Any prospective medics got offers yet?

[Theas18]

Just wondering as seem to have entered the eye of the storm here- nothing happening after all the frantic application/ supplementary questionnaires etc!

Theas I'm very sorry to hear about your DS. No offer at all must be crucifying for him and very hard for you too. Nevertheless, I think it very unlikely that his school would not know how to gauge a reference, since it's a superselective state grammar. It's possible of course that a new and inexperienced member of staff wrote the reference, but unlikely if the leadership is good. It might be well worth your while paying the c.£10 fee asap while the application is still live to see exactly what it says.

I have reasonable experience of this stuff across a number of years and all I can say is that in a school which sends a significant proportion of its Y13s to med school, very few indeed emerge with no offers at all. Most get more than one and the top achievers/ all rounders seem to get three, with the exceptional getting four - though that really isn't heard of that often. But I think the school gives sound, grounded advice - some of which is at variance with the MN advice I've seen repeated time and again by those who may well be significantly less expert than they think. One poster I've read named funnyperson gives excellent advice. The interviews themselves are very straightforward at most med schools except for Oxford and Cambridge - much more about the tutors eyeballing the applicant than about clever answers or witty repartee. Difficult to be relaxed, especially on a re-application, but it's that easy manner (to be distinguished from arrogance) which will collar an offer, not cutting edge work experience or years of Saturdays spent in a hospice or behind a hospital trolley. Sometimes all of that appears to be barely more than mundane.

Did your DS apply to Oxford or Cambridge Theas? If he did, then you'll know that interviews there are quite different, and extremely challenging intellectually. But it's still true even at those two universities that you have to give an indication of potential for a good bedside manner.

Evidence of humour probably helps - that's an important pre-requisite for a doctor's survival. A student should also be able to demonstrate a source of recreation that he enjoys - anything - that will act as a stress buster when the going gets tough.

There seems to me to be far too much workaday advice on MN about work experience/ care homes/ hospital trolleys and all sorts of other rather bland boxes to tick, which may be useful up to a point but arguably aren't the main event. Good grades are a given, but I don't think your DS should think a second A* will clinch or lose the deal tbh , though the UKCAT/ BMAT might, depending on uni.

I would certainly second the advice to have a back up and a lot of sources of resilience in place from the same perspective as no more. In both my daughters years it has been by no means uncommon for very good candidates who ended up at schools like Kings and St George's to be still waiting for offers at this stage. Very hard to gear yourself up for the hard slog of revision under a cloud of uncertainty. And it does seem to be a process that does not follow a consistent pattern except that those who are successful are the ones you feel could have produced the evidence that they had the qualities needed for the job, as opposed to getting in on academic brilliance. My DD commented that at least one of the shock rejections of a very bright applicant was not that surprising when you realised how obsessed with being clean and tidy she was. I was just glad my Scientist DD appreciated that whilst the medicine would be interesting, she wouldn't have any patience with the actual patients........

At my DDs London uni the Biomed courses are packed with straight A* students who did not get offers for medicine, so very bright applicants do end up not getting in. They dutifully submit themselves for the transfer process into the medical school each year to no avail. She hasn't mentioned any lack of affability, just an air of desperation, and thinks it is sad that they cannot positively embrace the fact that Science has so much more to offer than the prestige of a career as a doctor. Meanwhile her friend has just gained entry to the medical school from a first degree in Psychology at a not particularly good university.

I do know someone who is involved in selection at a London teaching hospital and on work experience I gather there is a growing ennuie with impressive work experience in deprived areas / overseas, it has become an arms race, especially amongst Asian applicants, much better to have work experience that provides evidence that you have the qualities to do the job that is accessible to everyone. I also gather that whilst the courses do end up with an overrepresentation of certain groups, because at the end of the day they want the best applicants, they do try to mirror the social and ethnic make up of their patients rather than their applicant cohort, in which certain groups are highly overrepresented.

