Medicine 2022 entry - How difficult is it really? *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

[notmedicmum]

I couldn't find a thread for 2022 entrants to medicine - maybe I didn't look hard enough! DD is in Year 12 and has wanted to do medicine since Year 10. It's only this year that we realise the enormity of actually getting a place. Not only do you have to have brilliant grades, you must also have done work experience, volunteered (both difficult in the current situation), got excellent BMAT/UCAT scores. Oh, and you also must have cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats to raise money for charity or climbed Kilimanjaro or won the Nobel Peace prize or found a cure for cancer (joking about the last two). How competitive is it REALLY? I'm not sure about the value of the last apart from being used as a selection tool as the unis get so many qualified applicants - and showing enterprise and drive. Apparently this sort of thing is even more important this year as getting work experience is very hard this year. How does climbing a mountain make you a better doctor anyway? And what can normal students do to improve their chances of success??

[quote Monkey2001]@GANFYD there is definitely something strange about the SFC St Andrews numbers. If you look at the FOI I linked, there are about 100 RUK students starting each year in St Andrews, but around 20 of those for the Scottish route. Also the SFC numbers aren't the same as the published St Andrews total numbers.[/quote]
I think this is standard med school trickery! I think they have included all those Firming and Insuring in "Acceptances". Otherwise, St Andrews would be looking at year sizes of over 230, by the time the SCOTGEM, WP and Home students are taken into consideration, and I am pretty sure they are not that big! Plus, they only get funding for 165 total, with all groups included.
See this FOI, which specifies entrants, rather than acceptances
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a100_statistics_201851#incoming-1842197

I've just asked ds to dig out his notes from the Lincs open day (he's on the Hull/York virtual open day today and we were at the Leicester one yesterday so they are all merging into one!)... for 2022 Nottingham have 34 places already earmarked for their foundation students and also at least 10% of 2022 places are for 2021 deferrals ..they were a bit cagey on the exact numbers of deferrals but said it had been a real headache this year..

Thanks @GANFYD for that clarification on St Andrews - I wonder if they will make the same amount of offers this year as that seems a lot of offers for the relatively few RUK places available?

@Solarlantern

I've just asked ds to dig out his notes from the Lincs open day (he's on the Hull/York virtual open day today and we were at the Leicester one yesterday so they are all merging into one!)... for 2022 Nottingham have 34 places already earmarked for their foundation students and also at least 10% of 2022 places are for 2021 deferrals ..they were a bit cagey on the exact numbers of deferrals but said it had been a real headache this year..

Thanks @GANFYD for that clarification on St Andrews - I wonder if they will make the same amount of offers this year as that seems a lot of offers for the relatively few RUK places available?

It's the deferrals that are going to be the killer! The FY people will be accounted for. But mostly, it depends whether they decide to interview proportionately fewer people to allow for places already taken, as this will put cut offs up. Or whether there is a general consensus they will all interview more to stop cut offs from going up and up and potentially putting people off applying. But this will mess up interview to offer ratios....

I think St Andrews are a lot of people's Insurance choice. That and the usual high percentage who do not make their grades! I find those stats SOOOO interesting, as it gives us an idea of what they think their conversion rates are likely to be! Most med schools over offer about 2:1, and this would be broadly in line with that

@GANFYD it seems to be impossible to reconcile the FOI data and the SFC targets! On the FOI you linked, entrants ranged from 125 to 153 for A100, which should not include ScotGEM, but according to the SFC, the target was 108 for 2019/20 and 2020/21, including no more than 44/39 RUK. I know there are more than 39 RUK in the 2020/21 cohort!

I think it is still worth focusing on the fact that if you have a UCAT over 2900 you are very likely to get an interview and they have one of the highest offer to interview rates. On the basis of past observation, I think a band 1 makes a real difference, although they are opaque about their offer process.

[quote Monkey2001]@GANFYD it seems to be impossible to reconcile the FOI data and the SFC targets! On the FOI you linked, entrants ranged from 125 to 153 for A100, which should not include ScotGEM, but according to the SFC, the target was 108 for 2019/20 and 2020/21, including no more than 44/39 RUK. I know there are more than 39 RUK in the 2020/21 cohort!

I think it is still worth focusing on the fact that if you have a UCAT over 2900 you are very likely to get an interview and they have one of the highest offer to interview rates. On the basis of past observation, I think a band 1 makes a real difference, although they are opaque about their offer process.[/quote]
Yes, place numbers are for them to worry about. They interview far more than the place numbers and have a good interview to offer ratio. Plus I LOVE St Andrews, so am still sad none of mine would apply!
We need to poke them about the use of SJT some time, as would be interesting to know. I am up to my neck in Appraisal and e-learning, so not likely to happen this year, though!

