Sorry, another medicine question! Personal experience please.

[Mindgone]

DS is stuck for a fourth choice, here are his stats:
GCSE. 8A* 3A
AS. AAAB in maths, chemistry, biology and psychology
UKCAT 725 SJBand 1

He doesn't fancy PBL, London, or the BMAT unis.

I was just wondering, bearing all this in mind, where others' DCs have been happy? Any personal experience and/or advice would be gratefully received. Thanks.

Much much worse. More competitive. Much more difficult. Way more expensive. And much more stressful.

Music candidates don't even have until 15 October - CUKAS forms have to be in on 1 October. They don't do one exam or audition for all, they have to do separate auditions and sometimes written exams for every conservatoire and many of the universities to which they apply. Sometimes two auditions. Once the first audition is over, they can't just stop practising and focus on their schoolwork now - they have to keep up, well, forever. There are far fewer places, it's more competitive. Drama students also have to audition for everywhere they want to go, admittedly they can just stop thinking about it after their auditions are over. And they don't have separate written exams. Every auditin has to be paid for separately, travelled to etc. No 'local centre' to do them.

Medicine and vet med are hard of course they are, the people I know who are applying are incredibly stressed out about it all and it's a worrying time for them. But to say there's nothing else that's as hard is a bit blinkered. And of course the students applying for music at least all have to be incredibly well qualified to even consider it.

I expect there are loads of courses other than medicine vet med music and drama which are killingly competitive with brutal application processes, to be honest. Any course which is only offered in a small number of places will be.

If you get under the numbers of any strong department in any top university (by which I don't merely mean Oxford and Cambridge) then the success rates are tiny, so the process is inevitably stressful. An applicant to Durham for History in 2013/14, for example, would have been one of 1,700 applying for one of only 146 places. Your chances of not being accepted are way higher than 60%! So it's tough, if your heart is set on Durham. That's just one example of course; there are masses.

I'm not sure what it is about Medicine applications which gives it the reputation of being so stressful because I would say that over the past seven years I've watched five cohorts going through my DCs school fairly closely including perhaps 50 medics (many of whom were very close friends with the DC, and I tend to take an interest in their friends) and I genuinely can't see that it's worse than for anyone else. These kids all care greatly where they go; the reputation of a uni will to a great extent determine what opportunities are open to them later on, also their peer group at uni. No doubt there are some admirable kids who have such a passion for their subject that as long as they can study it somewhere - anywhere - then they're happy bunnies. But that isn't the case for most I would have said.

So it's not a case of being dismissive about the stress for medics Carrie; it's more to point out that in my fairly broad experience medics don't actually have it worse. Everyone is stressed! Everyone is a winner! In fact if your DH is a consultant (sorry if that's wrong, I seem to recall I read it upthread - it may have been someone else) then your DC is already at a huge, huge advantage over those like DS3's gf who hasn't a single medic in the family to tap their experience for interviews or to get the essential work experience placements from.

Incidentally, good luck to the BMATers - due to start literally now :)

I think the advantage to having a medic parent is that you are realistic about the career and don't imagine there is a fortune to be made. DS has not done much work experience, he has focused on his voluntary and paid work.
Looking at DS's friends though, the engineering and science ones have offers already, as do a lot of the early application humanities, and I still stand by the fact that medicine /veterinary applications are more rigorous and demanding, and although music and drama are difficult applications there are not as academically demanding.

Carriemac - clearly you don't know what you are talking about.

music and drama incredibly stressful too, that sounded like I was being dismissive I'm not! good luck to the BMAT PAT CAT HAT exam candidates this morning!

and Molio at least the applicant for history at Durham has 4 other Unis to apply to, overall more than 40% of people who want to do history at Uni get in.

Rabbit, I had no idea! It all sounds very long, hard, and incredibly stressful!! Very best of luck if you have a DC going through this, you'll both need lots of perseverance and patience!

For the last year for which there are figures, 70% of applicants for DD1's instrument got no offers.

Not only is music academically rigorous (music A level being notoriously difficult, far more difficult to get an A* than say maths) the academic results, while they need to be there (especially if you are applying to uni as back up) aren't even the thing that matters - you need to be one of the best handful of performers on your instrument that year in the world.

I seriously wish DD1 had gone for medicine, I'd be a lot less worried. I am mounting a relentless campaignforDD2 to opt for medicine when the time comes - apart from being an easier bet for success she would get considerably more support from her school, we'd save a fortune, and her life would be more manageable. And people wouldn't be so dismissive.

DD1's would be medic friends are all amazed at how much more difficult her workload is than theirs, and how much tougher the music process is. As I said - I really wish she had set her heart on medicine too.

luckily none of mine got past grade 5 at anything and although drama queens, show no talent in that direction...

Mindgone - thanks. She's actually applying next year but because of the early dates for firm submission and auditions you have to start all the open day stuff now. Having spent the weekend at a conservatoire and been confronted with the stark reality of what the process will entail financially and effort wise I feel completely defeated and depressed. It's much more difficult than it was when my contempararies went that route (and it was difficult then, far more difficult than my own Oxbridge route which I purposely chose because easier than doing music).

I hope all the BMAT people smash it today. I'm sure they will - the medics I know have all been ferociously well prepared. And deserve every success.

Carriemac I echo your sentiment about unmusical kids. Rabbit has shown me it's a blessing :)

As a degree subject though, medicine is fairly undemanding in the scheme of things. The only reason that the grade requirements are silly is because of competition, and absolutely nothing to do with difficulty or the academic rigour of the course (Oxford and Cambridge excepted, but then the medics there would say that their course is no harder intellectually than most other subjects at those two unis and probably far easier than some). Also, as someone else pointed out, it's considerably easier for scientists to achieve their grades than those doing humanities, where marking at the moment is hugely volatile, and easier still if there's a physics/ maths combo going on. The workload at undergraduate level is huge however. But again, that requires resilience and not brain.