I'm not surprised at the comments on King's. A student I know dropped out recently well into the course. They would have made a great doctor and from what I gather it was the result of certain aspects of the course and the faculty peculiar to Kings, they really wish they had accepted one of the other offers that might be seen as less prestigious (though I fail to see how any place to read medicine is less than prestigious)

Interesting post Shooting. I agree that it's not about academic brilliance, which is what I meant about good grades being a given (although for the top research universities you need real academic potential, obviously). The other aspect, the suitability for the job (including, importantly, the ability to withstand the stress of the job) is crucial. Your comment about why certain peers amongst apparent equals get selected is very likely spot on. I also agree that it's a shame that too many top students think that medicine is the only right way to go - so often they seem to head that way like lemmings. To be honest I'd far rather have a DC rejected now who then has the opportunity to head for a seriously interesting science course than have him chucked out of a med school after one or two years, as so many are - what prospects then, and how much worse for confidence, friendships, everything? In that sense, rejections for some (not all, obviously) may turn out to be a positive - certainly they force a period of reflection, which can often be helpful.

Interesting comments from all thanks!

He knows he's just go to go and get the grades. His back up course would make him happy I'm sure and it's in a city where he's already got contacts and musical connections. I think, at the moment he's very set on doing this specialism from a medical rather than scientific perspective though. We will see.

yes a lot of misinformation on mumsnet including suggestions that working in retail was sufficient work experience and outdated information about medical school requirements on grades. However suggesting volunteering in a health care setting as an option is not part of the misinformation.

Volunteering helps to test if a career in medicine is really what a young person wants. For that reason you will see it recommended on websites like the student room - where the current applicants are far better informed than mumsnetters, on medical school websites e.g. www.hyms.ac.uk/becoming-a-doctor/work-experience.html and by current medical school admission tutors.

Always wise to check what you are told on mumsnet about medicine with medical schools.

Volunteering is fine alreadytaken but it's neither necessary nor sufficient. I agree that most applicants do it but it won't get an iffy applicant a place. Nor will lack of it prevent an offer. It's not the only way to discover whether your vocation is in doctoring, that's for sure.

I would say that although a great deal of info on TSR is good, one should be very selective about which information on there an aspiring applicant/ re-applicant relies on (though possibly to a lesser extent than on MN :)). It's not good enough just to say it's on The Student Room therefore it's true - that's a dodgy premise.

As with everything, you need to be very selective and up to a point, use initiative! Initiative is good - just following the crowd isn't always good, indeed it can mark you out as excessively dull, and no tutor wants a dull and pedestrian tutee.

alreadytaken that is why I said work experience that provides the selectors with evidence that you have the qualities needed to do the job. That is a three step process, doing the job, gaining from it and articulating to the selectors what you gained from it that is relevant to your chances of being a successful doctor. So of a candidate thinks it is enough to have ticked the box marked "worked in an old people's home" without highlighting things they learnt that are relevant to medicine, eg empathy, appreciating the importance of giving people dignity in difficult situations, being prepared to cope with human mess, dealing with stressful situations, illness and even death, why it confirmed their wish to be a doctor, then it is just work experience as far as the selectors are concerned and no more relevant than retail. It is what you have gained from the work experience that strengthens an application not the tick boxing of doing stints in various healthcare settings. I gather it sometimes seems as if candidates have paraded through all these experiences without any of it touching the sides. And conceivably you might actually be able to highlight some aspects of retail experience that gave you relevant skills, especially people skills. In an interview some selectors, if they are any good, do drill down to specific incidents and how you handled them, hopefully in an encouraging way, to test whether you actually displayed the qualities they are looking for evidence of. In that context arrogance, a sense of entitlement, being overly coached, lack of initiative etc, all qualities I gather torpedo good applicants, will manifest themselves. So I would, from what I have heard, put it wider than displaying initiative, it is also about displaying flexibility, showing you have the personal qualities to care and to cope, at least potentially, and that you are receptive to learning and change. AND get the grades of course

Of course you are right to highlight what a candidate will gain personally from experience in a healthcare setting in terms of being sure that medicine is the job for them, but that sadly isn't the whole story in terms of the relevance to the strength of their application.

