Medicine 2020 (part 2)

[Monkey2001]

This follows on from the first thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3380915-Medicine-2020

Damn! Wish I had known that - DD applied for everything as school advised them to do so. DH is over that alone before any of the other stuff.
Oh well - we are in deep now so ho hum.

DD is steam-rolling ahead with choosing accommodation & applying for finance even though it's inconceivable to me she will actually have in-person classes or need any accommodation.

Our HH 2018-19 income was 67k, dropped to 63k in 19/20 & best case scenario will be around 57k this year. Further drops are quite conceivable due to cv-crisis. Do students get to 'reapply' for student finance support each year, or is it always fixed to the baseline? She's planning to be in London & I think she was insisting that anyone with HH income below 70k got more than basic loan... untrue?

It said you have to re-apply each year.
DD 'booked' her accommodation a few weeks ago and had a dream at the weekend that they hadn't got any ensuite rooms left so they gave her a nicer room which turned out to be a room at the Animal Kingdom Hotel with giraffe grazing outside the window.
I think the stress is getting to us her

Sorry - my mistake - the boundary is £70k not £60k

My d is the ‘living in London, not with parents’ and gets the basic which is £5,981. This is quite interesting though, I just put some household incomes in and looked up in London and out of London maintenance loans - assuming the student has no dependents etc

£60k / (in London) £7,319 / (not London) £4,586
£65k / (in London) £6,649 / (not London) £ 4,289
£70k / (in London) £5,981/ (not London) £4,289
£75k / (in London) £5,981/ (not London) £4,289

Gosh all this for a loan of £4289! Is that the minimum awarded regardless of household income?
I thought they could at least borrow their fees and we would have to cover the rest but from your post Hostess it seems not....

Everybody gets fees as well as the means tested maintenance loan, so everybody will get at least £9,250 + £4,289. Most parents on mumnet seem to pay for their DC's accommodation and leave them with the £4,289 to live on.

Thank you @Monkey - good to know. I had visions of unexpectedly lean times in the Piggy household!

My d has been in halls in Acton which are pretty much the cheapest at her uni, her rent is 5550, plus her travel card is about £20/week in term time. Maint loan £5981 - plus the fees loan. The rent for her shared house in year 2 is looking likely to be about £30/week more than her halls rent - plus there’ll be bills on top which were included in halls.

It’s worth mentioning as well that the funding for medical students changes in years 5/6 as they move onto NHS funding. I don’t know a great deal about it apart from our d will get less, so I’m trying to put away a little extra in preparation - as they’re on more hospital placements and not on standard uni terms/holidays in the later stages it’ll be harder to fit in a job. We have a son who’s currently in his final year at a different uni, we thought we’d be a lot better off once he graduates and we no longer need to fund him 😂. In reality dd might need more money to live in a shared house, in addition to squirrelling away a proportion of the money that’s no longer needed for him to prepare for her year 5/6

Gosh all this for a loan of £4289! Is that the minimum awarded regardless of household income?

As a pop said, it's the basic (non-means tested portion) maintenance loan for studying outside London, not living with parents. And if you know that your income means that it is all your DC is entitled to borrow, if you just don't provide the details, after a certain time (about a fortnight in DD's case last year, I think), they will just be awarded the minimum. I must admit that I hadn't actually engaged at all with the process when I checked with SFE that this would be the case, though - you may have to tell them more formally, if you have already started?

Thread gone quiet... DD & fellow offer holders are a tizz about Cambridge Uni announcement. tbh, I am expecting this from most unis.

I don't think on line lectures are a big deal as long as the other teaching is still face-to-face. A friend in the Bristol medical school says they are preparing to manage labs. Placements more of a problem. GP friend said they could not really do anything with their medical students at the moment as very few of the patients are coming in, so all phone, sometimes with video.

Hostess, DD says her med school prioritises students who are less well off, often those who are taking medicine as a second degree, by allowing then to apply for two ‘out’ placements, at least in their fourth year. This means they can spend the whole year in hospital accommodation and not need to rent anywhere. Plenty also pick up HCA shifts so it is manageable.