I'm afraid I think you missed my point about other competitive courses altogether. There can be enormous differences in experience and job opportunities between different unis, whatever the subject. What difference can there be between a disappointed Durham historian or a disappointed Birmingham medic? They're both bitterly disappointed kids.

Rabbit are all the places your dd is looking at through CUKAS? My friend's dd had some auditions this year but they seemed to be private type places so they were wary of them & as they live in a different country didn't know if they were good or bad

Decor she is applying next year. Yes, though - apart from the guildhall which has its own admissions. She will also apply through UCAS for backup.

I know loads of people who have gone to performing arts type places such as arts ed, Millennium, Mountview. You're right - it is a process to be wary of because new places seem to crop up all the time. If you don't know people in the field, it can be difficult to evaluate what's worth the money and what isn't.

Yes I think Mountview was one. And there were quite pushy about pressing her to say yes or no to a place before she heard from unis in her home country. She declined in the end in spite of a lady minute offer to reduce the fees by 50%

Let’s just say, AllMimsy, we have some history between us at MN and I can assure you we both find our posts irritating. I’m sorry if you find them ‘tedious’ to read but I can categorically assure you, for every one reader who finds my posts tedious, there’d be another (if not more) who finds it ‘perfectly sensible’, ‘have read with interest many of your posts’, ‘they strike me as insightful and equilibrate’, etc. if my MN Inbox is anything to go by.

In a public forum such as this one where everyone is a stranger and the one common goal we all share is to secure a good education for our kids and learn from each other, it would be most helpful if people stopped scoring political points, posting smug and condescending messages and even firing off personal attacks.

But unfortunately, there are one or two people who think they own the forum, that their kids are the cleverest on God’s earth, that they know it all and so have a licence to be downright rude, pompous, and disrespectful to one and all; calling for example, my contribution (post) to a similar Medicine thread ‘crass’ when I warned prospective Medicine applicants amongst other things, to keep on the right side of the law; that I have poor grammar, etc.

I wasn’t sure that I’d read these rude and offensive messages correctly and so I suggested that this was meant as a joke? The instant reply was, “No, it wasn’t, I’m serious” or words to that effect. So, there we go. . .

It is amazing how someone who just a little over two years ago with no family medicine experience was similarly stressed like many of you currently are, when her own son was in the Medicine application cycle then, to come here now to lecture us that Medicine interviews are thrown away like confetti and there wouldn’t be any sweat for strong candidates getting three or four offers.

My DS has just completed 3 years at med school and hopefully he will be the 9th medical doctor in the immediate family circle before long. His younger cousin who started a year later would be the 10th. Both these kids I’ve guided successfully. One consultant is also an examiner for two prestigious London med schools. And I’m not even counting the other 5 dentists in the family. Perhaps then I may just have a little idea on med school applications and the actual course(s) itself.

For sure, you don’t get a Medicine degree after three years at Oxford or anywhere else for that matter. All you get is a BA in Medical Sciences and that does NOT make you a doctor in any way, shape or form any more than a Biomedical Science degree holder is a doctor. A Medicine degree at Oxford is the BM BCh which would then allow you to provisionally register with the General Medical Council. In all seriousness, people who don’t understand this have no place here in what is essentially a very important medicine thread.

Worst still, it is highly worrying and disturbing for 3rd Year kids at Oxford med school to think they’re in their final year of a Medicine degree.

God Save Us!

These kids possibly haven’t even seen a real patient within a mile yet or know how the iodoform odours in a hospital environment smell like never mind about treating patients in 12 months time.

Someone should now alert Oxford and the GMC! Lives may be at stake!

peteneras can you please move on? No-one else is interested in whatever issues you have around Oxbridge medicine - there are several Oxbridge applicants on the thread; it's also wrong to give the impression that I have 'history' with you, or am the person portrayed in your post. I've read plenty of posts taking issue with your rudeness, but I myself am pretty unmoved. It does get tedious though, and is not what MN is for.

In terms of the medicine application made by my own DS it's fair to say I wasn't stressed and if I was even slightly stressed, I certainly didn't show it on these boards. He happens to have always been very solid, which was clearly what the med schools thought too. That reads as smug for sure (although has been prompted not volunteered, just as the unstealthy boast was prompted and even the mention of which uni he's at). From a practical point of view it means I may be in a slightly better position to help current applicants than someone who's child got no offers or perhaps only one. As I said, I also have a fairly broad view from the successes and some disappointments of tens of the various DCs friends going through the process over the past seven years If anyone wants advice I'm happy to offer it; if they don't, then that's completely fine too :).

Of course DS knows where he is in terms of his degree. I think it's up to a parent if they choose to be vague about their DC for the sake of that DC's privacy, and it shouldn't be in the gift of any other posters, who by definition must be rather odd.

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I've just read your last post peterenas which is outrageous and outrageously personal. However I have no intention of asking for deletion since it reflects solely on you, and rather eloquently.

Please move on!

I have only just joined MN and found this thread and other similar ones really useful as my DD is applying to do medicine too this year. I wish I had found it earlier. It's a shame that the chat has ended as it would be great to hear how all your children are getting on without all the bickering. My DD has had one rejection, one interview, one offer from her insurance choice and waiting to hear from the other two. It seems like a long wait till the end of March!

Hi Ange, welcome! There is a newer medicine thread with no bickering called "fresh new 'mum of a medicine applicant' thread", where this year's mums are supporting each other. It's a long wait, and all support and general chattering is very welcome! See you on the other thread :)

Thank you Mindgone. I will look for that thread later