Medicine 2021 - part 2

[Millylovespuddles]

Following on from the first thread:
DD now has UKAT booked for mid-August. She couldn’t get a driving theory test booked until after the UKAT date, but will keep an eye out for cancellations.
Now, her big dilemma is Oxbridge it not....

Apparently there are a couple of people on TSR reporting that the UCAT scores were sent to universities yesterday.
I can't confirm this though! I think people have contacted them via facebook and instagram.

Yes, I'd read somewhere that universities were to get the results in the first week of November. So now, it's just a case of wait and see .... fingers crossed everyone.

I hope all those who sat the bmat are ok. We are all isolating here so only remote teaching which isn't great. It's good news that ucat scores have been sent if it's true. It feels very bleak right now so some news/ progress will be good. Something to focus on or move on from depending on whether ds gets any interviews.

DD has an interview for her 5th choice; MPharm. She's very happy and it will be good practice for online interviews too.

I need to get random people to have Teams meetings with her to get her used to it. She used Teams a lot for school during the last lockdown but just had herself muted and invisible.

Meanwhile I'm just wondering which room would make the best backdrop

@MaddieElla that's brilliant news and should give her a big lift in the confidence stakes. Did they say when the interview is scheduled?

That’s great MaddieElla! Good luck to her

Thank you both, it has boosted her confidence.

It's in less than 2 weeks. It's Nottingham, which she loves.

Meanwhile I'm just wondering which room would make the best backdrop
We have been wondering the same thing, in the hope that DS will get some interviews.
We have always had a very strict, no devices in bedrooms policy, but DS is currently parked in the spare room (on the grounds that doing Year 13 he pulls rank on privacy), but it is wall to wall junk and he really doesn't want to do it with all that junk in the background (and besides the fact that DH is convinced that someday he will fix half of what is in there, we couldn't throw it all away with the dumps closed, even if we wanted to). So we have agreed that for any interviews DH will move the computer upstairs to DS's bedroom. I guess he is almost an adult now, and once he goes to university he will be sleeping with devices in his bedroom.

DD has just spent hours trying to finalise the information on her Non Academic Form for Manchester Uni. She had written what she'd wanted to include, but hadn't realised that the character count included spaces so was over the count in every section - argh! Anyone else had the same? It needs to be in before midnight tomorrow so she's gone to bed now and will give it one final read through before sending it through tomorrow. She didn't have this problem with her UCAS form because she wasn't ever over her word count!

Applying for Medicine is such a slog isn't it? DD's friends are having offers left, right and centre and our DC have so many hoops to jump through. It all builds resillience...! Good luck to everyone's DC as the process limps on to the next step.

Maddie great news for your dd, and now I wished ds had a fifth choice as the interview practice alone will be very useful. I bet she smashes the interview.

Interesting to read that others are also thinking of backdrop! Ds will probably do it in his bedroom but he'll have to pick up the 10 thousand socks and empty mugs off the floor and desk first....

Cardigan - we had the same issue with ds form for keele. The guidance stated approx 200 words but when he read closer it included spaces so in the end it was about 160 words! Even 200 words isn't enough when they ask you to consider the nhs constitution, your experiences, what you did and what you learnt, it's literally about 10 sentences in paper. My advice would be to read and re-read what the question is asking and only answer that. Take everything else out. It seems silly when they ask you for additional information but then don't give up enough words to write about it. Good luck to your ds.

@MaddieElla that's great news, and also sounds like a really good course. It will be good to have an interview so early to get into the swing of things for the medicine ones to follow

For anyone wishing they had a 5th choice, you can still add this in to your UCAS application now as far as I know.

I'm worried about technical challenges for the on line interviews - should we get any. I do hope our internet will be ok. For background, I was thinking medical posters, or maybe the logo of the university? Just kidding - something plain and neat will do!! You can add your own backgrounds to Teams and Zoom etc, which could hide anything you don't want to be on display?

Great news @MaddieElla - good luck to your dd - will be great to get some real interview experience.

