Medicine 2019 - Part 2

[Monkey2001]

Oops, looks like none of noticed the old thread was full!

@HostessTrolley @Hoodiemum @4catsham @mamamedic @medicmom @mimiasovitch @Nightowlpossibly @ProfessorLayton1 @Tinkobell @Weaverspin @Itsthekissing @Sluj @Mumneedswine @Movingmountains

Apologies to any regulars I have missed

Oh no, ignore me. She's not had to wait all weekend for news. She's in to St A. Happy girl! She's leaving 3 weeks today...

hoodiemum

Hi all, so pleased to hear of so many great results from the long term posters on this thread - in fact for everyone. @monkey2001 - our kids had interviews within a few days of each other at Sheffield and I've been keeping everything crossed....with those amazing results in the bag he will have the pick of the schools next year and should move forward v confidently! I'm so pleased for you.
Our year was a funny one. A great initial launch into the whole med interview - great UKcat and a full set of offers. Then tragedy struck in our family and knocked everyone for six. DD did amazingly got 2 A* chem & bio and a B and was accepted to Sheffield. After some deliberation, we think she's going to take it. But it's not a big whoop whoop moment sadly....more of a take it as it comes situation, chill and enjoy the rest of the summer. We have every confidence in Sheffield though as a great choice.

Monkey2001 Cambridge dont always specify the A in Chemistry but they do sometimes do so, they might consider him if he resat but he'd need to A the chemistry at resit and do very well in the BMAT. They are a doctor whichever school they go to and if he is still keen on medicine I'd focus instead on how he could build a great career from any medical school. When it comes to taking their first job Oxbridge graduates dont all get their choice of job or even their choice of location.

You dont need A* in Chemistry to do a medicine course - I'm talking now about managing the course, not the requirements medical school use to cut down/ sort applications. He should get offers next time from any school that doesnt require Biology.

Couple of funerals for us to attend recently - just a reminder that although not getting a place may seem like the end of the world it isnt the end of life.

@MrsGrammaticus so sorry to hear about the tragedy you have gone through as a family. I just wanted to reassure you that Sheffield is a great choice. My DS has been there a year - he chose it over all his other offered as and has never regretted it. It is a great course - lots of patient contact - they go to a GPS once a fortnight and he also did a 2 week hospital placement. They also focus on the community and visit local people to discuss their health issues. My DS has not just thrived but positively flourished.
@Monkey2001Sheffield don’t require Biology either 😊

Thanks @Movingmountains ....we just keep consistently hearing such good stuff about Sheffield, the caring attitude etc - this has been an important factor in going ahead given events this year. So glad your DS has flourished that's fantastic and what every parent wants to hear.

Thanks for the advice.

alreadytaken of course he would be very happy to go anywhere, but ideally he would like a course as traditional as possible and would love to be a choral scholar - already sings at a cathedral and one of his gap year plans is to do a singing diploma so Cambridge has some things he will not get elsewhere but Sheffield is a very close second and would be happy with many others. Thanks for the chemistry tips, I was hoping that they may give some leeway with the Olympiad gold. He is 7 off A in Chemistry and 3 off A in Physics (insane grade boundaries - needed 230/270 = 85%, he got 84%, would have been comfortable A*s in last 2 years). Lots of thinking going on here, but not unhappy.

MrsGrammaticus hope you are over the worst of your situation. Sometimes real life forces perspective on things like exams. Sheffield does seem like one of the better places to be if she needs pastoral support.

@Monkey....what about Birmingham? They have a specific music / medic thing going on there...music Is a big thing at Brum I think.....

Sorry I dont know enough about choral scholars at Cambridge to know how tough it is to become one - although I do know they are expected to have just as good grades as the others and that some colleges wont take medics as choral scholars. www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance/music-awards/choral-awards/restrictions

Both Imperial and UCL offer traditional courses and both have music societies. Neither give Biology A level as a requirement and he got a good grade at AS level so that shouldnt hold him back.

Just googled Sheffield and they have a medics choir with a Facebook page but there is also also sheffieldchorale.co.uk/ It can be a good thing to have something away from the university/ medical school bubble.

You are lovely to help. I hope I have made it clear that although Cambridge is the favourite, he would be delighted to get into Sheffield or many other med schools.

