IB or A Levels, tentatively thinking of medicine

@TizerorFizz I don't want to derail the thread but I will respond to your assertions. I think you are overlooking the obvious, which is that in many cases the DC who get through to study medicine are among the very brightest in their school cohorts. In addition, by seventeen they have already demonstrated a work ethic beyond their studies and they would not get through the med school interviews if they couldn't demonstrate good interpersonal skills in a pressurised environment. This combination suggests that they would most likely do very well on alternative career paths and the selection processes which go with them. So, yes they get a 'job for life' but they are generally of a calibre that they don't really need one. I'm also sure they would be capable of working out their own pensions in that alternative universe too. I certainly did. It's quite easy when you earn far more than you need to live. Regarding your other point, it goes without saying that it is very expensive to train doctors but it is not done for altruistic reasons. Society does get a very tangible ROI % from that expenditure (if you count human lives as tangible, of course). Also, I would also say that it is state money much better spent than that which is currently sunk on a whole range of far less useful degrees that are never applied and in some cases are not even fit for purpose for employment and where student finance is taken out for them and never a penny paid back. Of course, the unit cost of funding those courses is far less than the unit cost of training a doctor but when you multiply through, the cost to the state must be a ridiculous waste of money.

Hunters…. Others for the jobs.

@opoponax
They are areas of work which are hugely competitive. Doctors get a job. They are not competing against hunters for the jobs. Therefore the degree is the best paid. Economics degrees are next. All this was researched by the IFS. Have a look at what degrees pay the best. Of course others get more but they have had to compete much harder post degree to get those jobs. If doctors don’t like the money and the immense pensions available and a shorter working life, then I would suggest doing something else. Maybe others would have appreciated the job and opportunities and valued what the state contributed for their expensive training.

I did IB, albeit over a decade ago.

Pros: I found it to be a better overall education due to the global coverage of topics and the breadth of subjects studied. It's also incredibly helpful having a strong background in essay subjects in a science based environment as it helps you stand out and communicate better. Essay writing skills are useful even now and I believe the critical thinking element helped me in my career. It is intense but that meant university felt easier comparatively. I also got in through clearing and believe having done the IB gave me that edge there.

Cons: It's really intense. The way it's set up means the teaching time is less compared to the students in a lot of the other countries it covers so you have to fit a full syllabus in what is realistically 2 months less time than they have because the exams are earlier at the end. This tends to be more of an issue in science and maths with the result that, at my school, results were much lower in those subjects than arts ones. I mean 4s and 5s in students who had a*s at GCSE. I found it all too much with a long commute to and from school plus the extracurriculars required and that's without a Saturday job too. Finally, you have to be really careful the school knows what it's doing as if they cock up the coursework or exam prep it's huge. My school didn't and half of us missed our grades and first choice universities, despite being almost all scholarship kids with strong GCSEs who should have been expected to have a chance at Oxbridge. Students at other schools were much better advised and prepared and got better results.

Personally I'd recommend IB if your daughter isn't sure what she wants to do but a level if you want certain results. I don't regret doing IB personally but it was an extremely stressful couple of years for me and my parents.

*It's not about the money for them though

@TizerorFizz there are many graduate areas pay better than medicine - tech sector in general, city law, big firm accountancy, actuarial, management consultantcy, M&A to name but a few. They all pay significantly better than NHS medicine. I have personal experience of one of those areas and was earning a lot more by my late twenties than my children will be. That's before even doing a real term comparison.It's not about the money for them though. I was more fickle. And who knows what anyone's pension situation will be down the line. It would be madness to project the situation as it is for sixty year-old consultants today. @ArcticSkewer that article really isn't accurate. I stopped reading when I got to Investment banking associates earning £60k. Anyway, I've said enough on this thread. OP don't be put off by all the commentary. Med applications are difficult but it is all possible. My DS got four offers first time and that's from a non-medic family. And please do pop over to the medicine thread where there are a few real experts in med school applications (won't name them but they do know everything worth knowing) and they will be able to help a lot.Good luck to your DD.

Whether it's worth going into is another matter. No doctor I know says they would recommend it, but their children often seem to be going the same way, and it is a profession that recruits from within its own ranks (many applicants have parents who are doctors).

Hopefully op's daughter will get a chance to think about it over the next year or so, and speak to a number of people before making a decision.

www.oneeducation.org.uk/highest-paying-jobs/

I would not recommend medicine, and all I see around me are people earning far more than what nhs doctors are paid. So I find it hard to believe ‘doctors are the best paid of all grads’. That’s just not true

All universities prioritise differently. For some, having great achieved A levels is the most important. For others, it's all about ucat (and there's time to swot for that after A levels). For yet others, it's all about the work experience (which you can get 4 solid months of before interview).
Year 13s do just fine right now if they decide to apply after their A level results are back in, for the following year.
Sure, medicine is difficult to get onto, but starting in year 10 or 11, and burning with vocational zeal since primary school is really not the only path to success.
And plenty really do go into it for money or prestige or to please family.

@opoponax
Doctors are the best paid of all grads. No one gets shit pay and no job! Their pension pots are so high they retire early to avoid taxation on their pensions. They can work for 30 years then back off and work part time. Hard for a bit but not for life.

@ArcticSkewer DC may go into it for the reasons you list but whether they stick it is another matter altogether. If Year 13s are deciding to apply for that cycle once once they have their exam results, they are going to have to prepare for and fit in a last minute UCAT clinical entrance exam before the deadline of the end of September as well as a load of compressed volunteering before their interviews later in the same year. I don't think those candidates are going to be credible competition for places unless they delay their application for a year and do things properly. The candidates who are getting places grades in hand are much more likely to be the ones who weren't successful first time and are applying a second time. It is generally considered a two-year application process.

