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.

Leaving aside another bolding fail, you were clearly implying that those with quite a few less A than 10 could reasonably make an application.*

No, I wasn't.
I actually have quite serious concerns for your mental wellbeing, so am going to leave you to it, as I seem to be causing you to lose all touch with reality in an attempt to try and feel you are superior.

I mean so yes basically you didn't have a clue - so that does throw into question the credibility of your other expert advice.

(A perfectly valid point, since these boards are supposed to give useful advice, which inaccurate advice isn't).

Cross post.

GANFYD I should think everyone knows that definition of confabulate. It's curious in this context.

The piece you quote is when you backtracked having realised you made a goof. Check the chronology.

I assume there are actually a few posters who do have mental health issues on these threads so throwing that at a poster who doesn't have those issues (fortunately), as an insult, is pretty low. The fact that you claim to be something in the medical field makes it far more than low.

Mental health trained. Not an insult but a serious concern

Absolutely intended as an insult, no question about it. Very bad form.

The graph is on the link. The distribution can be seen at a glance. It's, er, quite spiky 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.... (Me, 5th March 23.02)

You posted what you've copied above the following day, after you'd realised your error, given my post.

I do actually appear to be superior, at least in the narrow sense that I can read the bleeding graph :)

It was in no way an insult. I have spent years working with people with MH issues and they are just a health problem, same as anything else.
Have DM'd you

GANFYD*. try and stay calm.
Just to recap from your previous posts which all seemed to be phrased with certainty and therefore can be misleading.

^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.^

Medians not means.

^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. ^

My (probably outdated) stats say that the offer curve is a positively skewed normal distribution curve. This surely means the median lies somewhere between the mean (10.8) and the mode (10).

So what do you think positive or negative distribution? Do rules of thumb always apply? Outliers contributing or not? Can you treat discrete values as a continuous ie do values between 10 and 11 matter? And finally why tie yourself in knots when it is actually quite evident from the graph

Having had to request no more (pretty concerning) PMs from GANFYD, hopefully people on this thread will see fewer insults flying and more straightforward info being shared.

Any one have informal thoughts or opinions on the London medical schools? Specifically, are there any that are more compact/campus style with accommodation and lectures close to one another or are they all quite spread out? Thanks for your insights which will hopefully help narrow down a bit the ones to visit for open days!

Pumpkintopf my uber informal thoughts would be for your DS to ask himself if he's ok with being at an all science uni (Imperial) or would he prefer to be somewhere with arts and humanities students as well? (UCL). As far as Kings goes others know far more than I do (it's merits and demerits are quite often discussed on these threads), but I have to say that the placements in the clinical years sound very tough, in the sense of being asked to go all over the shop, some distance away, and the financial side meaning it's hard to keep up a London base unless you're really well off. It sounds a serious ordeal, which would deter my own DC, and I don't quite get how students sustain a social life in those years, when they're still young and when it's clearly important.

No idea about the other London unis but lots of posters do!

Stranger, the placement thing is common to other Universities. Oxford and Cambridge seem in really having the University towns as their base. DD tells me that it is not uncommon for fourth year at Bristol, if they know they have two six month placements outside Bristol, not to bother to get a flat in Bristol. Placement accommodation is free so it is quite a big cost saving. They are in quite large groups, and so will inevitably have friends with them. They have full days, and exams at the end of their third and fourth years, so plenty of study at weekends. In London it is easier to take on a six month lease, as there is less of an identified student market.

London medical schools will all have different feels. It is worth visiting (note Open days can get booked out quickly.) In particular SGUL is far less urban, but then again QMUL is different in another way. For the six year degrees it is probably worth looking at third year options. There is some very interesting research going on at the "triangle" universities (Imperial, UCL and Kings).

I think DD has been surprised at how infrequently she, and others, have returned to Bristol. She has gone back when there is something specific happening, but also went elsewhere with University friends, has visited friends from other Universities and has come home. In a way, once they get to clinical they may have started outgrowing being a student. I know DD is clear that when she returns from her intercalation, she will not want to live in a large shared student house. Similarly a sixth year Imperial student we knew was married, had a mortgage (based on his wife's income!) and socialised almost entirely with friends who had graduated and were working.

being at an all science uni (Imperial)

This is more extreme for St George's, of course: all of the students there are doing courses relating to healthcare or biomedicine.

Interesting!

Yes the travelling all over thing is a concern, plus the costs of London of course...

