Ds unlikely to score well in UKCAT. Advice needed

[dontstealmymagnolias]

Ds has always wanted to do dentistry and up until now the path seemed fairly straightforward. He got 6 A*s and 4 As in GCSE, we are in the process of organising work experience, he has done lots of online dentistry courses over lockdown.
He has his UKCAT in 10 days time, and despite doing lots of work he is averaging about 2500. Last night he broke down (which is completely unlike him) saying that he won't get any offers with those scores. Apparently on TSR it says you need 2800+ for most unis to be in with a chance?
My understanding is that he gets 4 dental choices and one non dental (he's putting pharmacy) for UCAS. In light of his scores should he put 2 pharmacy choices? He's worried that he won't get into pharmacy now as his personal statement is completely centred on dentistry.
Any advice welcome, TIA.

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You may have already tried some of these, but I would recommend getting a books from Kaplan/practice UKCAT questions.

There are also paid day courses - some of my students in the past have raised their scores considerably after these and have recommended them. I don’t necessarily want to actively recommend myself if that makes sense; I didn’t see the course/materials and they could have improved through other methods.

I’m happy to PM you the courses that my students recommended.

10 days is lots of time and it sounds like your son is putting in plenty of work. Worth trying to change things up a bit from just past papers.

I’ve had the pharmacy conversation for many, many years now! My advice would be to ask him if he wants to actually do pharmacy. If not, then don’t put it down. There is a big middle health-related middle ground between dentistry and pharmacy.

tomato he has been with medify for about 3 months and does work daily there, is that what you are referring to? But yes please pm me anything you might think is useful.
Pharmacy is the only other thing he can see himself doing, so yes he does have an interest, it's not just a case of him sticking it down to fill a gap.

Would your DS consider siting BMAT also to apply to Leeds?

Love the very reason he discounted Leeds was because he didn't want to do the BMAT. He felt it wasn't good use of time to prepare for it for just one university.

Kaplan do weekend courses in most big cities and there is another provider (I can’t recall the name ) that does single day courses. I think they help with the technique of answering the questions so can help improve scores.
I would suggest he does at least one of these if he can.

@dontstealmymagnolias don't panic ! My DD never scores above 2400 in practice but got 2710 in the real thing. So keep going !
Once he has his result, and if it's not TSR standard (lots on there get ridiculous scores) he should look at Plymouth, Bristol (use all info), Kings (if his GCSEs are fab) and QUB. If he wants to be a dentist then don't cut his chances by applying to pharmacy. He can always take a year out and redo next year.
But with UCAT speed is vital. Read, answer, flag if unsure snd move on. And good luck.

I don’t think as much preparation is needed for BMAT - as far as I know it’s akin to sitting a science exam. It definitely suited Dd more than UKCAT did. Once your Ds has his actual scores he can make a final decision as to where to apply. Do any unis not use UKCAT apart from Leeds?

Again don't panic, but be flexible.

DD is dyslexic with slow processing speeds, and so was never going to do well on what is a speed test. Similar problems affect those for whom English is a second, albeit fluent language, including Welsh speakers.

First of all put together a spreadsheet of the requirements of different Universities, and see where he might qualify. Then see it as a series of hurdles. He may not be able to hit a high bar on one (I think some mixed metaphors creeping in) so he needs to do better on others (work experience, academics, personal statement, interview.)

Medical and dental schools cannot all recruit the same applicants, and UCAT is not a particularly accurate predictor of future performance at medical school. Some will want to venture beyond the top UCAT performers to identify good potential students.

Further tips.

Keep him away from TSR and MN. There will be lots of people boasting about 4 offers when your DC may be waiting on his first/only interview. It is upsetting, and people are really tactless, but if he gets his place, he has done just as well. You can only take up one place, and once in, no one will ever ask his UCAT score again.

