Can someone talk to me about applying for medicine with very polarised GCSE results

[Neednewwellies]

DS1 has his heart set on studying medicine. Personally I think he’s extremely well suited to it both academically and in temperament. He’s Y10. He is mildly dyslexic and predicted the following in His GCSEs:
Maths-9
Chemistry-9
Physics-9
Biology-9
Geography-8
RS-8
English Lit-6/7
English Lang-6/7
French-6
He really didn’t want to do a language but it was school rules. He struggles with French and indeed English due to his dyslexia. It also impacts the written element of his humanities subjects too.

So, if he does end up with the predicted 9s for maths and sciences but gets 3 x 6s for English and French, will that preclude him applying for medicine? He is looking at 4 Alevels in maths, chemistry, physics and biology. His current teachers are as sure as they can be that he is A/A (but more likely A) in each.

Any advice on what he should do? Will his results mean he will be unlikely to secure a place to study medicine or do some universities look at the skew towards the required subjects and his predicted Alevels?

Hello - DD is planning to apply for Medicine for 2021 entry.

Those GCSE results would be absolutely fine. It’s all about applying strategically, so some universities look at GCSEs as quite a main criteria, some less so. Some use UCAT scores combined with GCSEs and others take a more holistic approach. Some use A level predictions and some don’t even look at these at all.

So it’s all about playing to strengths. These GCSE results wouldn’t by any means cause a probably for your DS - they are good results! Once he’s sat a UCAT or BMAT and knows his score for those, and his predicted grades for A level, he would simply pick the universities best suited to his situation, to have the best chance of getting an interview.

There is a medicine 2020 and medicine 2021 thread with loads of brilliant information so might be worth a read.

If those are the GCSE grades he achieves there'll be a small number of medical schools it probably wouldn't be worth applying to. However, he'll be absolutely fine for the majority.

For example, at Lancaster you have to score 13 points for your best 8 GCSEs including maths, English language and combined/separate sciences (grade 7-9 = 2 points, grade 6 = 1 point) to be eligible; your son would score at least 14 with the grades you've listed. There are various other ways of scoring GCSEs, while some medical schools might just say you have to have a certain number at grade 7 or above and a minimum of 6 in maths, English language and sciences. The ones he has to look out for are the ones that use GCSE grades in ranking for interview, as even if he meets their minimum requirements he might not be likely to rank highly enough. Have a look a how Leicester ranks for interview: their process is very transparent.

@LaLaFlottes and @SirTobyBelch, thank you both. Lots of sensible practical advice there and good for thought. We’ll need to do more research on the various universities I think and how they rank.

You’re welcome 😊
@SirTobyBelch is much more knowledgable than me so glad they also saw your post!
Good luck to your DS - he can definitely pursue his dreams of being a Dr 😊

@SirTobyBelch, he’s upstairs researching it now. I’ve told him to look at Leicester. His formative assessment grades in maths and sciences have all been 97%+ so extremely high so the hopes are that he will achieve 9s on the day.

Those results are fine for med school. You can easily find out the interview selection criteria (how they select who to interview) and the post-interview selection criteria (how they decide who to offer a place to) for all the med schools and choose those that put less weight on GCSEs. You can also find out things like the ratio of applicants to places, UCAT/BMAT cut off scores etc that will help your DS apply strategically.

I wouldn't worry too much about med schools rank. When it comes to applying for foundation programme places, selection is based on a national test and your academic record (your ranking at your med school/further degrees/publications etc), it doesn't matter where you got your degree. It's more important to find a course that is a good fit eg the method of teaching.

These are good sites to start research:

www.medschools.ac.uk/
www.themedicportal.com/application-guide/choosing-a-medical-school/

It's also good to look at sites like the student room and talk to current students to find out about student satisfaction and what the course is like. The student satisfaction scores in a lot of league tables are often based on a very small sample.

When it comes to applying for foundation programme places, selection is based on a national test and your academic record (your ranking at your med school/further degrees/publications etc), it doesn't matter where you got your degree. It's more important to find a course that is a good fit eg the method of teaching.

Thank you for this @goingoverground. I can't agree strongly enough.

Ranking highly within your own medical school cohort is much more important for getting your choice of foundation job than where you studied (which isn't important at all). Even this is less important than performance in the Situational Judgement Test, though. At least, it is at present. I suspect Health Education England will change some details of foundation programme selection over the next year or two but it probably won't be radical.

There will also be the national Medical Licensing Assessment for students graduating from 2023. The General Medical Council has said this won't be used for ranking graduates but I don't know how long they'll stick to that promise.

Also important, if he is dyslexic, is to consider learning style.

Medic DD is dyslexic and an obvious mathamatician/scientist. She learns much better by observing and doing than she does from reading books. Her course at Bristol, with a lot of early patient contact, really suits her, and being able to re-watch lectures, rather than take notes has been useful.

She would have had the grades for one of the more "prestigious" BMAT schools, but is glad now that she did not try. (Very bizarrely she aced her Eng Lang GCSE, she is still convinced there was an error.) She is practical and not particularly interested in academic medicine. She was at a highly selective central London school, and so is content that medicine has a variety of career paths and her peers who wound at BMAT Med Schools will be different, not better, doctors. It is worth doing a bit of thinking about what you want, though, as I understand it, it remains possible to change paths as your interests develop. DD is about to start an intercalation year in London which could put her back on an academic/research track if she wanted. Increasingly though she is saying that she wants to do her F1/F2 outside London (already she can see from placements that smaller hospitals can often provide better training than busy city hospitals, in part because staff have more time) and to focus on practice and teaching rather than research.

One of mine is intercalating in London this year too @Needmoresleep. He's also dyslexic and re-watching recorded lectures online rather than taking notes has been key for him.

@SirTobyBelch, thank you. And again, useful information.
@Needmoresleep, that’s a very good point. I’ve made a note of that for him. The course at Bristol looks like it would suit him too. I need to work out how to find out the difference. I guess a spreadsheet is required! 😆

We found it quite difficult to really understand teaching methods and assumed DD would prefer something more formal and defined. Then she deferred and found herself on a new, quite different course.

It suits her. Part of her compensation for very slow processing speeds (which makes note taking hard) is a good memory. A more vocational course, where the ability to comprehend quickly and retain, is a good match for someone who is practical rather than studious. Her teachers were surprised she did not apply to Oxbridge and felt she would have had a reasonable chance. She is now more certain than before that she made the right decision. She has really enjoyed her clinical placements and thinks three years of pure academic study would have been hard going. Being bright and being academic/studious are different. In particular she knows many bright people who are not practical.

She has a friend at Imperial who is a seriously good mathematician and very hard working, who is very likely to end up in an area with low patient contact and where a strong grasp of statistics is vital. Again someone at the 'right' University, for them. Who will be the better doctor? Who is at the better medical school? Both questions are pretty meaningless.

And that is before you factor in other things. DDs friends tend to come from rural places and be interested in outdoor activities like camping, surfing and wild swimming. Bristol definitely trumps Imperial. Sport is also of a higher standard.(It probably trumps Imperial in terms of nightlife as well.) However very studious DS (not a medic) was very happy with the academic focus and culture at his research heavy London University.

Perhaps the way to do it is to work back. If you want to be a GP then a course which emphasises communication skills is probably a good option. If research appeals, then one of the more research focussed med schools.

Thanks again @Needmoresleep. Yes, he’s sporty, loves the water and ideally he’d love to be studying/living somewhere like Chichester or Plymouth Ir on the banks of Loch Lomond I think. So maybe he should also be looking at that aspect of university alongside the other stuff.