Medicine 2019

[kaykay72]

Hi,

Does anyone here have a DC applying for medicine to start in 2019? It would be nice to meet others as we embark on uni visits, predicted grades, UKCAT etc

We’re in Kent, d is planning to visit kings, UCL, Nottingham, Sheffield and Newcastle at the moment. She really wanted to go look at Belfast but they want three A’s plus an A at AS level but won’t accept her additional qualification in place of this (despite it having a higher UCAS tarriff). We went to an open afternoon at BSMS which she liked more than she thought she would, so is pondering the BMAT.

I have two older kids (well, adults now), one of whom has just finished his masters, the other just completed his first year elsewhere, but medical applications are just so complicated in comparison to their experiences at this stage.

Hope to hear from others in the same boat :-)

Did you go to Sheffield on Saturday @monkey2001? We were there, loved Julian too. I think they said 12-1300 interviews for around 850 offers. D liked the course and the med school but was feeling it less for the uni. I think the sport was a bit of a downer, very little knowledgable information to be had which is not great on an open day.

Did you hear anything back about your son’s UKCAT issues?

D’s UCAS form needs to go into school next week. She’s applying for KCL, Notts, Sheffield plus one other. Pondering either Bristol or sitting the BMAT for a shot at imperial. PS pretty much done, just the usual back to school stress.

It feels a bit weird that after next week they won’t really hear much until November. I know from my older two that year 13 flies by though x

@HostessTrolley - yes, we were there too. We had a busy 2 days - Friday Open Day at Downing, Cambridge, up to Leeds for the night, Leeds Open Day in the morning, Sheffield in the afternoon.

Sport is not an issue for DS, he likes walking and cycling which are excellent around Sheffield. We did med school and accommodation and not much else, but we have a family friend there who loves the social life although she is quite quirky - she says there is something for everyone.

We did not consider Bristol as we live there, but DS said it is heading in a PBL direction, which he would not want (although he could be wrong) and he only wants to apply to places which offer full dissection (yuck!). What does your D think about traditional/integrated v PBL? I think Notts and Sheffield are both integrated with wet dissection.

Monkey just to say that the main reason DD had almost disregarded Manchester initially was because it is supposed PBL (the foundation of it) and she didn't like the concept of it at all. As it is, PBL is only one element of the learning which is really integrated and she was very surprised how much she enjoyed the PBL session she did when she attended the offer holders day. She now thinks it is a very valuable learning technique.

If he likes the idea of Bristol and this is the only thing putting him off he might want to find out more about it.

Hello. I have DD who is REapplying having missed her Chemistry grade and therefore losing her place at Birmingham for this year.😭Her insurance offer was UEA; missed that too! She'd had an offer from Southampton but said No and was rejected straight off by Nottingham. She was offered Biomed Science in Clearing but decided to resit Chemistry this November (she did the IB) and try again for Medicine. So not as planned but she's determined, although not all med schools will consider resits. UKCAT had to be redone and she managed 730 which was a bit better than last time. PS needs to be redone. And meanwhile all her friends are in IKEA with their Mums, buying their stuff for uni while she's doing Year 13 Chemistry! I'm looking forward to sharing the journey, and the ups and downs, with you all.

Interim UKCAT results out. Total number taking it looks low - 11,101. It is 2/3 of the way through the testing period, but the busiest month is Sep. I think numbers will be down on last year though.

www.ukcat.ac.uk/media/1264/2018-preliminary-mean-scores-sept-2018.pdf

@swingofthings - thanks for the tip
@mamamedic - sorry to hear that after the rollercoaster of getting offers, the exam did not go to plan. At least she knows she is good at interviews.

Monkey2001 Thanks for posting the interim UKCAT scores. What makes you think that there may be less taking this year? Is 11,000 low at this stage? I seem to think that this year, along with last year and next year, are low birth years. All pointing in favour of our DCs!

Actually, I think I was wrong, managed to find interim stats for last year and 10,431 took it, so the interim numbers are always lower than I would have expected. The thing which really helps is the extra places this year - home places: 2017 = 5,615, 2018 = 6,256, 2019 = 6,935.

Boundaries went down 40 between interim and final results last year. But a word of caution. We were told that it was a low birth rate year, more places etc. but what ended up happening was the number of people applying went up massively ! So ended up being slightly more competitive than past few years. Fingers crossed this won't happen this year as every little helps.

All very quiet here! Is anybody waiting for BMAT results on Friday? Good luck if you are. DS taking it in October as we booked a holiday before we knew the September date. He tried a paper last weekend and discovered why 50% is an excellent mark - it is so hard. I am trying to persuade him to use a computer for the essay - BMAT said it would be fine as he has dreadful handwriting, but as the computer he used for UKCAT let him down (calculator did not work), he is saying he wants to hand write it. Wish he still had his Y7 handwriting!

Monkey2001
I wonder how many of the children had issues with the computer.
My DD and her friend had problems with the computer and it is bound to affect their result
Did you complain?

