Medicine: what’s better, Oxford or Cambridge?

[AsPerMyLastEmail]

DS wants to study medicine. For certain reasons beyond academics & reputation, he and I think Oxford or Cambridge may be a good fit for him. He’s Year 11 now so will be doing proper research nearer the time. Out of idle curiosity, I’d appreciate thoughts on which of the two is better for medicine. With the obvious caveat that ‘better’ is partly subjective.

@goodbyestranger wow. You could have fooled me. You sound like London hospitals are the holy grail and if you don't go there you have failed in some way. Maybe just the way you come across. I'll try and keep up with you though.

I didn't when I was in my twenties and there though. Then it was fun. So fair play to lots of young people wanting to go there. Fun is good mumsneedwine, even if not everyone rates it.

@goodbyestranger ah well mine have enjoyed the delights of London all their lives. So nothing special to them. Maybe it's more exiting if you have not grown up there.

Thanks @randomsabreuse

Oxbridge’s collegiate system is very particular to them. I’m not sure how that can be denied.

Since most of Oxford seems to come from London yet then seems to go back down, I'm not sure about that theory mumsneedwine. Social life tends to be a bit more jazzy in your twenties compared to when you're twelve.

@AsPerMyLastEmail the collegiate thing is definitely different. The knowing non medics isn't.

@goodbyestranger wow I never realised that ! I'll be sure to tell my 21 year old when she's home next week. I'm not sure she's ever realised 😂

I thought the academic/competitive nature of Cambridge would encourage my lazy child to work. It probably did in the first year. Requiring a certain level of attendance treats them like children.

For many subjects other than medicine salaries are higher in London. There are a lot of well paid jobs there so the most able students tend to be sucked into London when they graduate, That can mean their medical friends also wishing to go there. After a few years a number will decide they cant afford property there or will have a better work life balance elsewhere and will head off somewhere else. It will happen as long as there are more well paid jobs in London than elsewhere. If the young doctor has a partner then well paid work for 2 in London is often easier than finding well paid work elsewhere.

To get an F1 post in London you needed a lot of points. There are many medical students with only a point or less between large numbers of them. So the few points for intercalation mattered and I can understand why students are furious. Even if you dont wish to work in London those points could mean first choice of rotation or (possibly) 41st. Still intercalation points were discriminatory, so it's right they should go. It's just wrong not to give notice. There's at least one petition about it www.change.org/p/ukfpo-petition-to-push-back-the-ukfpo-fpas-changes-to-2024?recruiter=1093253376&recruited_by_id=051f2fe0-9e00-11ea-9b3e-e9651d6ca69e

Apart from a social life with friends being an F1 in London might mean less need to move for specialty training. Some people are happy to uproot constantly, others are not. Personally I can see both advantages and disadvantages to being part of a stable community.

Most young people will enjoy whatever medical school they end up at.

I forgot that the St Johns May Ball was once supposed to have been voted the 7th best party in the world (just after the Oscars). The nightclubs may not be great but Cambridge does know how to party.

I'd be listening to @medstudent12....if what she says is true about the deciles, I'd say that is a very strong tactical reason not to go to Oxbridge! Saying that, I went to Oxford, had a great experience with brilliant teaching. I only knew one medic and she seemed to have a similar workload to all of us...i.e. a lot!!! I will say that however brilliant you are at school, Oxford and Cambridge are very good at making you feel decidedly average, so if your ds suffers from either very little confidence or if conversely he has a big ego, it can be quite a tough few years!

I'd be listening to @medstudent12....if what she says is true about the deciles, I'd say that is a very strong tactical reason not to go to Oxbridge!

So if it was you, you’d tell your DC not to apply to Oxbridge @Pluckedpencil?

At my uni halls (catered) (redbrick for first degree) we were nowhere near as close socially on a whole hall basis as the Oxbridge colleges. There was minimal hall/department sport system and no hall based music or drama. It's having the college level competition as well as uni level that really keeps/draws people into more casual hobbies rather than the much more competitive uni sport.

DH did vet med at Cambridge so can contrast his experience with mine, but obviously he had no choice for Oxbridge!

Yes there must be more integration between people on different courses in the Oxbridge collegiate system than on average in other universities.

Hi @ AsPerMyLastEmail ! I work with schools and my daugater is in her Masters and fourth year at Cambridge now. We know many current Medics at Cambridge.

The biggest difference with Oxford is mundane yet highly significant: cohort size! Cambridge let in 281 in 2019 and Oxford let in 161.

Cambridge now has its own, modern local hospital so all 6 years are done in Cambridge. Patient contact? The students are linked to a local surgery from Term 1 and are happy that they get enough.

Both universities have only 8 week teaching terms. So the pressure at Cambridge is intense for all subjects, doubly so for STEM subjects with lab sessions galore and Saturday lectures! Medicine is hard and Cambridge is hard - they are supposed to be. The student needs to be prepared to feel lost and drowning from time to time even if they were 'top' at school. Most recover and get the hang of it, eventually.

@AsPerMyLastEmail

I'd be listening to @medstudent12....if what she says is true about the deciles, I'd say that is a very strong tactical reason not to go to Oxbridge!

So if it was you, you’d tell your DC not to apply to Oxbridge @Pluckedpencil?

As people have been saying, it was one of many factors to consider when choosing a med school. Yesterdays announcement about the new FPAS has changed that. When your DS graduates there will be a national exam for all medical students so he will be ranked against all medical students not just the students at his university.

Currently, the points system that ranks students when applying for the foundation years, works like this:

You are scored out of 50 based on a national situational judgement test taken by all medical students.

You are then scored out of 50 for your academic achievements. The way that works is you are ranked into deciles at your medical school, NOT nationally. If you are in the bottom decile at your university, you get 34 points. You gain 1 point for every decile higher, with a maximum of 43 points for the top decile.

