Manchester Uni for medicine - don’t want her to take a gap year!

[Cluelessatthisstuff]

DD didn’t get into her first choice - Oxford. Insurance was Manchester which is a very good RG university and I believe has the biggest medical department in UK. Daughter wants to resit a subject in the hope of getting an A* but I’m really uneasy about this, namely because all of her friends are going away for uni so she’ll be at home, alone and working part time in Costa coffee. I just don’t think she’ll be happy.

Does anyone have any experience with Manchester uni? Doesn’t have to be medicine specifically but anything that could help my DD? Thanks

My daughter is doing her Masters there, it's very good. Oxford won't generally accept resits. Hopefully she can get past this and not miss out on this amazing opportunity.

Two of my relatives studied medicine at Manchester some years ago. They have been very successful in their fields and are both well known. They speak very highly of the university and would definitely recommend it.

She would be crazy to pass up here place at Manchester and do a resit which oxford probably won’t accept anyway.

The benefits of an Oxford Med degree over a Manchester one are so tiny as to be pretty much non existent.

It would be madness to waste a year chasing this. There’s no guarantee of success for one thing. She needs to be mindful of how long she’s going to be spending in education as it is. Adding a year for no good reason is bonkers.

Plus Manchester is a much more fun place to go to uni than Oxford.

I'm a doctor and Oxford graduate. Your university is much less important in medicine than in many other professions, and there's more of a London teaching hospital mafia than an Oxbridge one anyway. There's no way she should turn down a definite place at any UK med school for the possibility of an Oxford place in the future.

What about starting in Manchester and if she doesn't like it .... transferring to 2nd year in Oxford after passing 1st year

@Cluelessatthisstuff is your dd reading this thread?

I shortlist regularly for junior Drs applying for specialist training rotations. I wouldn't differentiate Oxbridge from any other medical schools. High quality experience, publications, a first in an intercalated degree all yes but just going to Oxford at 18 doesn't differentiate at all.

Gosh, teach her resilience - make the best of what you've got. It's still an amazing achievement and she sould be REALLY proud.

YABVU in not posting this in the higher education section where you would find threads with people who actually have recent experience of applying to medical schools.

Repeat this there and I have no doubt you will be given more accurate information. Some medical schools do accept resists but not all and a vanity resit is not going to play well with any medical school. If she was close to a grade boundary than it might be worth asking for a remark and then oxford might just consider a deferred place for next year - otherwise I suspect she'll be very politely told to forget it.

Medical places are hard to get, there is no guarantee she'd be offered a place anywhere next year, especially if she wastes a gap year on a frivolous resit.

My child has just started their first junior doctor job. Their ideas about whether they want to be an academic will change over 5 or 6 years. She needs to lose the perfectionism because all doctors make mistakes, you need robust systems to avoid them being serious mistakes and you need to listen to your colleagues when they try to stop you making a mistake. She can start the process by listening now to anyone sensible telling her passing up a place now is a mistake.

Getting your first job is slightly more complicated that your rating at medical school but being in the top 10 percent does make a difference. It's easier to be in the top 10 percent at Manchester than at Oxford.

If she still feels like this in a few days she's probably not cut out to be a doctor. Take the gap year and reapply for a different subject.

I very much doubt she will get into Oxford next year with a resit. Manchester is an excellent uni, I think she would be bonkers to turn a place down, especially to do medicine.

In all honesty the chance of Oxford taking her next year is slim, they are not keen on resits BUT I highly recommend a gap year working in hospitality, dd flipped burgers for a year and it really helped her transition from school mindset and gave her a brilliant work ethic.

She was always going to reach a point where she had to come to terms with not being perfect at something without it letting it feel like it devalues her as a person. Probably better in the long run that she's able to do that now, with the support of her family around her, rather than away from home in the midst of her degree.

