GCSES good enough for medicine?

I don't disagree with yoy on principle but I just see it as something additional. DD cane home from her new tennis lesson last night to say that she'd been asked to help teach a class (6-7yo) and by doing that she will work towards some sort of leadership award.

I think on paper neither mean much. You could have responsibility as a Head Girl that involved having to make key decisions that impact on others whilst volunteering in a nursing home could be nothing more than doing the dishes having little or no interaction with other staff or residents.

I expect the 'whole rounder' is about evidencing various personal skills essential to become a good clinician. Experience making decisions especially unpopular ones I would think would score quite highly. The fact that you would most likely be elected to that role and so well liked again would be I would think a positive point?

No, it's on the South Coast, small town!

Reading your post NMS have restored my positivism! 'Roundedness' is probably her strongest attribute. She always does very well in interviews and just comes across as an enthusiastic, friendly, intelligent and mature individual. She doesn't know what anxiety is which is great, but also means that sometimes she can be a bit too laid-back in my opinion!

I personally don't mind which path she takes as long as she is happy, I just feel a responsibility to ensure that she is not missing out on her aim because of the complexity of the 'rules' to get in.

Thank God DS isn't expressing any interest in Medicine!

Is that the new sixth form in Central London? I understand their first set of A level results were good, and presumably they will continue to improve as the school becomes established.

To be honest the medical school application process felt so confusing and daunting that DD decided she was who she was, and that this would have to be enough. At the end of the summer term she was invited to speak to would be medics amongst soon-to-be sixth formers, and was surprised at the emphasis on "roundedness". Apparently there has been a shift in policy at some medical schools. Who knows if this is right, and it certainly won't replace good grades, but it would be a shame if bojo's DD felt she had had to give up good personal development opportunities in order to gain a place at medical school.

DD also kept up additonal A levels to allow herself scope for a Plan B. She found she really enjoyed maths and physics in Yr 13, and we noted that related courses like biomedical engineering were will to accept late applications so she did not need to add a fifth choice to her UCAS form. The advantage of having maths is that it increases intercalation options, and presumably could be a second Plan B if medicine stops appealing.

The whole process seems a balancing act from start to finish! DD pondered for quite some time whether to take Further Maths or not. We know that it won't add to her application as she is already doing Maths, so no benefit at all for Medicine but we had to have the 'what if you don't get into med school, and she decided that if it didn't work, she would want to consider studying Maths as ultimately, it is the subject that she is really gifted at.

DD 'lost out' going to a large secondary school which focus is on getting as many pupils to get C grades, however, she is now in an independent (LA funded) 6th form which likes to act as a private school. They are only 120 pupils per year and she already knew quite a lot of them through doing her various other activities outside of school. It is others who suggested she goes for Headgirl. She is quite well liked, so it really was no big deal at all. If it can help in anyway for her application, all the better, but it was never going to take her away from volunteering. As I think I've wrote before, I have read on a number of sources that what they are looking for is commitment and that volunteering even a couple of hours a week long term is going to be valued over a short full-time spell.

We debated for some time last year whether she should attend a college more than an hour away, but with excellent result, or this local independent school which is only in it's 2nd year of 6th form but less than 10 minutes walk away. We ended up picking the second and so far, I think we definitely made the right choice as the school certainly seems to be providing the right academic level and attitude, and being so close, it allows her to be much more involved in outside activities.

My worry is how quickly it is all going!

Bojo, did you find this adversely affected your DDs chances of a medicine offer? It was not our experience at all.

I am really not against young people having leadership roles and doing sport but if this takes up time when someone could be volunteering, it is better to do the volunteering because this gives you a lot more to write about on the ps. As the mum of a DD that did a ludicrous amount of extra curricular, I do know it can take over if you are not careful. The great thing about going out and finding relevant opportunities is that it also means you mix with others from a much wider group than sporty people or school mates. Head Girl is bestowed upon you and although leadership is involved, many young people never get the chance of this as there is only one Head Girl per school. There are lots of ways to mix with the community and show leadership.

Sorry meant to thank you too bojorojo for your advice too. I think it is important to keep in mind the level of competition faced when choosing Medicine. I think it's the bit DD is missing. All those years of teaching her she can do anything she wants if she works hard and shows commitment has made her maybe a little bit too confident!

Firstly, I wanted to thank you again needmoresleep as I only got the chance to read the blog you shared and that is the most valuable information I've read so far. It provides the level of detail confused parents/applicants are desperate for, so that is extremely helpful.

Re. being Headgirl, I read and she was indeed advised at one of her session with the medical school that it was regarded well because it shows leadership skills and commitment. Of course, I imagine on that is not worth much on its own, but what I am gathering is that when it comes to applying to med school, 'every little helps' :)

I do totally agree about volunteering experience and as I said, she is due this shortly. What I have read, which makes complete sense, is that they are much more interested in someone who will do 1 or 2 hours volunteering for 2 years than someone who does FT for just one week over the holiday, again, they look for commitment.