Needmoresleep but are UCL and Imperial students sent on placements in the same way as Kings or do they stay closer to their hub? The Kings programme seems especially tough. I assumed it was so bad other places must be kinder!

I have no idea. However it cuts both ways. A good variety of placements: inner city, rural GP, big regional teaching hospital, hospital serving a market town and rural community, is in many ways a good thing. DD is really enjoying being in a small hospital, where staff are going out of their way to teach the next generation of medics, and feels she is learning as much as she did on her first placement.

Trouble is that to get this variety you may need to travel, particularly in a big city.

The one big advantage London has is that public transport is both better and cheaper than elsewhere.

My d is a first year at imperial. They have a two week placement after their exams (which are straight after Easter). She is lucky to have been allocated a placement close to where she lives in Acton. The furthest out placements seem to be at St Peters in Chertsey, but this has a reputation among the students as having excellent clinical teaching which makes the travel worthwhile, and the uni put on a bus. She’s had one day a fortnight at a GP practice in Fulham which has been a really positive experience, with a range of experiences and a group debriefing session at the end of each day led by an excellent GP who is engaged and interested in the students.

She was gutted when they found out, three weeks in, that dissection had been removed from the programme despite them being told on the offer holders day that it would stay. However by Christmas she was saying that she didn’t feel that it was as big a deal as she’d thought and that she’s enjoying the course very much. She said the pace is something else - but that students are regularly asked for feedback which is being listened to and implemented. For example they have some extra sessions next week in between their exams on a couple of topics that students had felt could do with more time.

Socially there’s the main uni SU and also a medic SU, much of the medic social scene centres on the medics bar at Charing Cross hospital, and most of the medics live around Hammersmith after the first year. There’s lots of socialising between year groups and lots of opportunities for diverse interests - my d is involved in medic football and also circus skills classes! There are revision sessions run by higher year groups and lots of opportunities for talks, conferences and lectures - such as a recent neurology conference.

Imperial wasn’t on my daughters ‘radar’ when she was at the application stage, her friend went along with her to the UCL open day, so she tagged along with her friend to imperial the next day and it just ‘felt right’ for her so she quickly arranged to sit the BMAT to enable an application. She’d originally been keen on kings but withdrew her application before finding out the outcome of her interview because their standard offer is the same as imperial so King’s would have been no use as an insurance choice - she had other offers with lower grade requirements. She was concerned about the consistently low student satisfaction ratings for kings, and although she liked the vibe of the uni of the open day, her perception of the medical school was cold and disinterested.

If there’s anything specific you’d like to know then drop me a line and I’ll ask her

Brilliant. Thanks so much all, such a wealth of experience and insight on here!

Worth noting that Imperial offer some very good bursaries to those from lower income families, even those from London. UCL is also good. I am less sure about the others.

I suspect all the London unis do distant placements - they are all huge med schools with high student to patient ratios.

I know that Imperial students were being sent to Reading when I was there, for example.

The other quirk of the London med schools is that they seem to keep the medics very apart from everyone else, to the extent of actually having separate societies e.g. medics football and rugby teams.

So DD’s April work experience has cancelled.
She’s a bit stressed about her week booked for the last week of May.
She does have another one booked in for August too.
I know it’s small in the grand scheme of things but she worked really hard to secure these.
At least she already has some done so she’s not completely stuck.

Nexttime, the seperate societies is pretty standard. DD is unusual in that she plays University rather than medic sport. In her second year she had strong hopes of being selected for the firsts, except she was injured. When she started playing again she opted for the thirds instead. The training requirements at the top level were too high, but the medic level was too low and she liked meeting non medics. Third year, and she is only rarely able to attend training or matches. Oddly it might be easier to play University sport at Imperial as their teams tend to be less competitive and away matches less far flung.

LaLaFlottes, it's a pity. It looks as if everyone's life is on hold. DD has just been sent home with no notice and a vague instruction to 'self-study' her next clinical rotation as they are having to divert teaching staff to front line care. Doubtless something more substantive will be issued in the next week or so and she does not rule out being invited back as a volunteer HCA (or she might study at home and volunteer at our local hospital.) She is relaxed. The medical school wont want to lose a future generation of medics, so will work something out.

Corona virus has meant cancelled work experience
Will the universities understand this for this round of admissions?
She has some under her belt but this will leave a real gap

Of course they'll understand. If your DD has a part time job then a lack of medical work experience would matter very little in any event, even in normal times. I wouldn't give it a second thought.