. It all depends on what you pick and if you are going to be doing a lot of work out of school (researching and stuff).

I'm currently doing business A levels and a laptop helps me massively.

It really does I would advise you to get one if you need to access a computer a lot!

I am currently taking 4 AS levels (Will drop one and take 3 A-Levels in second year) a laptop will help if you plan on doing essay / computer base subjects, and a quick word of advice, something which I chose to ignore when I was told (It was a mistake) - A-Levels are not like GCSE's (im sure you have heard many times) but take a leaf out of my book, I left most of my coursework till the last month and now the stress is unreal, when you see everyone around you studying, you finally realise, wow I need to pick this up! Do not think A-Levels are like GCSE's because they are not, with A-Levels they get you revising 5 months before the exams. You also get alot more work to do at home, I have computing coursework to finish, it's almost done now but it's currently 24,000 words (110 pages in word) so yeah a laptop will help, especially if you have a desktop, it gets very strenuous when your sat at a desk all day doing work.