We’ve been on a bit of a road trip this weekend and had a look at Keele, Hull and York campuses. Keele looks like being her firm, but DD was trying to explain to me why she can’t apply for BSMS as her insurance as it has the same grade entry requirements as Keele. College has said that it needs to be lower - and if she’s going lower than ABB from her UKWPMed grade requirements then that’s not medicine at all and has to think of either a different career path or doing biomedical sciences and then doing medicine as a graduate.

This whole thing is making me feel a) stupid and b) very confused. On top of tiredness from a very long weekend it’s not helping conversations with her!! She’s also saying she’s not sure if she wants to / can sit BMAT as it falls at the same time as mocks in college, and that she can’t apply for a gateway year at the same time as applying for a ‘normal’ place at Keele.

My head is spinning….

@BabbleBee - at this point there is no point your DD even thinking about firm and insurance. You do not put that on the UCAS form, you only put four choices (you are only allowed a maximum of four medical schools). You are allowed a fifth choice, of something that is not medicine ( a lot of people put biomed), but if your heart is set on medicine, and if you don't get in you will just reapply the following year, there is no point putting that fifth (you don't have to).
It is difficult enough to get even one offer - especially with the current competition, very many people who applied to medicine and got an offer, only got one, which meant they firmed the one they had and had no insurance at all.
At this stage she needs to be thinking about which four medical schools will give her the best shot of getting in, and putting those down on her UCAS forms. Only once (if) she has manages two or more offers is there any point thinking about firm and insurance. Remember that statistic that only 27% of applicants last year got any offer at all. That is around 1 in four.

For very many applicants for medicine, they need to apply two or even times (ie over subsequent years) in order to get in. There are people who do it and are successful on their second or third attempt. Probably more often, actually, as the extra bit of maturity, plus the experience of having gone through it already once and learnt from it, plus the ability to focus on UCAT/BMAT without also focussing on grades no doubt gives them and advantage. On the other hand, there are people who get in first time, but it is important to be realistic about this, and thinking about firm and insurance at this point is unrealistic, and might stop her applying to the one medical school she might get an offer from.

If college is advising her differently, they don't understand what is required for a medical application.

I haven’t been impressed with college tbh. She struggled at the end of last year with maths, but this isn’t her strongest subject out of her 3, and following a very difficult personal incident it wasn’t surprising. College didn’t offer support or encouragement, they told her that she should probably lower her expectations and accept that she was never going to be what she’d hope to be. They’ve got a 99% A*-B pass rate and it would seem that to achieve this they dump anyone who gets less than a B in end of yr12 exams…. It’s been a tough year for us for many reasons (not even taking into account covid!) and I’m less than impressed with the support they’ve offered.

Hi wondered if anyone could assist. Daughter wants to do medicine.

Preferred unis are Newcastle, Manchester or Liverpool.

She has 5x 9 GCSE in French, biology, physics, chemistry and maths. 8's in design, 7's in Eng Lang and further maths and a 6 in eng literature.

French AS level achieved an A

Predicted A's in biology, physics and chemistry.

Ukat 2840 band 2

VR 720
decision 740
Quantative 700
Abstract 680

Work exp limited to assisting at clubs with younger children, virtual work experience.

Are her uni choices suitable for her stats? Does she need to look elsewhere?

Thanks so much -

@coffeeandbiscuittime Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool will all be fine for interviews. Only caveat would be that Liverpool has a terrible offer to interview ratio - in 2021 they did 2,218 interviews and only made 621 offers, which is a 28% success rate, Newcastle 67% and Manchester 63% for 2020, have not published 2021.

I would swap Liverpool for Sheffield. Does she have any others shortlisted? Just needs to avoid the really GCSE heavy ones like Oxford, Cardiff, Leeds.

Thank you @Monkey2001 that's really helpful. Now to the next stages!

Just trying to work out entry requirements for Birmingham Medical School. Looks like there's not much point with my son being at a grammar school as it is literally the only school not on it in our city!!! Even the amazing performing comp in a very expensive area is on it!!! Surely this makes a mockery out of the whole contextual thing or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?

@Iwab82

Just trying to work out entry requirements for Birmingham Medical School. Looks like there's not much point with my son being at a grammar school as it is literally the only school not on it in our city!!! Even the amazing performing comp in a very expensive area is on it!!! Surely this makes a mockery out of the whole contextual thing or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?

You can definitely get an interview and offer without contextual factors. My dd's best friend got an offer this year and is from a selective school. Their contextual schools list is very long but there are no selective schools on there which makes sense - Birmingham's admission criteria are weighted heavily towards GCSEs and most people at selective schools will have those in spades. Just because a comprehensive is in a wealthy area doesn't mean that they have higher results. A couple of years ago, a family friend's daughter achieved entirely 9s and 8s at a comprehensive school. She was the only person in that situation. At my dd's school (very nearby; similar area) there were 40. As my dd said at the time "she's achieved so much better than anyone at my school because she's been in classes with students getting 3s and 4s and teachers having to teach all of them. It's way easier to get those grades at my school".