MrsG - thanks for the Brum tip.

alreadytaken - we have looked into the requirements and he did a vocal assessment and they are happy to have him in a college which takes medics in the choir if he can get into the university. You are right that it makes no difference to the admissions assessment. Unfortunately both Imperial and UCL do require Biology

@Monkey2001 sorry, I had forgotten the requirements for Imperial and UCL so looked at an online guide, one that was clearly out of date. Newcastle's webpage seems to suggest they may be worth a call now www.ncl.ac.uk/undergraduate/degrees/a100/#entryrequirements

If you look at the information derived from FOI requests to Cambridge e.g. www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a100_admissions_statistics_medic

and this "In 2018, 898 A level students applied to the Cambridge medical course, with 246 offers being made. On the face of it, that is an odds ratio of 3.65 applicants per offer. While that might sound low, it can be deceptive. Time to look a little harder at the numbers. Of those 898 applicants, 604 were predicted AAA* at A level. That’s just over 2/3 of applicants being predicted exactly the same top grades.

Given that the current standard offer is AAA, students must be predicted at least this or above to (realistically) apply. In 2018, just 19 offers were made to students predicted AAA, with the remaining 224 offered to AAA* predicted students. (Note here, the numbers do not total to 246 offers, this is possibly due to students deferring or similar)."

you'll see that a reapplication to Cambridge would not be competitive. Most students still achieve their offers.

If he was my son and I could afford it I'd pay for him to take A level biology, as I think studying that would improve his prospects. Reapplicants usually do better with offers because they focus on not what they want but applying to their strengths.

mumsnet is not adding the extra *s - most successful Cambridge applicants are predicted, and get, 3 A star grades. Some have 4 or more.

Bit shell shocked here. DS got 3Bs (very close to A-grade boundary on biology and physics, so going for review of marking but not holding out much hope). He's looked at clearing and keeps saying "I just want to be a doctor". He is keen to resit and try again (with the new realisation of how much effort is required to get those top grades). Have looked on-line at University's stance on resits but after speaking to UEA (his insurance), who said their requirement to have ABB applies to candidates who have an offer and want them to hold it open pending resits, i'm a bit confused. Does anyone have any experience of where he may be advisable to look (he's not got Chemistry). Cheers

Monkey2001 I agree that your DS will improve his chances considerably by having a Biology A level pending on his UCAS application. I think he was poorly advised but I have a vague memory of saying this way back - if so, apologies for the repetition. I also agree that Cambridge is probably a wasted choice given their selection criteria. Oxford however may not be, given their selection for interview on GCSEs plus BMAT. Were your DS's GCSEs very strong? If so, how about a shot at the October BMAT and Oxford if that's the sort of course he thinks he'd prefer. It's only a single choice after all, and it may play to his strengths (despite it being 'easier' to get into Cambridge with its success rate of 18%). I do think the Biology is fairly key in reality.

@ladsmum so sorry to hear that. The ones which, according to my spreadsheet, don't need Chem as long as you have Biology and Maths or Physics are Anglia Ruskin, UEA (from 2020), Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Plymouth, UCL.

I could be wrong or out of date, but those are all worth looking at and there may well be more - ask GANFYD on TSR if you want a definitive list, she is the font of wisdom! Sheffield definitely take re-sits and since linear A levels I think quite a few others do too.

I hope your DS can try to think positively about a gap year, we are looking at all sorts of interesting things here. GANFYD says that she thinks most medics benefit if they take a gap year, partly because there is no let-up for 7 years once they start.

@goodbyestranger thanks for the comments, but DS knows there is no point in applying to Cambridge unless he gets the extra A in a re-mark. The reason he did not do Biology is because the teaching is weak in that subject at his school, There appears to have been no As and very few As in a school with 300 Y13s, nearly a third doing Biology. He still thinks it was better for him to do Physics. He will do some MOOCs on human biology during his gap year.

Monkey2001 my comment was more about the possible merits of Oxford for him based on the formula used to select for interview, since he seems to want the choral side of uni life and a six year medical course. I'm assuming that as a Cambridge applicant he had good GCSEs so the reason for no offers at all is likely to lie with the lack of Biology, unless there's another obvious problem, which I don't think you thought there was. Only trying to be positive here - the Biology is an easy fix and he's clearly drawn to the Oxbridge course so I'm just wondering why Cambridge at all costs when tactically that may not be sound.

I'm sure someone will a statistic that basically loads of applicants get no offers but in my experience over the past decade or so I haven't known a single Oxbridge medical applicant at our school get no offers at all. But then I haven't come across one that I can recall not having Biology either so that's where I'd point the finger. But I do fully understand the reasoning for opting out if teaching is poor - my own DC have swerved reputedly poor teaching before now, at the cost of a favoured subject.