@Card1gan - yep. same issue here with Manchester form! DD spent ages tweaking hers to get down to the word count yesterday afternoon, but all submitted now - and they send you a pdf of what you submitted so you know it all went in correctly as well.
DH still panicking over the Keele form as DD didn't 'save and close' it before submitting (to check it had saved the latest version). He's convinced her initial answer to the 'any exceptional achievements' question will be submitted. Her answer was 'None .. LOL'

UCAT confirmed on their Twitter this morning that results have now been sent to Uni's ... fingers crossed for everyone!

@IsThisNameTaken hilarious! DD too was a comedian and wrote "let me in to medicine kthxbai." Thankfully deleting it before sending...err, I think.

Good to know Unis now have the UCAT and now it really is a waiting game.

Re the 5th choice. For me it's about the interview practice and personally I would rather DD didn't do MPharm and so am reeeeeeally hoping for just one medicine offer. She, however, works in a pharmacy and would be happy to be a Pharmacist if she didn't secure a place for medicine. I think it's a waste but she says she would be happy as it's still a caring role in the medical field. Ultimately it is her choice, I can only gently advise.

I am wary of technical issues too. Nottingham have asked for an adult/parent to be close by at interview. I'm assuming that's in the case of internet or IT issues. Little do they know that my standard response to IT issues is to swear a lot.

We can only hope we don't get that annoying glitchy Teams screen.

@MaddieElla it's great to have the interview practice.

I'm the same with technical assistance. I just look at the screen and say "erm..." quite a lot while I hope it resolves itself. This then progresses to swearing. My only nugget of assistance will be to turn everything off and on again, which also would not be ideal!

I think I am going to find this wait for interview offers quite hard to be honest. I know that sounds ridiculous - I'm an adult and shouldn't be feeling so anxious, but I think being at home a lot on my own currently is giving me less distraction.

I know they send invites in batches, other than Sheffield which is all on one day, so all is not lost if someone has one before DD, but I know I will then worry!

Gosh - what a wimp I sound! I'm normally not like this!

Don't worry, I think it's safe to say we're all the same. I've had to stop asking DD every day if she's had any emails. As if she wouldn't tell me if she'd received anything important.

We're all in this together.

DH more of a worrier than me! DD has stopped waiting for him to ask and replies 'yes dad, I have checked my spam folder today'!!

I really recommend trawling TSR to find out when they sent out last year. It has given us lots of peace of mind, in the sense that, we know that none of our choices is going to get in touch before Sheffield (16th November), and then after that, the only one we could really hope for is Nottingham in early December. Otherwise is is after Xmas.
On that basis we have stopped checking inboxes and spam and everything, although I am keeping an eye on TSR threads relating to the universities DS has applied to, in case something comes out earlier than expected. There will be a flurry of activity on there when interview offers come out. That is the time to get anxious (and I will be doing it with the best of them) but there is really no point at the moment. I also see UCAT have sent an email claiming they have sent the results to the universities.

My dd received an email from one of her choices today which said

We have now received this year’s UCAT scores from Pearson. Unfortunately, we do not currently have a UCAT score attached to your applicant record.

And then more about what she needs to do. You can imagine the panic. She is at school but we planned to look into it later. She has since received an email saying it was sent in error!

The stress!!! She is now panicking as to whether her results have been sent correctly to all her choices if there was an issue at one. I am hoping they just made a mistake.

Thank you @MaddieElla - it's good to know we are all feeling a bit the same

@bimkom I did a bit of trawling through the old threads on TSR and for two of DD's choices, interview invites were being received as early as 5th Nov! One of her choices, ranks only on UCAT for interview invite and it didn't seem to be that they were receiving interview offers in the order of their score, as some people with a higher score were almost a week later.

I guess this year, with perhaps less staff and people now working from home, it might take longer for them to get the invites out. They may even still be figuring out how to do the interviews!

@redtulip12 - oh my goodness - that's not what you need. DD said there was something on TSR about people applying to Bristol having issues with the UCAT delivery?

Hopefully it was just sent in error.

Oh my. Even my heart was in my mouth then and I haven't even had the email.

What an odd error to make. Hopefully all scores have got to the Unis okay.

Blimey @redtulip12 - not what you need! At least they sent the follow up email fairly quickly.

@LaLaFlottes yes it was Bristol so good to know she wasn't the only one. She is going to look into it more later. Wish she would stop receiving email errors though. She received the interview email from Sheffield and several emails as if she applied for an engineering course at Bristol. It doesn't inspire confidence!