Treat it as a two year process. And expect to wait. DD had three interviews in March, when all her classmates were sitting on offers and planning their accommodation. Luckily she got two, but was so focussed on her gap year plans she deferred anyway. The two friends in a similar position (they had resulted to sitting together in the sixth form common room to avoid the rest) both failed to get a place, but were the first to congratulate her. One got a place the following year (and is now performing at the top of her year at one of the more academic medical schools) whilst the other realised during his gap year that is was probably his Doctor parents who were keen on medicine rather than him. (He got three promotions in his gap year job and was offered a further large promotion if he was willing to skip University!) The first year is good experience for a reapplication, so he should go into the test not worrying about whether he will be good enough, but seeing how good he can be under test conditions. (Oh and take some ear plugs with him to help concentration.)

Practice, practice, practice. He won't have much time left this year, but start early next. Think about getting him some tuition, either a course or 1 to 1. Good technique helps. We knew a boy who started practicing in January, about an hour a day, and got somewhere in the top 2%. (He also had a mum who phoned out of the blue to tell me his score despite knowing that DD was likely to have done far less well, but these types exist IRL as well as online! She was slightly quieter when her DS failed one of his first year exams and had to resit, but hey, medicine/dentistry are long courses and UCAT is not a great predictor.)

Good luck.

Our daughter used Kaplan tutoring and it really helped her understand how to maximise score for medicine. I think at the time the scores went up to about 750. She certainly gained about 20 additional points and went from ordinary good scores to a very high score. That was mainly around her ability on abstract reasoning improving.

Has he looked carefully at admission's criteria as in medicines some use consideration of UKCAT scores more than others.

I don’t think as much preparation is needed for BMAT - as far as I know it’s akin to sitting a science exam.

That's only section 2 of BMAT.

Section 1 assesses thinking skills (similar to, but not the same as, UCAT). This requires practice, although I don't think the time pressure is as intense as UCAT.

Section 3 is a writing task that will be completely alien to most students taking three science/maths A-Levels. It's more akin to sitting a humanities exam.

Section 3 is only 550 words so really not like a humanities exam and perfectly doable by any med applicant

@dontstealmymagnolias Medify is one, I think Kaplan have also run courses previously. The Kaplan books are also good.

As a previous poster suggested, I would probably advise against putting pharmacy down unless he really wants to do it. Being a dentist all day vs working in a pharmacist all day are very different careers with different skills.

Sounds to me like he is doing all he can. As a PP said, get a spreadsheet of all of the universities listing their offers and previous intake based on UKCAT scores. Use this to inform his choices.

The BMAT is 15th October, so he would spend some time looking at it once the UCAT is done, but only if this doesn’t cause extra stress.

Main focus should be on his academic work. If he was in my form group and didn’t get the scores I would advise taking a year out. 2nd year of A levels is incredibly stressful and they often feel like their world is falling if it it doesn’t go to plan.They often need support in understanding that it is not a complete life disaster if don’t go to university straight after school. In fact it is often a much better idea and gives some thinking time. Try to help him remove the stress/worry from the situation that this is a once only opportunity. It isn’t. He might even choose something completely different afterwards.

If he gets the grades and takes a year out he would have the chance for much more relevant work experience in lots of different fields. Earn some money, have a break from exam stress.

Also…as said before…ignore TSR!

As others have said practise and speed!
DD used Medify but also Medentry. She didn’t do any tutoring or courses though.

Would he consider pushing it back to give himself more time to improve?

I agree with everything above too. DD applied for Medicine so I don’t k is about Dentistry but hopefully when he looks at previous cut offs there might be some less focused on UCAT.

I am placemaking as my DD wants to do dentistry too. Not sure how UCAT is going to go yet...

I'm in a hurry and will post a lengthier reply later but thank you all for the advice, taking it all in.

If he really doesn't feel ready he can change the date of the test.
Are there any specific areas he struggles with?
Is he using the time-saving techniques such as keyboard shortcuts, triaging long or complicated questions (guessing, flagging and moving on), etc? Every second counts and all questions have the same points so no sense in wasting time trying to get complex questions right when you might have five simple ones you can do in the same time.

When using medify is he going through his questions afterwards to see the reasoning behind the answers? It feels a waste of time but really does help.

There are YouTube videos where people go through the sections in real-time explaining their thought process. This can be really helpful if he hasn't already watched them.
Be wary of UCAT courses with high prices that give very little you can't find online.
Remember to do the official UCAT mocks as well as medify.