Sorry, typing far too quickly. I meant to type: someone will pull up a statistic that shows that etc

I must admit I don't anyone getting medical offers from Oxford or Cambridge without Biology A levels. I know of at least 6 children in the last three years who got into oxford or Cambridge and all of them had biology, chemistry and maths.
All the best to your son Monkey2001. I remember your posts about your DS Biology teaching well.

The ones which, according to my spreadsheet, don't need Chem as long as you have Biology and Maths or Physics are Anglia Ruskin, UEA (from 2020), Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, Plymouth, UCL.

And Keele, Kent & Medway, Lancaster (if you have psychology instead of chemistry), Leicester, Manchester, QMUL (Bart's & The London) and Sunderland. UCL does need chemistry & biology according to its web site, but one of the Medical Schools Council's listings is incorrect. Not all will accept applications from students who are resitting, though.

@Ladsmum ....I'm so very sorry for your lad but so admire his determination and tenacity for resits. Some schools will allow them to just return for the final term enabling a good stint of time for either work or work experience which would further boost his CV.
@Monkey2001 ....I must admit the discussions here are definitely around lack of biology. It's frustrating because whilst some unis say they don't need it, if the bulk of other candidates do have biology then he could instantly have been disadvantaged. It is very annoying about the schools poor performance in this subject - could he attend an alternative college locally perhaps? sorry. It must feel like everyone's getting at you!

when universities look at resit candidates they want them to get more than the standard offer - usually by at least one grade but someone with 3 Bs might need to look to get that up to 3 As or A*AB to be competitive. I'm sorry to be gloomy about that but the reason medical schools are so insistent on high grades is that those with such grades are less likely to need to resit a year/ drop out after failing an exam.

It is possible to do a different degree and then apply for graduate medicine, he would need to work really hard as the competition is intense. Some other suggestions here www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/courses/medicine/alternatives-to-medicine-and-surgery/#Dont

Re Biology, before he decided which one to drop after AS, I contacted the Admissions Secretary for the college he applied to and she said there was no advantage to carrying on with Biology over Physics. I don't think they discriminated on paper, but in his interview he was asked Biology questions which the Y13 syllabus would have made it easier to answer. I believe there is no direct discrimination when med schools say they do not require Biology. The reason he did not get an offer from Sheffield was that they thought he did not know enough about the course and city (he knew a lot but clearly failed to communicate it), Newcastle he completely mucked up some questions (could not remember a time when he had been resilient!) and Leeds he was fairly close, but not close enough.

Some teenage boys find it difficult to communicate in a relaxed way, he is one of them. I think a gap year with some working will be great. He has never had a paid job (other than singing) because of weekend music commitments, although he has done volunteering and work experience. I am sure that a gap year will really help him to relax in interviews.

I really do appreciate that you are all supportive and want to help him, but I think the thread should stay general, so lets move on.

ladsmum I'm so sorry to hear your DS's news and despair. We have some experience of this, as we were in the same position last year. DD did the IB and missed her Chemistry (I know this is different to your son) grade by an absolute mile. She hoped a place might come up once the A Level results were out but no luck. She resisted the urge to go for Biomed etc as she too just wanted to do Medicine and she thought it was worth another shot.
She wrote to all the relevant unis and asked if they would consider her the following year if she could get this grade up. I think, without exception, they said yes but obv she would need to go through UKCAT and interviews all over again. Not one of them asked for a higher grade than their standard offer. Even Birmingham, her absolute favourite, who famously say No to retakes, said yes (and she's now off there in Sept!)
She applied again to UEA and changed her other choices to Sheffield and HYMS and received 4 interviews and 4 offers, all their standard offers.
Of course some of these need Chemistry so won't suit your boy but can't imagine it would be terribly different.
She didn't return to school other than for a few tutoring sessions and she studied at home with the help of a weekly tutor. All her mates were at uni anyway so there was nothing else to do! She was able to retake the Chemistry in November, just about the only advantage of the IB, got her results in January and then took off to Australia for 6 months.
It's SO tough on them and she got sick and tired of all the people who said it would all stand her in good stead, it would make her a stronger person etc etc but she now says she wouldn't have it any other way having adored the travelling and time away from studying.

So my advice is to make contact with the relevant unis and I think you'll get some welcoming replies. Good Luck. Let me know if we can help any further.