Sometimes you try your absolute best and you still don't get the outcome you'd hoped for or hoped you would. It doesn't make you any lesser, or mean you didn't work hard enough. Having experienced and understood that will make it easier for her to empathise and connect with patients, especially those who haven't had such lucky lives as her.

It would make her a better doctor than rigidly pursuing perfection at the expense of the bigger picture.

*still don't get the outcome you'd hoped for or expected you would

Reacting positively to a disappointment and getting comfortable with a new plan quickly is far better preparation for a medical career than chasing perfection all the time.

Ps medicine is rarely if at all in clearing, yesterday dd worked the clearing open day showing failed medics around biosciences - your dd has done brilliantly to get a place at all, even the also ran med schools are on a*aa offers remember, here they did drop to aaa this year

Your daughter has a place at medical school. She should take it. Sometimes in life one does not get exactly what one wants and one has to deal with that.

In medical practice, it would not be OK to put a patient at high risk of harm to try to obtain a small improvement in health. Your DD risks harming her medical career by losing her Manchester offer in order to try to obtain a small (if it even exists) improvement in her degree choice. Can she see the parallels?

Her first lesson in being a doctor is this: sometimes you have to stop short of "perfect" in order to have a safe "good" outcome.

Source: computer scientist who has had to learn to deal with her own obsessive perfectionism because of these inconvenient things called "shipping deadlines".

For what it's worth, I would ask 'why Oxford'? If it is for the experience, then as a medical student it's likely to pass her by. Things like debates at the Union, acting, getting sporting blues, lining up for a political career are for those who have chosen er, shall we say, less demanding subjects. As a medic she is likely to be working morning, noon and night.

I've been an academic (not medicine) at one of the other universities in Manchester. I am sure that compared to the city of Oxford, the city of Manchester is a bit of a dump, but really that doesn't make much odds. It's what happens in the medical school that matters. I have had a rare-ish condition treated at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and the consultants in that department were all Professors at the University one was very much one of the world leaders in treating that condition and the (different) one I saw was pretty good too.

I went to Manchester albeit 20 years ago. It was fantastic. I didn't study medicine but I know they all used to go out on a Wednesday night 😂 in the circumstances you describe I would highly recommend she doesn't leave it a year, there's no certainty in 12 months time that she'll get the improved grade, or have an offer from oxford or elsewhere given not just her grades but her approach. What else is she going to do if she resits this. Work too?

I thought it had to be first sitting for all medicine courses in the UK? And do they still do the UKCat? I'm pretty sure for medicine that the actual university comes way down the list in criteria required for getting the best jobs.

She needs to get over it and appreciate her offer at Manchester. I doubt Oxford would accept a resit. She's going to need to be more resilient if she wants to complete a medical degree. She's done so well, it would be crazy to pass this opportunity up.

I studied law at University of Manchester and loved it!!! It’s a fantastic city and to be honest a degree in medicine is a huge accolade regardless of where it’s from. The reputation of Oxbridge speaks for itself but to take a year out and watch all of your friends go off to uni just to improve upon already fantastic grades? That seems daft to me. I didn’t get into my first choice, Durham and had the same decision to make but ultimately went to Manchester. It’s a great university with a great reputation in its own right and she’ll have a better time there. It is her decision to make though for me, I just didn’t want to wait a year and watch all of my friends off having the time of their lives when. All said and done, she’ll have done brilliantly to even study medicine at Manchester and she should focus on that.

Oxford does NOT consider resits. Much less so for medicine.

It would be a year wasted. They only care about the first test.

Does she want an academic medical career, or one that actually requires a degree from oxford specifically or does she just want to go there? If she is going to be a GP it probably wouldn't make a difference but if she was going into research side of things, it might

Few doctors end up in the speciality that they thought they would at 18. And, even if she does end up doing research, post-graduate qualifications will be far more important than where she did her MB ChB. There are no bad UK medical schools.

If money is any sort of a factor Manchester will save £10,000s over the years. I lived in both and Manchester is a lot more fun.