3 A Levels for medicine when everyone else is doing 4

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DS is at a well-known grammar where 4 A levels is the norm for medicine applicants. He’s done his EPQ and is doing 3 sciences & maths A level. He wants to drop physics. School (strong on Oxbridge) say “because his peers are doing 4, his doing 3 will be seen as a less competitive application”. He’s getting good BMAT scores in practise but who knows on the day? He isn’t applying to Cambridge where l know many have taken 4 A levels. More interested in the London med schools. He’s emailed and asked and they just quote the standard “3 A levels required”. He doesn’t know his predicted grades yet but it’s more the risk of missing an offer together with the extra work load of the 4th A level that is bothering him. If many of his peers at school are doing 4 and he does 3 will admission a Tutor think “hmm despite going to X School he’s only take 3 A levels..”. His school have a huge cohort of medicine applicants every year.

I thought it was very funny. 🍩☕️

I think we've probably established that my sense of humour is very different from yours mumsneedwine!

Hopefully we have all made it very clear what advice should be used and what should be taken with a hefty dose of sodium chloride.

And I think Boris would've used longer words.

My contribution has been the same from the start with no shifting, no endless grand declarations about how I know everything about everything because I'm a soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor: get the DS to speak to his Ho6 and ask exactly what he's basing that advice on and go from there. The reaction has been absurd. Especially from those who work in schools not in the selective sector.

@goodbyestranger sorry for delay and things have moved on....yes subjective but oxford, Cambridge, imperial, UCL etc etc - NSS slightly different but ranked well in London.

The problem with your post Zanda is that I haven't propagated conspiracy theories and don't insist on Oxbridge or London educated doctors. Those things are fictions or distortions by other posters and are just absurd. I do however prefer doctors who aren't bossy, patronising, dim or prone to clinical error. I'm afraid I haven't found your posts light hearted at all, quite the opposite. I should also say that I'm busy until late tonight but if I'm Boris then I think I'll change my position on suspending Parliament by the end of the day.

Thanks for replying khaleesi

I'm neither silly or stupid and I actually feel sorry for you goodbyestranger.

Oh infamy, infamy they all have it in for me lolol!

khaleesi71 relevant information for the OP (I had to look back a few pages to find you)!

Ok last post Goodbye. Wasn’t going to mention my background but I think it is relevant when you are concerned that posters are irrelevant if they have no knowledge of the selective sector. I was taught at a private and a selective public school. I am a qualified teacher and have worked in all types of schools, in different areas of the country, though most recently in the business side. So I know about ‘marketing’ the league tables.

The problem with your consistent advice to talk to Ho6 as you call them, is that they are just humans doing a job. Not gods. They don’t have the collective experience or knowledge of the posters on here. They get things wrong. I have been in meetings with more heads SLT etc than you, promise. There’s good ones and bad ones. I could tell you some stories of one that is scandalous and in a very, very elite school. I can also tell you why schools do certain things due to timetabling/staffing/laziness/elitism/marketing purposes/because they can’t keep up with the pace of change whilst trying to do everything else they are supposed to do and still have a life.

My children are/did go to the local comprehensive school. If you lived round here yours would too. The comp does well as it has lots of academic kids as there’s no selective nor super selective. Yours would have still got to wherever they needed to as they sound academic. Mine did. And there would be no need for outreach.

🤣 @mumsneedwine, worriedaboutray,

Next time I need a doctors appointment I shall ask “but did you do 4 a levels and go to a ‘superior’ medical school?”

I didn’t hear Boris so much as Hyacinth Bucket.

Lol!

"This is nothing. My ten children are all studying medicine simultaneously at Oxford and Cambridge, got their first hibs while they were in the womb and scored over 10,000 on the BMAT. . .They were fast tracked to year 5 as the previous years wouldn't be challenging enough."

No, they didn't, worriedaboutray! That's because they graduated from Oxbridge with double no, triple Distinctions in Medicine degrees - all signed, sealed and delivered in 3 years - unlike all you poor inadequates who have to struggle for 5 or 6! *

Three or four A-Levels for Medicine, you asked? How pathetic! Ours breezed through with 6 A without so much as breaking a sweat. That's not to mention holding two part-time jobs simultaneously since aged 11 and still leaves plenty of time to go socialising and partying with their equally insanely academic classmates in our super-duper top-of-the-tree grammar school.

Believe me, I didn't make these* up. They were straight from the horse's mouth!

Quite a few posts back I referred to a poster having a lack of self awareness and too much self importance in the hope they might take a step back and reflect. I see they haven't.

