Medicine 2021

[Millylovespuddles]

Hi all
It looks like there’s no medicine 2021 entry thread yet, so it might be an idea to get the ball rolling.
My DD is getting stuck into her A level course, doing well so far, but I’m guessing we parents could do with some mutual support and advice from parents who’ve been here before.

You are soo right @goodbyestranger , you are very boring. And no one has ever said that to me on any thread but you keep on telling yourself that. You just can't listen to anyone who disagrees with you, you have to right, and you are not. You have ruined what should be a supportive helpful place just because you have to know best.

mumsneedwine I would say that this thread could well do with being deleted but certainly not because of misinformation. I think you'd have an uphill struggle to substantiate that. I think purely on the grounds of lack of manners and mutual respect.

I don't 'know best' mumsneedwine and don't pretend to (unlike some!!!!) but I do know that not every student applying will conform to your particular box. Students at our school tend to be at one end of the spectrum admittedly, but it's a valid end and some people may very well have an interest in that end.

*It can be useful, as if I were predicted AAA, I might be more inclined to apply to Imperial, with a 3:1 ratio and 70% of those interviewed getting offers, than I would to UCL, with a 10:1 ratio and 60% of those interviewed getting offers.

Absolutely - it’s a useful tool for people applying. I think I took exception at the info being interpreted as ‘the least competitive’ by way of using it as a put down, but maybe I was being a bit over sensitive given the nature of some of the recent posts...My d only looked at ratios once she had interview invitations - ‘roughly how likely am I to get an offer after interview?’ She’d taken advice on tsr and identified where someone with her profile would have the best chance of interview, then narrowed them down by geography, type of course, dissection (funny that one!) and then by how it ‘felt’ on open days. She apparently did her PS ‘wrong’ in that she talked about her own period of illness (she needed a year out of education) but talked about what she’d learned about doctors from the patients perspective and what she’d learned about herself during her recovery and how that fit in with what she’d seen on her (very few) bits of work shadowing - and her part time job as a waitress! But my impression is that fewer med schools score the PS as each year goes by, that it’s not as critical as it used to be.

@goodbyestranger - if there are over 30 medical schools in the uk, well, not applying to oxford isn’t a ‘race for the middle’, it’s what the majority do. Some of these are due to grades, some are due to not fancying the course structure or collegiate system, wanting to live in a bigger town or a more campus type uni, some will be down to geography or (rightly or wrongly) assumptions about the social makeup of oxford and worries about fitting in, but I don’t really think any student who’s realistically applying for a med school place is striving for mediocrity! You seem to be quite determined that Oxford is the only place that is competitive or worthwhile, and that anywhere else is inferior and a scramble for second best, whereas for many it is a conscious decision for reasons of their own. My d stays at an oxford college for alternate weekends, and says as much as it’s nice and she’s made friends there, living and studying there full time isn’t for her. She also smiles because the grade requirements for her place and her workload are both higher than her (non medic) oxford

Maybe you should set up a separate thread offering advice for prospective oxford medics rather than putting up with the greyness here?

No I won't be doing that HostessTrolley. I'm making a comment about the need to give less homogenous advice, short of being especially invested.

@LaLaFlottes
There are many FOIs out there about interview to offer ratios, and I have several, if there are any you are particularly interested in.
What you have to bear in mind is that, by their very nature, last year's figures may be out of date. If a med school had too few offer holders getting their grades one year, they may offer more the following year. Or they may have felt the standard of applicants they had to choose from was not where they wanted it to be and hence interview more next year.
They are, however, a good guide as the logistics of organising med school interviews can be substantial and there are not always more interviewers, more days or more rooms to be able to do this

@LaLaFlottes
Oh, and I forgot to say, some med schools publish this data on their websites, eg Leicester, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Oxford and there is often discussion about it on TSR, where people post info from Open Days and Admissions Tutors

