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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

Medicine 2020

990 replies

EightToSixer · 30/09/2018 20:53

Ok, so I know it's super early, but I've been hovering at the medicine 18 and 19 threads. DD is keen to apply for medicine in 2020. Is anyone else in the same boat?
I thought it would be useful to share info and stories, it's all a very steep learning curve because despite me now having a PhD and working in a RG university I was late to learning and not a patch on my DD who is very driven and organised.
Hopefully people will find this group and we can share the rollercoaster of the next two years.

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Strawberryorangess · 16/01/2020 00:02

DD received an offer form Oxford ! Still not sure what will be her firm as she loves UCL! However, we don’t want to jump the gun because more offers than places are given as some student won’t meet the AAA/AA*A requirement. Sad

Origamiheaven · 16/01/2020 09:32

Fivehourssleep. I am a university nursing lecturer. Just wondering what it is that your dd is undecided about

SirTobyBelch · 16/01/2020 09:53

we don’t want to jump the gun because more offers than places are given as some student won’t meet the AAA/AAA requirement. *

But if they do meet the requirements the university is legally obliged to take them.

Oxford & UCL are much less likely than some other medical schools to accept near-missers, though. Last summer, when some medical schools were struggling to fill places, UCL was rejecting people with AAA. There's never any guarantee that any medical school will accept near-missers, as it really depends on how many of their places they can fill with people who have the required grades, but some seem much less likely to be flexible than others.

Does she have a possible insurance choice with an offer below A*AA?

Monkey2001 · 16/01/2020 11:32

Last summer, when some medical schools were struggling to fill places

As the parent of an applicant who did not get any offers, I can't say I saw this. I did hear that Leeds took a lot of AAB applicants because they did not make enough excess offers to allow for the people not achieving grades - as DS's interview score was only just below the cut-off, it was a shame for him that they did not operate a reserve list.

It is all a funny old business really - if you did Bio, Chemistry and Music and got AAB with the B in music, is that B a reflection of your ability to succeed in medicine?!

Strawberry I hope your DD will not choose A*AA for both firm and insurance as a girl I know did. She got something like AAAB and ended up doing Biomed.

SirTobyBelch · 16/01/2020 11:50

@Monkey2001 - Did your son apply in Clearing? There were quite a lot of places available in August.

I don't think the subject of the third A-level (or even the second, in my opinion) is really important: it's evidence of students' ability to apply themselves to learning and preparing for assessments that's the important issue. I certainly wouldn't regard a B in music as being worth any less than a B in maths for someone who has As in biology & chemistry.

Strawberryorangess · 16/01/2020 12:05

Her offer from UCL is AAB & her offer from Bristol is ABB or AAC. If she gets an offer from Manchester it will be AAB.

Either she will firm UCL and insure Bristol or firm Oxford and insure UCL.

I would agree that universities have moved from accepting students who haven’t met the grades to declining them and looking though clearing/(students who applied) for students who have achieved the grades.

FiveHoursSleep · 16/01/2020 12:59

@Origamiheaven She says she is unsure whether she will like medicine or nursing, but I think it's more that she worries she isn't 'good enough' for medicine.
I think she might believe she is capable if she gets an offer from Manchester for medicine as well, but I still don't know if she'll choose medicine over nursing.
In nursing she will be one of the top students, in medicine she will be average.

goodbyestranger · 16/01/2020 14:22

Strawberryorangess very well done to your DD - and fab to have a lower UCL offer too. Congratulations to her.

alreadytaken · 16/01/2020 14:55

FiveHoursSleep If she manages to secure a place she is good enough for medicine. She doesnt know whether she will be "average" or if she will excel at OSCEs (Objective Structured Clinical Examination). Medical students, even the brightest, often find those difficult at first. Medical success is related to grade before medical school but not as strongly as she might think - see, e.g. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC102330/

Results from the SJT (Situational Judgement Test) which is given equal weight with their academic record when allocating students to jobs does not seem to be strongly related to academic ability. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tct.12239

The drop out rate for nursing is considerably higher than for medicine, around a quarter of nurses will not finish the course.

Both careers are demanding, if she is choosing between them might as well go for the best paid.

Origamiheaven · 16/01/2020 15:48

@fivehoursleep I am a nursing lecturer and my ds is applying for medicine hence following this thread. A career in nursing and medicine are both rewarding careers. There are so many opportunities for both roles. Specialist nursing roles etc. However, I agree that if your dd is offered a place she will certainly be good enough. In my opinion, likely to make a superb doctor as she clearly has a caring nature. If she enjoys the science of medicine, anatomy, physiology etc, she may find the nursing programme does not challenge quite enough. The nursing programme is demanding also but the anatomy study level will not meet the level of a medical degree, obviously. The other thing to consider is that the nursing students do not get the breathing space (not suggesting medical students do either) that other students have as the courses are delivered over the 52 weeks and so they do not get the traditional summer break where they would be able to work and accrue some funds. The nature of the placements is that they work 50% of the course on full time placement on variety of shifts so cannot work part time to earn some cash. Many of my students have dropped out for this reason. This has led to the higher dropout rate recently. Hopefully the reintroduction of the bursary will help this.