I think that this thread is just showcasing that Goodbyestranger has the talent of a barrister.
IMO, I don’t think that sticking to a valid insight (even if that insight may only be part of the picture) is self-importance.

Not even medical admissions tutors on here can speak for all admission tutors from all medical schools.

Peteneras arrives (bit late) to the party🤪

I'd agree with you send except the valid insight was not true. Saying medical school admissions people make secret calls to some 'better' schools and tell them their students need to achieve more, is rubbish. Not true and misleading. And that better doctors come from certain Universities is insulting to the many amazing doctors who don't. Giving a perspective is one thins but telling outright porkies is another. And yes, they'll be back to call me names (apparently I'm in a school girl gang - I'll bring the white lightening girls).

Hi all - just popping in with a wee reminder to try to keep things civil.
If you see any posts that you feel break our Talk Guidelines, give us a shout and we'll deal with them. Otherwise, we'd appreciate it if you'd use the same courtesy to each other on here that you would in person.
Thanks, folks.
MNHQ

Would you like some white lightening too ? I make a great snake bite and black 😁.

mumsneedwine an exchange between an admissions individual for Medical School X and an individual involved with a school could well have imparted something along those lines. It may not be what is said at official talks or on he website admission criteria as those have to be uniform criteria.

Admissions even at a single institution is made of a group of individuals who are generally not a long term fixture so information and views expressed by them will vary.

Anyway that being said any student has to do what is right for them so then at least they will have no regrets if unsuccessful.

Ok so first of all very many thanks to sendsummer. A beacon of good sense in a quagmire of self-importance and silliness and a jostling for position as to who can be the biggest know it all on the block and who can be the rudest (to me). I seem to be capable of being polite in the teeth of it all however, but then I really couldn't give a hoot, let alone two.

So, in order (but a shout out to peteneras whose post probably doesn't warrant a reply, other than to acknowledge that yes DS did indeed get 6A* at A2, which was unfortunately only half the number he managed at GCSE so a downwards trajectory. He' probably peaked. But yes to the job and yes to the social life and all the other jazz a young person should do. He managed to scale all that up at Oxford, seems to be juggling well now in London with a full social life, other accolades which might be outing and most importantly happy it seems. And I'm glad that your DS is also doing well and is happy, as I said in my previous post. FYI we don't use phrases such as super duper in our house, my mother being a Scot and my father a Polish refugee).

Indicative it was I who advised you to step back, not you I, if you'd care to read back. And your post was deleted for straying well beyond the guidelines and making things up. Please don't do that again.

Zanda I really really wouldn't mind betting my mortgage on the fact that you haven't been to more SLT meetings at selective schools than me and it sounds very much as though you haven't got experience in the state selective area, merely the independent. The OP has a DC at a state superselective which if I'm correct is higher in the league tables than our own.

mumsneedwine there are no secret calls. I never said secret calls. This distortion of what I said is not sane. How about just acknowledging what Kim said and acting on it? Manners cost nothing.

I invited everyone for a booze up behind the bike sheds - can't be more polite than that.

As I said a long time ago let's agree to disagree and move on. Hopefully every applicant will do their own research and not rely on any of us or their school staff, as horses mouths are at the Unis. UCATs this year have been pretty good so fingers crossed the next batch are ready to go when we get back to school.

Wow... the nastiness on this thread is just mind boggling! Heaven help anybody coming here in need of help with an application.

Never meant anything to be nasty. Just wanted to help someone who asked for advice. So apologies if became horrible as I have had so much support on the 2018 thread and like to give back. But correct info is so so important when applying and incorrect info can really hinder a student applying to the right places. It's changed again this year and just discovered that 95% of state schools now qualify for a contextual offer from Newcastle. Thanks to a poster on another thread.

UCAT interim figures were out this week and v similar to last year.

Not an admissions tutor but it's blindingly obvious that you do not need four A levels to study medicine, or indeed, any other degree subject. Universities including Oxbridge give offers based on 3, in most cases, as does Manchester, which I've just looked at. And they say that they don't think 4 are a good idea because it may well bring your overall average grade down.

Not sure why private schools insist on their students doing 4 A levels in year 12 other than to have one to drop if they decide they don't like one.

So if your child really does have 6 A levels they've done a lot of work for no reason. and clearly don't need any sleep

Not sure why private schools insist on their students doing 4 A levels in year 12 other than to have one to drop if they decide they don't like one.

Not just private schools. DD took 4 AS levels in 2017 at her state comprehensive school, and dropped a subject because she was struggling with 4 subjects. In hindsight taking four to start with was a good idea for her because one was a new subject that she discovered that she hated, so at least she could drop it.