Studying Medicine?

[eatthatfrog]

My dd was ill while sitting her GCSEs and has just received her results. She has passed them all but school will not let her sit A level biology as she obtained a six.however they did tell her she could do medicine without biology as long as she had Chemistry and another science eg maths, physics or psychology. She has reviewed her choices and decided on Chemistry, maths, psychology and history. She is also taking an EPQ which will be medical related.

Looking at the information school gave her she still has the chance to study at least 15 medical schools. Do you think not having studied biology will be an issue?

I'm slightly surprised her school won't let her take A-level biology if her chemistry GCSE was good enough to take that to A-level. But it's possible they have evidence of students under-performing at A-level even with good GCSE grades in other sciences, so it may well not be worth arguing over.

Yes, there are more medical schools requiring chemistry than biology, and many state chemistry or biology plus one other science. Obviously, anywhere that states chemistry and biology has to be written off. "Science" for this purpose always includes maths; at Lancaster it also includes psychology, and there is a possibility this will become more common over the next two years.

She needs to be aware that the medical schools with the greatest flexibility on A-level subjects are likely to have other stringent requirements. For example, Newcastle doesn't require any science A-levels but you need a very high UCAT score to get an interview; Leeds only needs chemistry and any other two but will look at GCSE grades and BMAT score in selecting for interview.

I should have added, in terms of actually studying medicine, medical students without A-level biology often say they feel less prepared at the beginning of the course but this doesn't seem to affect their ability to succeed. It's largely a matter of familiarity with biological vocabulary rather than ability to understand concepts. In my opinion (as a biological scientist), biology is much easier to learn quickly than chemistry or physics. Only a small proportion of A-level biology is relevant to medicine, and we teach them most of that again when they get to medical school, so she shouldn't worry that she's missed something vital.

Personally I would push for school.to allow her to take Biology . Why limit where you can apply ?

Leaving aside the Biology issue, why is she doing 4 A Levels? As per other threads, she may be spreading herself too thin

she's doing 4 levels as that is the school J6 requirement. $ levels and an EPQ with the possibility to drop one at the end of J6