Medicine - average UKCAT score

UKCAT Average Scores 2015 (from here)

Verbal Reasoning - 577
Quantitative Reasoning - 685
Abstract Reasoning - 640
Decision Analysis (replaced by Decision Making for this year)

To be honest I remember taking this exam and it was the best thing about our entire learning process pre-university. The thing is these days kids can get A*s easily because of the way teachers push kids to do mock papers and the decreasing difficulty of exams. The UK CAT was the only thing that differentiated from individuals that put in hard work and those that were just genetically superior in terms of intelligence. Everyone show embrace this fact and think maybe if my child can't get into Medicine then she wasn't meant to do it and try something easier like dentistry.

Student room wiki here www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/UKCAT Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton and Sussex and UEA either dont use or dont fuss much over UKCAT. I think Birmingham, UEA and Brighton require a better biology grade. Biomedical science courses may not be feasible without a better Biology grade.

Realistically I think she either needs to resit the UKCAT and perhaps apply next year (ideally resitting the AS biology too), apply to a course with a foundation year, opt for the few courses (e.g Bradford Clinical science www.bradford.ac.uk/courses/view/?c=clinical-sciences-medicine-with-foundation-bsc-4-years#5) that allow transfer to medicine or consider a different career, perhaps in chemistry or pharmacology.

Zainabb - would your daughter be in a better position working on getting those A level grades, and applying the following year, giving her chance to reallly improve those UKCAT scores and spending the year working in a relevent area - care assistant, ward clerk etc which would improve her personal statement and make her more confident at interview.
If she did biomedicine that is a very expensive course and it is harder to get the graduate medicine places
One year working will also help with the medicine course.
My DD would have benefitted from a year out but had to start in 2011 to avoid the fee increase.

My daughter stat her ukcat, but unfortunately she got a low score of 580, she is really passionate about study medicine and has predicted grades of A*AA. she is unable to apply to her preferred uni due to the low ukcat score. we have considered universities that do not require the ukcat, however they require biology and my daughter dropped biology has she got a C in it at AS. we have also considered uni's that don't take ukcat into much consideration like leeds and st georges but st george require a minimum of 500 in each subtest of the ukcat. her lowest was 490 and highest 720. i feel like we are at the dead-end, shes been through alot since the beginning of her A-levels (loosing 3 of her cousins to a terrible accident). is there any other uni that dont take ukcat into much consideration, at least i would hope she can apply to 2 medicine and 3 biomedicine.

I have a daughter at one of the medical schools featuring in this discussion who became disabled during her first year ( developed after her course started). She has received very poor treatment from the medical school, including failing to provide her with support after being requested to do so by her consultant. The university proudly boasts about it's services and support for students but in our experience failed to actually deliver any of them. I urge you to please consider with your children when they apply what the particular university is really like, please consider satisfaction surveys etc. Sadly due to the application process being so dreadful, most students are just grateful to have a place and I feel this leads to an arrogance within medical schools. I also believe that failure/drop out rates should be looked at in the light of too many applicants admitted to the first year being unable to be admitted to subsequent years due to capacity issues. Just be aware!

she needs to think pretty hard about Cardiff. They score GSCEs as 3 points for A* at GSCE and 2 for an A and last year the cut-off for interview was 25 points. The year before it was 23 points but they have suggested it may go up this year. Short courses probably don't count.

Although all med schools are competitive you can rule yourself out easily by failing the computer sift. UEA and Brighton don't use UKCAT a lot and she could look at those. Birmingham don't do UKCAT and if she has A* in maths, eng lang or lit and sciences it's worth a look. Not sure what they require for the AS though.

In addition to teaching style she might want to think about interview style and when they decide, it's hard waiting until March for all your choices.

Honestly, when it comes to Medicine they're pretty much all equally hard to get into

Bear in mind how competitive graduate entry medicine is - far far more competitive than undergraduate

Of course :)

I applied to Leeds, Leicester and Newcastle

I never heard from Leeds apart from an acknowledgement of the application. I have my offer from Newcastle, and I got an interview from Leicester. I didn't go to the interview and withdrew from both Leicester and Leeds because I recieved the offer from Newcastle

Newcastle needs a higher UKCAT score than 640 though, and i think Leicester are going to be scoring the UKCAT this year as well so I think thats out as well

I almost applied to Southampton, but i changed my UCAS form before sending it in, because I didn't think I'd be happy there. However, there was no problem with my grades. Their UKCAT cut off for 2013 entry is 2500 (625) I think. I know you need a very good PS for there because they don't interview (only medical school which doesn't)

The Student Room's Medicine Wiki is the best place to look at entry requirements apart from the university websites themselves, obviously you need to double check everything you read elsewhere. However, all the information I've ever got off TSR checked out fine.