The problem with that system is that, assuming exams will be of a similar standard at all the medical schools, it doesn't take into account that the bottom decile at one university might be achieving scores of 65% but only 50% at another. So as PPs have said, there is (until 2024) a disadvantage in being at the bottom of your cohort at Oxbridge when you might be ranked higher at another university.

The 5 points for further degrees and 2 points for publications evens that disadvantage out as it took into account academic achievements in another way. It isn't entirely fair though as not everyone can afford the time and cost of an extra year of study and it is open to gaming the system.

The new national exam from 2024 is to try and even out the system as it provides a direct comparison of acadamic achievement between students from different medical schools.

The problem for the 2023 cohort is that they won't sit the exam but the 7 extra points for publications and degrees have been taken away. The old unfair system has been made even more unfair for that year, which is why the Medical Schools council, universities and students are so against it.

The new national exam makes vastly more sense than the current system and while intercalating shouldn't be done purely for points, it's incredibly unfair in principle to change the rules with, in effect, retrospective effect.

I don't think many students choose to intercalate purely for points goodbyestranger but it is a factor. Even if you want to study something because you are passionate about the subject, if it has little or no bearing on your future career, it is questionable whether it is worth spending £20k on studying it. I am sure the extra points will have been the deciding factor for some students on whether it is worth spending the extra time and money on an intercalated degree.

I am also sure that many medical students took into account the negatives of being at the bottom of the cohort if they chose to go to one of the institutions with higher academic entry requirements when they decided which school would be best for them but that risk was offset by the possibility of gaining points by intercalation.

orangenasturtium I was merely referencing the point made by Needmoresleep.

I would expect the reality is that very few applicants to Oxford and Cambridge factor in the points risk! Or rather it would be a very sad applicant who did. Six years of education at the med school usually ranked top in the UK (I think this year world) has got to be worth more than a few points racked up on a flawed F1 selection system. You may end up at your second choice of deanery for F1and F2 but you'll have had the benefit of six years of outstanding teaching. Other considerations such as not wanting that level of academic pressure etc would be valid but trying to under achieve academically to win at F1 is a depressing idea, especially if you're attracted to a collegiate uni and all the advantages that can bring on the extra curricular front (the point made above by randomsabreuse). Isn't it only parents on MN who think about these things? I have a touching faith in the young people themselves though, that they think of more immediate things - far more wholesome.

@goodbyestranger thank you for the giggle. Unbelievably first class teaching is available at other universities too, and students with 4 A*s choose not to apply to Oxbridge because it's not what they want. Not because they aren't able.
And both my DD have friends from loads of different courses. It's not unusual at all. I think if you want the college experience then that's great. But lots of people don't. Like lots don't want London. They all end up great doctors. And denigrating other Universities is a strange thing to do, especially when you have no experience of them as your entire family goes to Oxbridge.

@mumsneedwine I don't read @goodbyestranger 's last post as denigrating other universities. I can tell you have history but please don't bring that here. My intention wasn't too start a Oxbridge medical school v other medical schools debate.

@orangenasturtium yes exactly it was one factor, not an overriding one. That was the point of my question to pencil. Thank you for the v helpful and clear detail on the new system, that's really good to know.

I disagree with a lot of things that you have said @goodbyestranger but I wasn't disagreeing with you agreeing with needmoresleep that students shouldn't intercalate purely for the points, I was adding to the point that I don't think many do intercalate for that reason.

It isn't only parents on MN who think about these things. I think all the doctors who have given advice on this thread have been unanimous that considering how your choice of med school and intercalation might affect your ranking when applying for foundation years is worth thinking about when you choose where to study. It's also what the 2023 cohort are saying in response to the announcement. Many of them would have made different choices if they had known that the goalposts were going to move.

The other issue is that 2023 is now likely to be a surge year, if many students from the year below chose not to intercalate. There may well be more 2023 graduates than foundation posts. For some students, it might not be a case of not getting your first choice deanery, it might be not getting one at all.

A student in the bottom decile at Cambridge (when compared to other Cambridge students) with a good 2.1 in a BSc and several publications to their name, would be ranked below a student in a slightly less competitive cohort at a different university who has no further degree, has done no research work and has achieved lower marks than the Cambridge student but compared to other students at the same university is in a higher decile.

It is somewhat ironic that some of the good advice on this thread that you dismissed as unnecessary because you don't remember your DS and his friends at Oxford worrying too much about applying for foundation places has become bad advice overnight. They probably didn't worry too much because they knew that just having a 2:1 in an intercalated degree will bump them up 3 deciles.

AsPerMyLastEmail I think on any given thread it's probably easy to spot that what you call history is wholly one sided. It's water off a duck's back to me but you're quite right that it's tedious. Also that this wasn't intended as an Oxford v non Oxbridge med school debate, but unfortunately some posters get seriously wrapped around the axle about how Oxbridge Medicine is crap, how the students there are gibbering muppets on the social interaction front, and how they're all beastly for not wanting to have immediate patient contact aged 18yrs.You tried to narrow the field but it's an uphill struggle on here!

orangenasturtium your last paragraph in your most recent post doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

Also, to be honest, I imagine Oxbridge students post reform will worry even less.

Sorry @AsPerMyLastEmail, I think I have confused you. I was outlining the current points system to explain the advice people were giving and the predicament of the 2023 graduates. When your DS graduates, there will be national exams for all medical students, which should be much fairer.

The warning that some posters made about the disadvantage of being at the bottom of your cohort at Oxbridge no longer applies for students graduating after 2023 since the announcement of the changes to the UKFP allocation process yesterday.

orangenasturtium the changes have been a long time coming although the retrospective nature of the changes for the 2023 cohort is both unfair and a surprise.