DS1 also went to a comp where nobody (out of 250 students) got 9 As. His 6As and 3As made him joint top performing boy in the school. As you say, those would not have been exceptional grades in a grammar.

Having said that, nobody understands the Birmingham list! I think they have changed the shortlisting process this year and made it harder for non contextual applicants. In my opinion Birmingham is risky for non contextual applicants unless your stats are perfect as you can only access 80% of the shortlisting score. They used to just ringfence 20% of places for contextual.

Birmingham at least tries to be reasonably clear on the shortlisting method - although the calculator seems to be a bit hit and miss sometimes. My DS is weighing up between Birmingham, St Andrews and King's for his 4th choice and trying to make sense of shortlisting criteria for the latter two is making his head ache! King's in particular is v vague and also haven't updated their website with course details for 2022 yet...

Having said that, nobody understands the Birmingham list! I think they have changed the shortlisting process this year and made it harder for non contextual applicants. In my opinion Birmingham is risky for non contextual applicants unless your stats are perfect as you can only access 80% of the shortlisting score. They used to just ringfence 20% of places for contextual.

Actually, from what I understand, they have made it slightly easier for non contexual students than last year. Last year was the first year they didn't ringfence them, and very, very few non contextual got offers - we know of numbers of people who didn't get interviews last year - and is in fact the reason we avoided Birmingham. Not all comps are on there either. DS did his GCSEs at one (we switched to private for A levels as he just couldn't face doing A levels there) and that was still not on the list. The 90% of state schools on the list is a myth. And with his comp not being on the list, and him having got a 7 for English literature (8s and 9s otherwise, but Birmingham, unlike the others, scores English literature as well as language), that was enough for us to reckon he had little change of an interview and to avoid it.

@Solarlantern St Andrews is pretty straightforward, once you meet minimum academic criteria it is UCAT, but your PS has to show that you have done what they ask for - that is just a pass/fail stage, it is not scored. They are not transparent about SJT, but my son got a very early offer when he applied and I think that may have been due to a band 1. Last year UCAT cut off was somewhere over 2800, so I think over 2900 is safe, hopefully OK over 2850.

BTW, his comp may not be on the list for Birmingham, but it was on the much shorter list for Bristol (except they only look at A level contextual, and only post offer). That is how daft it is.

We didn't apply for Kings (DS didn't want London) but my understanding is that the criteria are super vague. The clear ones are the ones that do it solely by total UCAT score. Of all of them, Sheffield is always the clearest. They tell you the day they send out interview offers (and then send them all in one batch). They tell you the week they send out offers - and then stick to it (even though my DS thought he hadn't got one, as they started sending the week before, and he got his offer on the following Monday). But most places it is weeks if not months of agony, from when the first offers start to trickle out until you finally get told one way or the other (unless of course you happen to be one of those who get one of the very first offers).

@bimkom thanks for the correction, I didn't know whether Birmingham changed for 2021 or 2022 entry. Did they give different points based on Polar4 data last year? You now need to live in a Polar4 quintile 1 area to get the full 20%, but anybody from a school on the list gets at least an 8% headstart so I would still say non contextual want full marks for GCSEs and a UCAT over 2900 for a good chance of an interview.

Purely anecdotal but regarding Birmingham last year, two of my DS's schoolfriends had offers from Birmingham. Not contextual as selective school but both had perfect stats and UCATS over 3000.

@Monkey2001from memory they did (or used something like it). There were two factors that went into the contextual calcuation, and one of them was the school (either GCSE or A Level) being on the list and the other was another measure (I think it was Polar Quintiles, but can't 100% remember) in order to get the contextual maximum. I am surprised though that they quote 20% as contexual in the days when it was ringfenced, as I am pretty sure it was 25% was the figure quoted last year.
It might be that if you have perfect stats and very high UCAT, and you do get an interview, you then have a much better interview/offer ratio. I believe that the people who applied who didn't get an interview last year would have the year before, but clearly there are some people who even with the odds having narrowed are going to get in even though not contextual. Probably it is one of those - need to avoid if not contextual and not perfect stats - ie not 8/9s in seven GCSE subjects including both English lang and English Literature, Maths, Biology and Chemistry and a top decile UCAT. If however you have the GCSE grades and the top UCAT, go for it.

Yes I would agree with this. The person mentioned above had perfect stats and a UCAT of 2970 I think from memory and band 1. (She got two offers and is going to a different med school).