She also put an application with the local hospice and they contacted her about coming to their open day, but she was at school revising for GCSEs so couldn't come but she will be getting in touch with them again soon.

I've never been the type of parent who do their kids' homework for them to 'help' them, always considered it to be their sole responsibility whatever the result, but I never realised that applying for a place in Medicine would be so complex. Are they really many kids who do it all on their own without support from their parents/school?

Swing - I am going to completely disagree with bojo. What DD had in spades was prefect/sports captain type of things. She kept them up as she felt quite strongly that she would be a better doctor if she had balance and interests and spent her last couple of years at school developing as a person as well as ticking the boxes.

And to some extent she felt that if gaining a place at medical school meant hours sitting in her bedroom practicing UKCAT and nailing a full set of A*s, it was probably not the career for her.

Some medical schools are clearly looking for the very academic. But others seem to prefer those with a full PS. It worked for DD who got her first choice - presumably because what she and they wanted were similar.

Again, be careful about what you read on MN, and even more careful about The Student Room, so research. And then get do as well as possible at A2 and in the aptitude tests, but don't fret over much. The aim for the first stage is to keep as many doors open as possible Interviewers will be looking for communication skills, empathy etc and a child who has played a role in the wider community or who has taken on additional responsibiity as school should have gained a bit of an edge in terms of confidence.

Frankly, swingofthings, Head Girl and sports teams are of limited use if you read the detailed information the medical schools have on their web sites. She would be better off doing volunteering with the St John's Ambulance for example. Some universities do take GCSE results very seriously and say what the profile of their med students look like. You would need to filter these out. Some universities filter very strongly on Personal Statement so look at what the university says about personal statements, what emphasis they put on UKCAT etc and really drill down on how they select candidates for interview and the value of volunteering and work experience and work shadowing (it is what you learn from it, not just ticking the box you have done it!) If their standard offer is AAA, what else do they require because that is a relatively low offer and attainable by very many. Bristol, for example, filter on lots of other elements.

Lots of medical applicants get no offers at all! Lots do have a basket full of A*s at GCSE. It is highly competitive and so many students apply who have all the attributes required.

Some med applicants regards Cambridge as wasting a choice because it is not unheard of for med applicants to get no offers at all.

Thank you very much for your detailed advice needmoresleep and indeed picked up that it is very much a ticking box exercise. Thankfully her school has also picked they up and supporting prospective applicants to go through the motions so have a club that involves going to help in a nursing home weekly. She is going to go to be Head girl for her Year and joining a sporting team. She's done DofE and the NCS.

She has already done one week shadowing with a consultant and will do the same with a GP practice next month. She is also involved with the local med school programme and as part of this will attend a week residential next summer.

So ticking the boxes so far except getting the large range of As at GCSE but indeed it sounds that all it means so far is that she might already need to exclude some choices and focus hard on getting the s at her A levels and practicing fir the UKCAT.

Thanks again for the links.

swingofthings, I agree there are a daunting number of boxes that seem to need to be ticked. But you don't need to tick them all! Medicine is hugely competitive, so Universities filter applications. Very few will get through all the filters. The trick is to cover as many as possible so your DD has as much choice as possible.

Now is a good time to look at volunteering. Amongst other things, DD helped out with a disabled sports group at our local leisure centre, which was good as it was first "hands on" but also limited to an hour a week, plus she enjoyed it, and indeed still does it. And shadowing/work experience.

Look forward to nexd summer, and think about UKCAT prep. DD initially claimed you only needed a small amount, but I think would now say that timing is everything and that practice helps. A neighbour's child did some practice every night for months and did very very well. (Though is also very bright.) So think about when your DD will want to sit the test and book any family holiday so she has time to prepare.

And obviously work to get the school reference and the A2 predictions/grades.

In the end you only need four schools where you meet their criteria and they meet yours. In practice DD had three, plus two which were marginal, but this gave three interviews and two offers. Because of the competition you also need to see it as a two year application process. Because there is an element of luck, good candidates will slip through the net each year. But often do better the following year when applying with more experience and actual grades.

I would do some reading round now. The Student Room is a pretty scary place but I found it useful to go back over the previous years threads to get a sense of decisions made and when. (DD refused to read it.) There are some real braggards, but also some helpful first and second year medics.

In particular you might look at

natalierm2707futuredoctorblogs.wordpress.com/category/applying/

in particular

natalierm2707futuredoctorblogs.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/a100-2017-entry-admissions-policies-nrm2707-fdb1.docx

Needmoresleep, that's what I thought too, but reading a number of posts here, it would seem that although most medical schools won't even look at applicants who didn't get most A*s.

We have already looked at UKCAT and BMAT and so far, it would seem that the 6th form DD has chosen is very knowledgeable on requirements and will be providing great support to those aiming to gain a place.

I guess I came across as negative because until now, I felt that DD still had a good enough chance to get a place despite her mainly As rather than mainly A*s and her sad B, but after reading this thread, it felt like her chances were already greatly compromised!

"However they solely rely on what his A-level results are"
I'm sorry but this is simply not true.

