Medicine 2020

[EightToSixer]

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.

It is hard for them isn't it! Good luck to her, it's a big challenge just getting into medicine, fingers crossed all our children get where they want to be!

Hope DD was happy with her results today Lionfish x

Hi all. DS just got his A-level results unfortunately 3Bs rather than the 3As he required for his Sheffield Medicine offer. He thought about other courses but is still set on medicine and doesn't fancy graduate route at the moment. So he's back to college for resits and EPQ. Hoping that unis still happy to consider him and that UCAT score second time round enables him to keep his options open.

Oh no, commiserations to your Ds ladsmum. Good on him for not giving up. Good luck for the coming year, I hope he gets the result he needs.

Thanks for thinking about DDs results @speedyhedgehog - she did brilliantly so the dream is still alive... (for now!).

Trying to work out which uni open days to visit as three places she's interested in (Bristol, Exeter and Southampton) are all on the 7th September. What should DD be looking for when she's attending an open day as it will be the first one we go to?

@lionfish that's a difficult question to answer as so much depends on what is important to your DC.

Some of the key things to consider are :

Does DD want to get clinical from the outset? Or would she rather work on academics more intensively at the start and then move on to clinical experience?

Does your DD want to study with PBL (problem based learning) or more formal lecture structure. (Exeter ran an example PBL lecture at open day which was interesting).

Does she want to be at a city uni (Bristol) or a smaller campus within a city (Southampton and Exeter, Exeter medicine campus is tiny which DD loves but wouldn't suit all).

Does she want to live in halls? What kind of options are there? What prices (Bristol v expensive).

Are there options for intercalate years? Where? Etc

Geographically how far apart will Clinical settings be? Most unis offer financial assistance with placements but some can be a long way away. (eg Exeter often places students in Truro, which can be very isolated, but students raved about it at open day).

My DD has all of these 3 on her list, but I'm hoping that she will decide against Bristol. It's out closest which is appealing to me, but so expensive and DD is not a fan of big cities so I don't think she will like it. She's going to open day on 7th Sept and has already been to Southampton and Exeter and loved them both.

And many congratulations to your DD on her UCAT too. 👏

That’s great Lionfish - so happy for your dd. So sorry for the bad news ladsmum - your ds is demonstrating massive amounts of commitment and resilience, hope to see brilliant news for him this time next year xx

UCAT done! She got a good mark, much better than she expected, and a band 1 for situational judgement, so we're really pleased. She's given herself a fighting chance anyway.

DD had a panic meltdown last night... not getting as good results on mock UCAT as she hoped. Anyway, she's going to reschedule it for sometime later (I hope, she only has few days to reschedule).

She's calm at moment. I don't know how to get her to accept that sometimes life means compromises. Her getting top marks in all parts of the application can't be guaranteed.

My Dd rarely got above 2000 in the mock tests on the UCAT site and medify. But yesterday she got well over that, with the highest mark she has ever got for quantitative reasoning, which was her weakest point. She won't be in the top decile but she should be in the top half I think. Postponing it helped her, partly by giving her more practice time but also psychologically I think she just got to the point where she wanted it over so just went for it, rather than trying to put it off any longer. Good luck to your DD, it's a horrible test.

Well done emummy Dd.
As I said before Dd postponed UKCAT three times and if your Dc is not prepared let them postpone the test..

My dd postponed it once too, she originally had it booked for 2 weeks into the holiday but she had also booked up most of that time with work experience. She postponed until mid August she could go on holiday but still have a couple of weeks to revise when she got back. She was still nervous on the day, I'm not sure it's the kind of test you ever feel totally ready for. She wanted it done though and not have it hanging over her, especially since if it didn't go well she would have had to sit the BMAT and would have needed prep time for that. If she knows she's really not ready then it's got to be best to re book but i don't the nerves will ever go. Btw My dd got her best score on QR which was her worst in practice and her worst on VR (which was her best in practice!)

And well done emummy dd!!

My DS is just about to start his second year and I wanted to reassure those of you worried about the UKCAT - the mock papers are much harder than the real thing- he mainly got low 2000s and ends up getting top decile. He did it early August after a holiday and a couple of weeks intense practice. His advice would always be to do it before school starts as there is so much to do once you go back

Just to second what Movingmountains just said. My dd is just about to head off to her first year to study medicine. She found the mock papers much harder than the real thing - lots of tears on the night before the actual thing as she did a particularly hard mock paper. However, she got a top decile score on the real thing - a bit higher than her last practices on Medify and much higher than the UKCAT official site mocks. She also found the verbal reasoning harder than the Medify practice (the passages seemed longer she said) and the QR easier (her highest score and a lot higher than she had been getting in practice). Her advice would definitely be to not get fazed by a harder than expected first section and to stay calm and not panic.

I've heard a lot of students say the QR questions on Medify are harder than the real thing. Not heard about VR being easier before, though.

If I ever had to do the test none of this would matter because I'd score zero on AR. And yes, I do know the lowest possible score is 300.

If they had the UCAT when I applied to med school I wouldn't have got in! I think I would also get 0 on AR!

Just wondered if anyone can shed light on the various UCAT mock tests - are the Medify ones like the actual exam or are the UCAT mocks most similar? My dd has just tried a UCAT mock and was very despondent with her result - I am hoping that she can rally as she has her test this week. Any advice would be gratefully received from those who have already done it. Thanks

My DD used Medify for UKCAT prep and said it was very similar - and in some areas slightly harder - that the actual UCAT test. She did work at it for hours each day - just over & over, until it clicked. It gave her a really thorough grounding, and she came out of the real thing with a great result.

She starts at Nottingham in a few weeks - still can't quite believe it!

We used both; she liked the Medify better I think. She did think the actual test was easier. She was also unhappy about her practice test scores and was convinced it would be a disaster but did much better on the day, which I think is a common experience from what I have read online. Good luck to your Dd, and good luck to yours going off to Nottingham Weaver!

Thank you weavers and emummy. We are hoping it's like medify but the official mock was very hard. Only a few days left of UCAT!

Why do medical schools say, for example,
“Minimum Entry Standard AAA”
“Typical Offer Range AAA including an A in either Biology or Chemistry”?
Does that mean if you are not predicted AAA (with A in Chem/Bio) you shouldn’t apply? (My son says Yes that’s what it means)
Or does it mean min predicted grades should be AAA but we will probably ask you for an A* also. Also, my son says that for the most competitive medical schools you’ll need to be predicted all A stars even if they only ask for one.
Then why wouldn’t they say so?
I realise the importance of all the other factors. But in just this question - is he right?

What you've quoted doesn't make any reference to predicted grades, just to offer conditions. If there is a required minimum for predicted grades, this should be stated somewhere. However, I know of at least one medical school that has in the past ranked for interview invitation on the basis of predicted grades, so even if you met the published minimum you might still be automatically excluded. This is underhand, unfair and - in my opinion - unethical, but it does happen. Some other medical schools don't look at predicted grades at all. Which medical school was he looking at?

Sir Toby he was looking at Imperial (quoted) and has a predicted AAAB but the A is not in biology or chemistry and he thinks this prevents him from applying. I thought as long as he has AAA he could still apply. He’s hoping if he drops History (his B) he might get A in Biology but he says imperial won’t make him an offer with no A predictions in science. I worry that an absence of A* in chemistry will look bad.
He wanted to try for Oxford but his school has said he has no hope which is probably right. He scored a 6 and 5.5 on a mock BMAT in school. Should he have a try for imperial?