Admissions tutors - would you even look at an application outside of UCAS sent to you in March/April or later?

[lazymumofteenagesons]

The reason I am asking is that DS1 changed his mind after A levels in 2010 about what he wanted to do. He thought he wanted to now do medicine so has enrolled on a one year chemistry A level course. However, he has now decided he is more suited to/prefers the idea of Biomedical Sciences or Pharmacology. He can only apply in the next UCAS run and this means a further year out. We knew this when deciding on medicine, but because of the extra curiculum stuff needed he had no choice.

Would you look at an application for starting 2011 outside of a UCAS run?

Betelguese, my point was that if he wants to study biomedical science, there is a good chance that he would be considering becoming a biomedical scientist as a career. The only way to gain HPC registration in order to become a practising biomedical scientist is to follow a course accredited by the IBMS (Institute for Biomedical Science). These courses also allow you to do everything with them that a non-accredited course will allow you to do, but a non-accredited course will not allow you to gain HPC registration.

Thanks all. DS1 seems set on pharmacology for some reason. He is unlikely to get into Imperial anyway, I don't think he is of that calibre and he would have to do a BMAT which includes some Physics - he does not have Physics GCSE. He is waiting for head of science from his previous school to reply to his email and he'll see what he comes up with.

He would not take lower choices just because it is possible for 2011.

Betelguese, HPC registered biomedical scientists working for the NHS are likely to start around the £25k mark. It is almost certainly worse paid than engineering. Many jobs in science are pretty poorly paid though, so this salary is comparable with a post-doc who will start on around £27k (and that is with an extra 3-4 years of studying). Even in the pharmaceutical industry, jobs (for scientists) are rarely phenomenal salaries unless you move out of the research and development areas and into management.

As I say, I went to IC (as a PhD student). It is an excellent college and the group I worked in was and still is leading the field in their particular area. This has undoubtedly helped me a ton in my career, but would still not help me to enter some jobs where there is a very specific entry criteria and anything different, even if similar can block off some career options.

He could follow his original plan of medicine and then swap course once he gets there. You can't rely on that working, but unis usually manage to swap people around.