Anybody's DC currently doing the IB and in the midst of applying to university?

[duchesse]

And if so, what offers are they getting?

Would be even better if they are applying for medicine as will afford better comparison with DD (who has just been rejected by Cambridge and now fears being rejected by all her other choices as well).

[JustinMumsnot]

No, but will watch this thread with interest as DD1 is planning to start IB in September. She had a chat with a former IBer recently who told her that Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge were not as keen on IB as most other universities, but that was not specifically for medicine.

[DoodlesNoodles]

A word of warning from the wise ...........

..........Don't blindly believe anything you hear about medicine unless it is directly from the Universities. (and, even they are not above giving out conflicting information)



The Student Room IB Requirements For Medicine is reliable (but still double check)

My Eldest DC did the IB and is now a second year medicine student. He doesn't have any other qualifications at all but still got offers. His offers were all 'standard' offers, ie the entry requirements given in the Universities Medicine Admissions Pages or Policies. Medicine offers tend to be very standardised.


My son was told by someone in the admissions dept at Barts that although the IB requirement was more stringent than the A level requirement that there was more wriggle room if you missed a grade on one of your exams unlike A levels grades where the is no scope for applicants to miss a grade. I have no idea if this is true in practise but it would be nice if it was

[IBMOM]

Hi my daughter is doing the IB Exams in 2014 and am hoping to study medicine. She is working so hard and I'm really hoping she will get an offer. DoodlesNoodles can you please tell me what was your DC results and what schools he had the offers from. Thank you so much.

[IBMOM]

Hi my daughter is doing the IB Exams in 2014 and am hoping to study medicine. She is working so hard and I'm really hoping she will get an offer. DoodlesNoodles can you please tell me what was your DC results and what schools he had the offers from. Thank you so much.

[alreadytaken]

can I second the message about not even relying totally on the universities, at least as far as their websites go. When we talked to admission tutors at open days the messages they gave out were often slightly different to the websites. Having said that if they give an IB requirement on the website and she exceeds it she'll pass that part of the computer sift. She then needs to pass their UKCAT or BMAT sift if they have one, the personal statement sift and then, hopefully the interview. If some of her marks come from the essay she needs to check with each medical school whether they will be counted, unfortunately that isn't on the student room website. If at all possible she should attend open days and ask questions, if not check the student room threads and ring/e-mail admission tutors.

I think I remember you saying she was also doing an A level? If so you need to check with schools whether they will give any additional credit for that, especially if she gets an A/A*. It probably wont be counted in any computer sift but if she exceeds their IB cutoff and has additional qualifications its something to bring out in the personal statement/reference. Cambridge say they use the BMAT partly to level the playing field for A level and IB students. Oxford and Cambridge might be more likely to give credit for extra qualifications.

Barts are normally very stuffy about meeting their requirements. If she doesn't have exactly what they specify best not to apply.

Cardiff were rather a disaster this year over interviews but hopefully will be more organised in the next round. It's a friendly medical school (when we stopped to look at a map someone always stopped and offered help) and likes a lot of good GSCE grades. It might be worth a look. East Anglia has a bit of a reputation for liking reapplicants but they are also hot on work experience, has she managed to do anything extra this year?

Last year some medical schools apparently offered places in August to people they had previously rejected without interview. At least one person on the student room claimed to have an offer from an interview in August. With the exception of Cambridge she could consider phoning her other choices on A level day to see if they have any medicine vacancies. She could even try a cheeky phone call to one or two of the other medical schools, especially those that made a bit of a mess of the process this year.

She could see if there are places in clearing for courses that allow a few students to transfer to medicine e.g. Newcastle Biomedical, couple of courses at Bradford, St Georges, possibly others. Other options are Malta (need a language at AS equivalent, can be English) and other European medical schools that teach initially in English. She would need to learn the local language before the clinical years.

[alreadytaken]

forgot to specifically mention Trinity, Dublin. It has lower fess too. www.tcd.ie/courses/undergraduate/az/course.php?id=DUBMD-MEDI-2F09#requirements

[Fairdene]

How did your daughter do OP? My nephew was predicted 42, got 41 but had been rejected by three unis out of five, whose stated standard offers are lower than 40. His personal statement was bad though, I can see that, having read it.

[alreadytaken]

sorry I dont know much about IB and my informant may have been wrong about essay marks, or I misunderstood them.

Anyway the student room stalking pages are good places for seeing what offers were actually made although students sometimes only post their offers on the medical school threads and forget to change the wiki www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/:Medicine_Applicants_Stalking_Page_2013_Entry

you'll see there are offers from 36 upwards.

Could she be having doubts about medicine as a career choice rather than being worried about getting in? There are lots of other good careers for scientists than do not involve antisocial hours and constant study.

[Copper]

UEA seem to value the IB far higher than other universities - and equate AAAb at Alevel/AS to 34 IB points.

[nutiella]

Hi, my DD sat UKCAT in July and was pleased with her result (2990) which was boosted by a very high score (880) in the decision analysis subtest. Imagine her horror when, two weeks later she received a letter from UKCAT to say there had been a problem with this part of the test and had deducted 110 marks from her. I cannot get any sense out of either Pearson Vue or UKCAT about this. Does anyone else out there have a similar story?

[nutiella]

Another one from me: DD is at wacky (resource poor) international school in Costa Rica doing IB instead of staying at boring old home and doing A levels! It is clear that some med schools really don't understand the IB (esp Edinburgh) and even ask for impossible subject combinations. Does anyone have any experience of IB applications to medicine? Or which med schools are more IB friendly? It is a bit of a worry: she has excellent GCSEs and an A at AS so academics haven't been a problem so far, but teaching at her school is not very impressive, from what we can work out.