@ProfessorLayton1, sorry to hear your DD had problems too, but glad we can discuss it. DS did not want to make a fuss, but the invigilator said they were submitting report and I contacted Pearsons. Pearsons said they could not talk to me about it unless DS authorised it. He got 2,800 so has done well enough for what he wants, but wants to put it behind him. I am trying to persuade him that Pearsons needs to know about problems as other students might have the same issue and not get the scores they need.

What happened for him was that the on-screen calculator did not work in QR. He knew about numlock needing to be on, had done lots of practice on the "right sort" of computer. He called invigilator over, she could not make it work either. She offered to stop test and reschedule, but he had geared himself up and did not want to. She gave him a real calculator, then discovered she was not allowed, so came and took it back. So he lost several minutes trying to make it work, explaining the problem and had to do most of it without a calculator! What happened for your DD?

There are two keys (alt and n?) you need to press to move questions which did not work and she had to use the mouse to do it.
She could not work out what was going on ... wasted few minutes thinking she was pressing the wrong buttons and once she realised that it was not working she resorted to using the mouse at last. It was AR which was affected the most according to her..
She has decent score for the universities she is planning to apply so we have also decided to move on..
Her Friend had real issues during the test and has got low Scores so she is considering a gap year. Pearson have said that they have done a report but it is not going to change her scores ..
I did speak to Pearsons - one of the guys was helpful but when I rang again as I haven't heard anything back from them was dealt with a girl who dismissed my concerns and said that she could not give any information to me..She needed my daughter's permission to speak to me ...
Would be interesting to see how many complaints they have received.

I think we should both take it further as Pearsons need to know how many people have problems. In their annual report they talk about "annotations" where students have had technical problems which lost them time. I assume they attach a note to the score saying that the results were affected by a technical problem. There were 61 in 2016, 50 in 2015. If people don't take the complaints through the system, these do not reflect the reliability of the test. Particularly for your DD's friend who sounds like she had a dreadful experience and should be allowed to re-sit. A computer keyboard costs less than £10, Pearsons should not be using any defective equipment. My son's was in a room by himself with CCTV so I have asked them whether they can look at it to see whether it was user error, although if it was, the invigilator should have been able to sort it out.

Hello,
Could I join as well here pls?
Ds applying this year.
Looking at Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and not sure about the next one.
His GCSE's are 8 A* and 2A.
Has his UKCAT in few days.

Monkey2001
I think we have truly put it behind us as she feels that she lost few minutes and may not have altered her results. I know two parents who are complaining.

Hello and welcome medicmom, my DS also applying to Newcastle and Leeds. He has 6A*s, 4As, so more marginal for Leeds, but hoping to do well in BMAT as his real dream is Cambridge for which he needs around 6 for the first 2 sections to have a real chance. Has yours done BMAT yet? One thing to point out (having read the 2018 thread) for Newcastle and Sheffield is that both interview Jan/Feb and notify March, so be prepared for a long wait in which others are getting offers and interviews. I don't know about Manchester.

ProfessorLayton1, fair enough, thanks for sharing the stories, it makes me more inclined to do something!

you guys all need to read this thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3369522-To-leave-the-NHS

Manchester had two one week interviews early Jan and one early Feb. Top scorers in Jan got to know before the Feb interviews, the others got to know toward end of Feb. I'm not sure if they continued to make offers afterwards.

Depressing read but the thread highlights that the main current issue with the NHS is how understaffed it has become. It's a pity its taken so long for someone to wake up to all the warnings and started to increase pay and fund more medicine training.

I do think it will get better but it will take time hopefully by the time our kids become the medics any society can't do without.

are you medical swingofthings? It isn't going to get better. Its going to collapse and then we will have a 2 tier system.....so if you can afford to pay you get good treatment and if you can't you get whats left of the NHS...whcih won't be much.

Both of us work in NHS and can understand the pressures faced by the staff throughly. We never encouraged or discouraged my Dd to apply for medicine ( she wanted to do natural sciences , economics before coming to this conclusion )
She is well aware of the pressures faced and genuinely wants to be a doctor. We do need hard working , intelligent, compassionate doctors looking after us when we are old ...

I have read the other thread you have linked and do recognise a lot of issues raised ...

Thanks monkey2001.
Ds has given his Bmat and fingers crossed for Friday. I don't know how much Leeds values the bmat in their scoring system?

He is preparing for the UKCAT and it's not easy with them being back at school now.

medicmom I am an expert on Leeds now!

GCSE score (worth 27/40)
Your best 9 are scored, but including maths, english language and science, so depending what the As are, your DS has either 25 or 26 for GCSEs

A Level score (worth 8/40)
If predicted AAA or better, get full marks

BMAT (worth 5/40)
They rank the BMAT scores of the applicants, giving half the weighting to the essay section. Top 20% get 5, next 20% 4, etc...

So if your DS has an A at GCSE in just one of the subjects which has to be included, is predicted at least AAA for A levels and gets an average BMAT, he will score 26+8+3=37 which should be comfortably enough for an interview. The cut off this year if they had been using the new admissions process would have been around 33.