Ok I will disagree about the vocation part (plenty go into it for more vague reasons, to please parents, meet cultural expectations or even just to earn money), and also the part about needing to decide age 15.

Plenty of people decide in year 12, some in year 13 after the exam results are back!(they are the ones currently getting a lot of the places with their achieved A levels).

For IB, sorry I don't know enough to say.

It is true that my DC have both wanted to be doctors for as long as I can remember. Their wooden playhouse was requisitioned as a teddy/doll hospital and it stayed that way until it was outgrown. My DD was only interested in dolls if she could break them and then 'cure' them. I have no idea where it came from as we are not medics but it was all they ever wanted to do. Some of my DS's friends, who started med school at the same time as him, seemed to come to the idea later on and were actively weighing it up against other careers. I encouraged that approach with mine but I got nowhere as they wouldn't even consider anything else. All these DC were academic enough to choose to do whatever they wanted and other options were more glitzy with better pay prospects and work life balance than medicine. Surely anyone who makes the decision to go into medicine has to have vocation, whether it comes early or later, or why would they choose such a difficult path. Great grades can take you many places.

I decided to be a doctor when I was 5. Most of my medical friends had decided to become doctors before they hit their teens. At medical school there were some people who had just gone for it because they had good grades and someone had suggested it: they had a much higher drop out rate than the ones with a vocation. Because it's bloody hard.

Last year was a truly horrendous year and hopefully things are moving more back to a more normal situation now although it is always very competitive. Your DD still has time for volunteering. You need to be sixteen to get into hospitals anyway. My DD wasn't sixteen until right before the start of Year 12. St John Ambulance can be a good place to start to get some early medical exposure, first aid training etc. They have a good cadet programme. Volunteering early in any caring capacity is always a good thing too. Not just as tick box but to see if you really are suited to a medical career as it is definitely not all glitzy. Hospital work shadowing and experience programmes are great for an insight into what medics do but the volunteering is what really carries weight. The med schools themselves provide good virtual work experience too so it doesn't always have to be about having connections with people in hospitals. Some local NHS trusts run programmes open to local DC although these have been quite interrupted by Covid. Looking in, it does feel like a lot to juggle alongside A levels but, if it is right for a DC, they will love all the volunteering and work experience and it will really draw them in. If they don't like it, well that's no bad thing either, as best to find out that medicine isn't your thing sooner rather than later. It's bit sobering to think that DC are deciding to put themselves forward and then medical schools are effectively recruiting them into their long term careers when they are still only seventeen. Doctors are extremely expensive to train and the process needs to be robust to recruit the right people.

@thedoofus
16% successful applications for medicine and dentistry in 2022. It’s nowhere near 50%.

I think potential students need to think if this career is for them in y10/11. By y12 it’s too late. It’s necessary to do long term planning!!

Tentative is good at fifteen. There is a lot to think about with regard to whether it is the right career for you and it is only with a bit of maturity, finding out what a medical career is really like and a good degree of self-analysis that it can grow legs. Each medical school interviews their selected candidates on site so, if you are successful in securing the max of four interviews, this can mean four overnight trips to medical schools around the UK (with all the prep) at an important stage in your A Level courses. Interviews were virtual during the pandemic but are now moving back to face to face. Many are MMI style which involves a lot of role playing of real life scenarios although some are panel interviews. This is the last stage of their selection process and the clock resets to zero, irrespective of how academic you are and how high your clinical entrance exam score was. At that stage it is a given that you are bright enough (although you still need to make the grades in your A levels) and it is all about whether you have the right make-up to become a good doctor. Last year was particularly difficult and UCAS figures say that fewer than 16% of applications to study medicine and dentistry resulted in an offer last year. In 2021 they quote it as 20.4%.

I did IB. My housemates at university all did A-levels. IB is significantly more work with the extra requirements as well as the 6 subjects, but I think I was much more prepared for university level work, something all of my friends who did IB agreed with. However, DH who is a doctor (through a graduate entry programme) always felt he would have been better off doing A-levels as his IB grade wasn't enough to get him into medical school, he feels if he'd been able to focus on sciences more exclusively he might have got in straight from school. He was (probably sensibly) advised by sixth form tutors to only take standard level maths (mathematical studies if it is still called that) as we were told higher level maths is one of the hardest IB subjects and significantly harder than A level Maths. I found HL Maths very full on despite being an A*, near 100% in exams, maths student at GCSE.

A couple of friends had part time jobs during IB, but most didn't. It's quite full on. And they prefer the "service" hours to be more of a regular commitment (e.g. volunteering at a care home, scout/guide young leader etc) than ad hoc hours which might be more difficult with a job to fit in too

Medicine isn't usually a good choice if you're only tentatively considering it. You tend to have to be passionately committed to it.

@thedoofus
I think I’m right in saying that some universities do a round robin of interviews too so it’s not just one interview. Obviously this makes prep more onerous.

If schools are saying 3 A levels for medicine, (and my local grammars do too) why would you do IB which is known to be more work when you have other aspects of the med school application to consider?

I have one DC who is second year med student and another DC applying this year. You can apply with IB but 3 A Levels is absolutely fine. Most schools who understand the process will dissuade from more than three A Levels as there really is no added value to your application. EPQ can be valuable for certain med schools as if you get an A star or A, you can get a reduced offer. My DS says it was useful for research experience before uni too as many aspiring medics will end up with non-essay based A Level subjects. For any Medicine degree the application involves a lot besides A Levels - volunteering, shadowing, UCAT, BMAT and then you can have four different interviews in four different med schools around the country. There is a 2023 Medicine Thread on here which you may find useful for a glimpse into the future.