My advice would be, if she is still undecided is to accept the medicine offer. Reason being is that if she starts the medicine course and decides it is not for her, she will certainly be offered a place again in the future for nursing but probably not the other way round

LaLaFlottes · 16/01/2020 15:53

Hello - I am following the thread but DD would be a 2021 student.
I’m just wondering about offers and wondered what brings about a lower offer such as ABB? Is that if an applicant has done exceptionally well at UCAT/BMAT and/or interview?
Forgive my lack of knowledge!

Monkey2001 · 16/01/2020 17:42

LaLaFlottes it can be due to exceptional interview performance, but is generally a contextual offer. Bristol has a big list, maybe half the non-selective state schools in UK, and applicants from those schools get ABB/AAC offers (including A in Chem). Birmingham has an even bigger list. Different med schools determine contextual status in different ways.

Monkey2001 · 16/01/2020 17:53

@SirTobyBelch he did not apply through Clearing. I think there were only 3 or 4 and as he did not do Biology he could not apply to most of them. I think the only one which came up that he could apply to was Keele, but he did not want a PBL course. Was hoping Leicester would be in Clearing again as he really liked the open day there, but they were not.

If any come up this year, he should be much better after working for 9 months at a GP surgery, including manning reception which involves dealing with frustrated people!

Tinkobell · 16/01/2020 20:43

@Monkey....I’m not going to commiserate on latest but am just keeping everything tightly crossed for you still! Keep your faith! Interestingly Keele gets great satisfaction rankings!

emummy · 17/01/2020 19:14

Congrats to all the dcs with offers. Dd has just been invited for interview at Dundee having been rejected by them before Xmas. Is this a common occurrence?!

speedyhedgehog · 17/01/2020 20:25

Yay emummy - so pleased for her! Dundee is lovely.

Monkey2001 · 17/01/2020 21:57

Great news emummy! Somebody else on TSR had the same thing today. I have heard lots of good things about Dundee, and it may help your DD that they have more places for Scottish students and fewer for RUK now - SFC changed the split because they found that the Scottish medics were more likely to stay in Scotland after they qualified.

Strawberryorangess · 18/01/2020 02:23

Well done to your DD, E !

That applies to pretty much any medical school Monkey. Graduates are more likely to work/stay in the region their universities was.

LaLaFlottes · 18/01/2020 06:17

That must be lovely news getting an unexpected interview - congratulations!

@Monkey2001 thank you for your explanation about the offers.

I also wondered about Scottish Unis. We live near London but DH is Scottish and we have a lot of family there. DD is hoping to put one, if not two Scottish options when she applies. A Medic Mentors talk made it sound like 1/3 of places were for Scottish students, 1/3 for international and 1/3 for rest of UK. They pitched this as making it a good option for English students as not many English students apply to Scottish universities and therefore with the 1/3 of places being ring fenced for RUK, this gave them a good chance. I’m not sure whether this reasoning is true as I believe Scottish Medical schools would be popular, and now it sounds like there are less spaces for RUK. Maybe she should just put one Scottish option?
Any thoughts on this would be welcome.
Many thanks.

emummy · 18/01/2020 07:08

Dundee has a tiny number of places for rUK but the others have more. I think there will be info about that on the websites, I had Edinburgh & Glasgow notes but chucked them out; Edinburgh may have had 60 -80 places?

LaLaFlottes · 18/01/2020 08:26

Thanks so much @emummy

I will look at each of the Scottish Uni websites today with DD.

Do you think Scottish Universities are harder to get into than English Universities for English students, as there are less places available for them? Or do you think there are less English applicants for Scottish Universities so therefore it balances out?

Also, while I’m on the subject, for St Andrews, there is the English, Scottish, or Don’t Mind option for clinical years - do you think it’s best to choose “don’t mind” so that you have a better chance of acceptance?

Thanks!

LaLaFlottes · 18/01/2020 08:38

Actually I just found some stats for Edinburgh and it looks like 23% of Scottish applicants are offered a place and 24% of RUK and 16% of Overseas.

Will keep looking!

speedyhedgehog · 18/01/2020 10:21

I think this year Edinburgh has 49 RUK/EU places. Wasn't Dundee 14 or 15?

Monkey2001 · 18/01/2020 10:51

SFC publish their approved numbers in March. The press release for 2019/20 intake is called IntakeTargetsforMedicineAY_2019 but I can't make my phone copy the link . It does not affect St Andrew's so much because of the English route.

Lala at the St Andrew's open day they said that "no preference" gives the best chance of an offer. The Medic Mentors presentation may have been out of date, we found that quite a bit of their material was. The SFC said RUK students are less likely to stay, will find that report and link it later.