Hostess you like some others appear to be misconstruing what ‘race for the middle’ and ‘greyness’ means. Those terms don’t relate to criticism of choice of medical school or type of medical career. Medicine IMO is a fantastic career path because it is such a broad church. Doctors will have different strengths. However applicants should retain what makes them individuals in their PS (including their personal insights) and not let box ticking take over to the detriment of that. I would hate to see our pool of new doctors be skewed towards that box ticking phenotype.
Also increasingly international talent is required to fill the void of inadequate emphasis on science in some UK medical curriculae. Some of our trainees may never have the chance to find out how good they are at medical research in certain medical schools unless they move for intercalation. That opportunity is what specific research strong universities like Imperial, UCL, Oxford and Cambridge are able to offer and why they may be more attractive to some applicants. Training after qualification is pretty regimented now so applying for ACFs has to be considered early.

@HostessTrolley
You will not find me placing any one med school above another (except, at times over transparency in their admissions info!). I am sure Imperial is a fabulous med school (one I have very little experience of, but the students there seem to be having a great time), as is Dundee, Sheffield, Bristol, Newcastle, Plymouth and Oxford. And all the rest of them!
It can be really hard for DCs who are used to being near top of their year to suddenly find they are just average amongst a cohort applying for medicine and that it is not always as simple as just choosing where they fancy going to med school.
As you mentioned your daughter did above, I would advocate first finding where you are most likely to get interviews (you have to be in it to win it), then choosing your favourites, based on course type, location, placements, student satisfaction, ethos, gut feel, etc and then worrying about the fine detail of the offer ratios, etc IF choices have to be made between several med schools.
If an applicant genuinely likes both med schools the same then go for those that offer the best statistical chance of an offer, but do not let that override other influences, as somebody has to get a place, and if you do, you have a 100% chance of an offer and if you don't, you have a 0% chance of an offer - the problem is, you don't know which side of the fence you are going to fall in advance, so all you can do is improve your odds

Just to point out, lest anybody be put off applying, that for those who had taken GCSEs with an offer of a place at Oxford, the mean number of A*s at GCSE was 10.8.
So that was an average, suggesting somewhere around half got more and half got less, that is how averages work.

The graph is on the link. The distribution can be seen at a glance. It's, er, quite spikey actually GANFYD. And given that this year's applicants took the harder 9 - 1's, I probably wouldn't be making too light of 10.8 A! Not a vast amount of headroom to go much beyond 10.8 A so the logical corollary is.....

Or is it spiky not spikey?

Thanks for that graph goodbyestranger, interesting reading!

Does anyone understand why Oxford is the only uni that won't accept a September BMAT thus meaning applying to all BMAT Unis 'blind' if choosing Oxford?

@ganfyd - I didn’t think that you were x

@goodbyestranger
Statistics can be hard to understand if you have never studied it? Is the word you are looking for skewed?
There is a negative skew to the distribution of the graph for number of applicants meaning (usually) the mean and median are less than the mode. This is far less pronounced if you just look at those receiving offers.
If you look at the graph, the highest number of offers was for those with 10 GCSEs (mode), so less than the average (mean) of 10.8.
So this suggests the graph for number of GCSEs in those who got offers may not be wholly to scale, given that there is likely to actually be a positive skew meaning more people with offers got below the average (of 10.8) than got above it.
Without more data it is hard to be certain of this, though.

So do not be put off if you have less than 10.8 As at GCSE, though I wouldn't be looking to apply with a lot less than 9 (if not contextual) and it is obviously also affected by the percentage of As. Someone with 9 out of 9 As is probably going to stand a better than someone with 11 out of 14 As, as seen on the second graph, all other things being equal - and they never are!

What we don't know is which of these results are contextualised.

Also 9-1 GCSEs were in place for most subjects last year. My son who will be applying this year has 11 out of his 12 subjects as number grades. They are not supposed to be harder - the top of a 9 corresponds with the old top of an A - they are just supposed to allow greater differentiation at either end of the scale. This is ironic, as all med schools (excpet QUB for 2021 at the minute) are using both an 8 and a 9 as the same as an A, so actually a reasonable number of these students would have got high As under the old system, so it has effectively caused a dumbing down of GCSE grades!