When she returns after her intercalation year she plans to wait to see what placements she gets. If she has two away from her University City she won’t bother renting. If she has one placement away, she may try to find a friend who is away from the city when she is in the city, and effectively sub let (a surprising number of medic flats are investment properties owned by doctors, who will understand) for six months.

Medschoolrat, from what DD is receiving, her med school seems to be doing their upmost to get things sorted for the autumn. However it is still going to be very difficult indeed. She is pleased she is intercalation as hopefully clinical placements will be back on track by autumn 2021.

From the MSC re placements. Helpful.
www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2...placements.pdf

Yes thanks @MarchingFrogs
We sent off the information on Friday evening and she got the approval letter through the post today - fees + £4289.
Amazed they are so speedy.
As for the other stuff upthread I am feeling so worried.

DD had a pub quiz with the other offer holders last night, online. Having bought her own bottle of Schnapps (I hope she emerges before mid-afternoon).

I hope everyone is staying well.

My Dd (4th year student) started back 2 weeks ago. Technically an elective rather than a placement but is in the hospital quite a bit. They are due to start back properly mid July to do the placements they should have done after Easter. If that happens as planned I assume they will straight on into final year placements.

Someone mentioned about reduced student loans in Years 4 & 5. We did know about that but the maintenance loan in final year is reduced even further (this may be the case for all subjects, I don’t know) I think because the summer after graduation is not covered?

Dd was ok this year as she worked all last summer but she won’t be able to work at all this summer (even if jobs were available) so we will have to make up the difference.

Advice needed! Dd has just told me she’s been wait listed for Dundee. She has read an article somewhere that suggested if you’re on the waiting list you should send in a written submission basically selling yourself to them to increase your chances. Is this true? And if so, any ideas?!

That's exciting emummy! Hope she gets a place. Hopefully someone can advise soon, just sending best wishes. X

@emummy I have never known of anyone doing this. Waiting list places are normally ranked by interview performance and they will just work their way down it making offers as places become available, eliminating anyone who has offers elsewhere. I don't think anything that may be done now will make any difference to the likelihood of an offer.
There is an FOI from last year that suggest 35 people were made an offer from Dundee's waiting list, so it was a reasonable number. Did they tell her her position on the waiting list? And some of those above her may get offers elsewhere, which would bump her up a bit.
Best of luck with it, Dundee is a fab med school

Thanks @GANFYD, it didn't sound like a good idea to me, so will reassure her not to worry about it. I don't know if they told her what place she is, will check. Very interesting to see the number who got in last year, everything is so uncertain this year but we'll keep our fingers crossed!
Thanks speedy!

Just catching up with everything after a couple of months of not thinking about next year.
DD has a letter from a Exeter in saying that freshers is going ahead as normal in September. That surprises me as at my uni we are planning on teaching everything virtually in term one and allowing students to choose to stay at home if they want to for the whole first term even if we do start face to face teaching, by putting all module content on line.

This thread had dropped off my "I'm on" didn't know that could happen.

@emummy - that is great news, hope the waiting list place comes through. I wonder whether they tell her when the Higher results are out or if they have to wait for european results to be confirmed. She could probably ask now how many places, firm acceptances and insurance acceptances they have so she can get a feel for how much she should prepare to start this year. It looks like a great medical school, DS would have applied there if they took more than 16 RUK!

Have any DC got the health screening forms from their med schools? There are some vaccinations DS does not seem to have had on the list - TB (we all used to have the BCG, but DS did not) and whooping cough and I think there was another. Our GP is not doing vaccinations at the moment and said they don't do BCG anyway, so I think he will just get them done at St Andrews as there is no patient contact in the first year on his course.

@EightToSixer St A have said all along that they were planning to have the orientation week at the scheduled time and provide dual delivery of all their courses. I am sure Freshers will be very different from usual, but it will happen in some form.