Ultimately it's just luck on the day. A good sleep, taking it at a time he's most alert, and being able to manage his nerves will all help. Don't be disheartened. It's very common to feel burned out or despondent at this stage. Take a break, look at strategies, and good luck!

He needs to find some resilience. I know that's easy for me to say. Don't let his anxiety make him fail. If he misses out on dentistry place, there will be other good options. Great to have Plans B & C, but wait for results of Plan A before he dwells on Plans B-C. A mock test result doesn't matter, keep prepping with optimism for real UCAT.

That said treating it as a two year process is useful. There is an element of luck. I am forgetting my University statistics, but if a group of equally- able applicants each had 50% chance of an offer at each course they applied to the largest number would end up with two offers, but some would get four, and some none. That's life. The same will happen at job interviews, when buying a raffle ticket, etc.

The point is to maximise your chances. Work methodically at the UCAT. Ensure you do your best with other selection criteria, including making sure you have read course requirements and desirable skills, experience etc, and ensure that you have covered each one and evidenced it.

Then you have done what you can and it is out of your hands.

If you don't get a place, and you realistically believe you are good enough, it is Plan B of applying again with the grades, another year's maturity, and experience, this time including a Plan C.

This year is going to be very difficult indeed. The numbers with achieved grades applying will be much higher. People who three years back might have had that 50% chance may now only have 30% with lots more ending up without offers.

Again, he should do his best, but understand a lot is out of his hands. It is so hard for academic 17 year olds. They are not used to what they perceive as "failure". Yet most really successful people, are successful, first because they tried, and then when they failed, they picked themselves up, thought about what went wrong, and then tried again.

Lots of great advice above!! Just re the Pharmacy and personal statement issue - contact the institution directly and ask if they’d accept an additional PS for their course. Depending on the institution and how popular the course is, they may not look too favourably on an applicant choosing Pharmacy as a back up option and it’s not necessarily a done deal he’d be accepted. Does he have a careers adviser he can speak with at school? It sounds like it would be good to chat through some options

Thanks for all of the replies. Just to answer a few questions:
moving the date isn't an option. There is only one exam centre where we are and the slots filled up within a few hours of them being released.
DS is adamant he doesn't want a gap year. He is the eldest in his class and doesn't want to be "old" at uni . Our area has been hit very hard by the pandemic and there are no jobs. We don't have money for him to travel either. He thinks that it is too much of a risk to wait another year (apparently on TSR there are people doing it for a third year).
Great advice about speaking to admissions to ask if he can submit a separate pharmacy personal statement. His careers teacher is a bit of a clown, so I'll just have to do my own research.

I've been looking at university admission websites and I haven't found any specific scores stated. Is there anywhere I can find these figures?

I'm gutted for ds as he has worked so hard and has done all he can, this is the first time in his life he hasn't succeeded, I suppose it's a steep learning curve for him. Regardless, I'm immensely proud of him for his efforts.

I understand.

A couple of small points.

1. At 19 he won't be the oldest by a long way. DDs peers were mainly envious of her gap year. These are long courses and a break between school and University is not a bad thing.
2. Gap years need not be just travelling/spending. DD did www.workaseason.com/ and www.campamerica.co.uk/sign-up-for-season-2022

Both paid, albeit not much, with enough left over to then spend a month travelling in the US and a small savings pot for her first year. You need some upfront money for Camp America but is there anyone he could rent a room from for a few months in an area of higher employment whilst he worked. Or a hotel or care home with staff accommodation. University really is easier with a bit more maturity.

I get it that 18 year olds want to get on with things. A year is a long time for a teenager. However this happened to a friend's son, who got a poor UCAT and no offer, so then, despite getting the grades, decided to go straight to University on another course. Within a year he realised he still wanted to be a Doctor and is now talking about applying for graduate medicine. This is fiendishly competitive and expensive, and he will now be a lot older than the others. He should have listened to his mum!

Check with the unis. For example Manchester will consider a lower UCAT score if the rest of the application is strong, it's called the 'holistic route'. Or Dentistry with a Foundation year where in 18/19 the average UCAT was 2300.

Grumpy do you have a link for that? The only 'exceptional' route I can find is for those that didn't do the required A level subjects.