@pumpkintopf

According to the Admission Forum's notes for Cambridge (do not have a link handy, sorry), they agreed to accept the earlier BMAT "to avoid restricting the applicant field", ie they did not want applicant numbers to drop. I am assuming Oxford are more confident of their draw for applicants.

There is some evidence that the 2 sittings may not have directly comparable cohort results, so I am guessing Oxford did not want to muddy the waters as whilst I suspect they are looking closely at whether a 5 in Sept is really the same as a 5 in October, they do not want to jump until they can be sure of the answer as otherwise it could end up disadvantaging those who sat the "harder" test!

^mean number of A*s at GCSE was 10.8.
So that was an average, suggesting somewhere around half got more and half got less, that is how averages work.^
That is true for a median value, not the mean.

^If you look at the graph, the highest number of offers was for those with 10 GCSEs (mode), so less than the average (mean) of 10.8.
So this suggests the graph for number of GCSEs in those who got offers may not be wholly to scale, given that there is likely to actually be a positive skew meaning more people with offers got below the average (of 10.8) than got above it.^

The above is also completely wrong.

Apologies I should be more precise. The interpretation is wrong
So this suggests the graph for number of GCSEs in those who got offers may not be wholly to scale,
Most with offers get 10 or above A* equivalent. The scale is not wrong and there is no reason why it should be from the simple statistics presented with and depicted by the graph.
Luckily applicants with GCSE maths will understand the very simple statistical concepts of a mean.

I just think it must be hard to draw those little itty-bitty yellow lines accurately!

My post says the mode (most) people scored 10 but more people scored less than the mean of 10.8, thank above it. You say most people scored 10 or above. 10 is still less than 10.8, so I'm not even sure we are saying different things?

Well the abuse came as expected. Thank you to everyone for your messages - couldn't reply last night as had a pile of marking. Trying to get through the syllabus as quick as we can, 'just in case'. Off to teach some of those prospective medics, all of whom are fantastic kids who have read some of this thread. I've used it as a teaching tool on how not to use social media.

Next round of abuse on its way .....

I will make my post clearer (maybe!)
What I am saying is that more people got 10 or less A*s (less than the average) than got 11 or more.
Or at least, given the evidence we have, that would appear statistically accurate.
My point was that 10.8 GCSEs at A star is not a minimum amount needed

I said spikey when I actually meant spiky, I now realise - confirmed. The information is very straightforward. Oxford isn't setting out to blind applicants with science. It's plain as a pikestaff to everyone who dials up this info why far fewer applicants are in a position to apply to Oxford than to most other med schools. That emphatically does not make it less competitive! I think your reaction suggests that you were taken aback by the stats GANFYD.

Pleasure Pumpkintopf. Oxford, which places more emphasis on the BMAT than any other med school does, wants the test to be identical for all applicants. It does mean applying blind but it's only one choice. Anyone in a position to apply to Oxford will probably have very good other options for their remaining choices. Fatalism helps!

I have been quoting and analysing the Oxford stats for six years now.

The only thing that is a little surprising in the stats is how little they have gone up given the move to numerical GCSE grades compared to places like Birmingham and Cardiff who are also GCSE heavy. They remain broadly where they have been in previous years

Cross post. GANFYD the graphs do not need any additional explanation. They really are see-at-a-glance and show that you need a very, very high A* tally to make a serious application - it's that simple. A caveat is that of course GCSEs are contextualised but beyond that qualification, the only exception will be if there were serious issues during an applicant's education. If there were, then those circumstances will be put in the mix and may overrule the mathematical formula which determines who is and who isn't invited to interview. It's very likely that the tiny blips down the line are indeed those with special circumstances.

Oxford hasn't really changed its med school admissions for a while GANFYD.

It's a slight illusion created by the amalgamation of 8s and 9s to = A*.

Incidentally when I referred to this cohort being 9-1s I was of course referring to the cohort to which these Oxford statistics relate. They are the cohort which sat GCSEs in 2017, the first year in which the vast majority of subjects were graded 9-1. You misunderstood.