Swingofthings, I don't understand your post. Yes Birmingham, Nottingham and Cardiff expect great GCSEs, but other medical schools assess on UKCAT scores and other criteria. Bristol even publish a list of schools to whom they give contextural offers - a relatively low AAB.

Rather than the gloom and doom why not look at requirements for some of the UKCAT and BMAT heavy schools and make sure she does as well as she can in those tests. DD had reasonably good GCSEs but a relatively poor UKCAT score and no BMAT. I think it is just as well that different medical schools look for different things, even if it means that both our DDs will have had to work out where they have comparative advantage.

I thought the key requirement to be a doctor was handwriting that nobody but a pharmacist can decipher.....

All I can suggest is that you go to open days. A lot of unis stated in the open day talk that they only look at candidates with 7 A star grades when I went with my little sister 8 or 9 years ago.
That info wasn't published anywhere.

It's also really useful to go and take copious notes for the interview stages so you can name drop and mention specifics in those.

Lastly, I have a friend with fairly awful grades at GCSE who had to resist his a levels. He only got two interviews at what most people considered second tier schools at the time (UEA and Peninsula) and in both cases there was someone in the waiting room talking about how they didn't want to really go there but that it was their 3rd or 4th application choice.
Both times my friend said he did really want to go and reasoned why. Both times he got an offer.
He found out later that certainly for the uni he went to, that person was a student plant to find out what people actually thought and so the uni didn't waste offer on people who were never planning to accept.

If your child is fortunate enough to get to an interview, for heavens sake get them to be enthusiastic even when they don't think they're being watched.

They are fantastic grades. However they solely rely on what his A-level results are.

We Hebrew done that already and according to last year publication DD meets the requirements for all schools but what they don't publish is how they cut off even considering an application just because the pupil got As instead of A*s. Deciding on the likelihood of a pupil becoming a good doctor based on GCSE especially considering that the same pupil will have a much higher chance of getting the magical stars depending on the school is madness to me.

The consultant who DD did her placement with said he was incredibly mature for her age and showed all the qualities to become a good doctor. He got her involved in activities he said he didn't even feel comfortable with new junior doctors and her knowledge of his speciality was very impressive.

I would hope that is much more valuable than her getting a B in English Literature when her school admitted it was as a result of their failure not DD capability.

Therefore, swingofthings, you need to start looking at which medical schools place less emphasis on GCSEs. What will be a problem is that universities have robust research that shows the most successful students have a clutch of A*s at GCSE and your DD will have to go from Bs in Sciences to at least an A and that may be a challenge. She will need to tick all the other boxes to try and get interviewed and be successful.

The other thing to realise is that many medical schools have a 1:10 ratio of places to applicants but of course applicants apply to four universities. Therefore the NHS needing doctors is not the point: it is the number of places available in med schools vs number of applicants and the tough selection procedures. Start trawling through all the info each medical school has on their website and see what criteria may suit her best. Also, check to see if her school is on the list at Bristol where she may get a reduced offer. My DDs friend was accepted there with AAB at A level. I would also make sure she looks at other medical courses just in case.

What a depressing thread :( DD got 2A* (Maths/FM), 7As and 1B. The B was as a result of a controlled assessment taken at the start of Year 10 when the pupils didn't have a proper teacher due to drastic changes in the school senior leadership team. She got As at the two exams and the school did admit for letting DD down but nothing they could do after it was submitted and she ended up three point away from an A because of the C marked at this assessment (she had never even got a B before!).

Clearly poor results for Medical School it would seem yet DD got the highest results for her chosen classes in her year (very average academically school). She has wanted to go to Med School since she was 12, is totally dedicated to it, is part of a medical school programme for aspiring med students, has done an invaluable clinical placement at the local hospital (in Oncology which was a real honour as they don't normally take placements in that field), is set to do a placement in a primary care setting and about to start a job as a healthcare assistant. She is expected A/A* in her A levels.

Yet reading this, she might as well put an end to her dream. Considering the problems the NHS has in recruiting doctors and the pressure this is putting onto the system, it seems utter madness that it should all come down to whether a 16 yo got As instead of As at GCSE exams, especially when most don't have a choice with their local schools and not all parents can afford to send their kids to private school where they would have been guaranteed to get these precious s!

Thankfully, DD is not one to give up to adversity (a quality I would expect of value for a doctor) so that won't stop aiming for her dream. I hope one day she will come to post to say she got a top position despite her 'appalling' GCSE results!

Yes good post and what our daughter did. Look at admissions criteria and play to strengths. Birmingham want 10 As minimum GCSE but others go more on UKCAT or BMAT. Work experience and learning from the experiences is also key to getting in. Everyone does a week in GP but other useful stuff might be in an undertakers, in a hospital emergency department, in a hospice. Volunteering is usually needed as is wider extra curricular achievement such as musical grades or sporting success. Our daughter had offers from a few - Oxford, Liverpool, Keele and Durham. She surprisingly chose Keele as she found it most welcoming. She is qualified now and Keele has moved up the league tables.