The other point I was making though was that they are not impressed by impressive work experience in hospitals or deprived areas in the UK or overseas gained via connections, or at least no more impressed than the experience in local healthcare settings that anyone can access.

Very good post Shooting. Incidentally, I meant initiative in the sense of using initiative to find in perhaps other areas, such as retail, exactly those experiences you describe as being useful attributes for a doctor. Not purely in possessing initiative, though possessing it is of course no bad thing.

I think plenty of tutors are aware that some students need to earn money, especially since the demise of EMA, and not all therefore have the time left after that to volunteer for half a day a week on a regular basis. That's ok for those cocooned by parents on the money front, although even comfortably off students may have enough spirit to want to earn independent money, which is fine. There are plenty of areas of paid work which will offer opportunities to demonstrate appropriate skills without having to be in an unpaid healthcare position.

Often those who don't follow the tick box crowd do the best.

My daughter has all her decisions now for her Medicine application. She got 2 offers out of the 4 interviews she had. All of the decisions came late, the last one only this week. She is immensely relieved, as am I, that the UCAS process has come to an end. She has fortunately offers from the 2 Unis she liked best and felt she performed well at.

Reflecting on this arduous process it does appear to have certain random elements. Her MMI interview (she didn't get that offer) sounded bizarre at best and she was also rejected from the aggressive interview approach of another Uni. She did apply to Unis using her strengths, high UKCAT and a personal statement full of community work. Interestingly she got 2 interviews on UKCAT and qualifications alone so the PS was not that relevant there. Never at any interview was she asked any ethical questions despite the incredible perceived focus on that area in interviews.

She is waiting to attend an offers day before firming. She has changed her mind about her preferred choice at this late stage which I wasn't expecting but fully support. We didn't get to go to many open days as so much depends on the UKCAT so only seeing a Uni for the interview is not enough to make such a huge decision on. Hopefully, fingers crossed for results day, she will be at Newcastle come September.

What is MMI suz? In what way was the interview 'bizarre'? And what do you mean she got two interviews 'on UKCAT and qualifications alone'? I'm surprised about bizarre and aggressive interviews I have to say - most med interviews (except for Oxford and Cambridge) seem incredibly tame.

Well done on the offers though, glad it worked out well.

MMI are multiple mini interviews. They are quite common, Bristol, Birmingham and Leicester amongst others do them. They have approx 8 x 7 minute slots in different booths. She had some with actors with very odd scenarios she had to respond to, read highly complex research papers and answer questions, maths questions, videos with questions etc. I understand they are supposed to take out the interview bias but she came out with no idea how she had done and after no offer is none the wiser.

Both Newcastle and Leicester do not look at PS for interview selection, Leicester base it on a points system for GCSEs and UKCAT, Newcastle on UKCAT and predicted A Level grades. There is so much pressure to get the PS right, which is important, but depending on your choice it might not even be glanced at during the admissions process.

I wouldn't say Medicine interviews outside of Oxbridge are tame. They are very varied from what I understand and depend on the interview panel. Cardiff were quite aggressive with my daughter, much to do with the interview panel on the day I believe. She was well prepared but came out quite stunned at their approach. Luckily it was her first interview and she didn't dwell on it. The next 2 face to face were still challenging but in a more supportive environment which helped bring out the best in her.

She did the UKCAT very late, start of Oct and had already submitted her part of the UCAS application to her school Uni lead. That night she readjusted 2 of her choices, managed to recall her application and now she hopefully will be heading to one of these Unis. Having that flexibility and playing the admissions system to her strengths has luckily paid off.

The way you phrased it suggested MMI was an institution, so I wondered which one!

I suppose we differ in our version of tame suz, or else my experience of interviews is different from yours :) Non Oxbridge interviews don't seem challenging, just rather bland.