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Medicine

You can compare all the medical schools UKCAT policy at a glance there, as well as A level requirements etc

I advise making a list of every single med school in the UK, then crossing them out one by one until you are left with those you could apply to and get a place at. Then look at teaching (PBL, integrated, traditional etc) methods and go for the ones that fit D the best, because they are vastly different

It's possible to go from ABB to AAA. Retaking units is hard though and she needs to be very organised (more than I was!) and prepared to put all the work in

I got aabcc at AS, and got a Medicine offer, and now have A*AAEb as my final grades. I'm off to medical school next month! So it's possible - you don't need 4 A's at AS to get a place, not at all. I applied to 3 medical schools, none of which required any specific grade for the AS grade you drop, so my c in maths didn't matter. Then I had 3 predicted A's.

If she wants to apply, you need to go through the admissions policy/inofrmation for each medical school carefully. A UKCAT of 640 is fine for lots of places. She also needs now to rule out any medical school which requires an A in the AS level she drops.

She can still get a place - what she needs to think about is whether she can achieve the 3 A's she would need to secure the place (I nearly didn't, only 5 ums marks/2 or 3 raw marks off a B in Chemistry)

NHS careers website www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/wider-healthcare-team/ NHS jobs website may give some idea of salary scales and vacancies www.jobs.nhs.uk/

Having now spoken to someone bout UCAS forms I'm told you don't have to put either BMAT or UKCAT on the form. The results are only sent to members of the consortium. Therefore BMAT universities know you have taken that, UKCAT universities see those results but not BMAT. There may be some who do both BMAT and UKCAT for different courses.

Noddy33 I have heard of people going from B at AS to A at A2, it's not impossible, especially if they are high Bs. If she does decide to go for a different career she might want to change her mind on results day if she gets 3 As after all. So as well as looking at other careers she might want to consider a gap year, or a degree in something scientific and graduate medicine if she does well enough.

There are many positives to careers other than medicine.

well meaning advice can be out of date, it would be wise to check the Student Room then check that with university websites/ admission staff. This year several medical schools are changing their selection procedures. Sheffield will no longer require an astronomical UKCAT and Birmingham will no longer require 8 A*s at GSCE. Interviews are also changing with more schools adopting multiple mini interviews. Some medical schools do still require a high UKCAT. She should probably avoid Barts, Newcastle/Durham and Cardiff, there may be others.

The UKCAT seems to be less important in selection than it was. It will not be seen by universities that are not part of the consortium unless you put it on UCAS. I don't know if that is required? I imagine the same is true of the BMAT.

Just to say good luck and masses of respect to anyone who is either going through this themselves or supporting kids going through it. I did medicine at Oxford in 1996 (eek seems an awfully long time ago now!) and am reading this rather awed at how difficult it seems to be - have a nasty feeling tht if I applied now I wouldn't get a place anywhere!

Hi I got into dentistry with BBB back in 2002- not sure what the criteria is now, think it has gone up. Not many applicants when i was applying, so the threshold was lower

And lots going for 'average' candidates (using your words Noddy)
Time management, communication skills, common sense, hard working attitude, determination and commitment etc all very valuable attributes to have as doctor.
And not necessarily reflected in academic results.

Don't be too put off applying to the London med schools although the rent costs can be ridiculously high.
Some of the clinical placements even in the early stages can be quite remote from the med schools - for the London ones public transport is available althought the distances are never that great (ie Barts students have to go out to Leytonstone about half a dozen stops on the central line and UCL students go to Royal Free in Hampstead)

Sheffield students may have placements in Derby and Keele students go off to Shrewsbury and in Scotland can be even further - I have heard several students learning to drive and getting cars to make this possible and this would be a greater cost than London study.
The whole application process is a complete emotional rollercoaster there seems to be no logic about the decisions who to call to interview as they all say they take many factors into account.

As regards PS there does seem to be an emphasis on saying what you gained from work experience rather than the quantity.

Finally getting into med school is the easy bit - the volume of work from then on increases exponentially

My fault for using the word 'weak' but I have also pointed out the positives and really do think the OP's DD is in with a chance.

Good luck with your application too, Bryonyy28

Hi! I did my UKCAT today and got 642.5 average so I'm in the same position as your daughter... Sheffield has changed there admissions policy and don't use the UKCAT as much now they ask for 2400-2500 total so she should be fine there :) 600 is average so she did well! Best of luck to her :) xx