Medicine 2022 entry

[Monkey2001]

Support thread for aspiring medics.

We want all our DCs to succeed, whatever their school type. We share knowledge to help them to achieve their goals, celebrate success and support if things don't go well.

As we press the "send and pay" buttons on UCAS, we wish all our DC the best of luck in this tough year with so much uncertainty.

And throwing BMAT in the bin would be a great idea this year. However last year some Unis just ignored the issues and some allowed a retake. Was a v big mess. So to be here again is bonkers.
Doubt they'll interview more (doctors bit busy).

@goodbyestranger

Perhaps they'll have to chuck the BMAT in the bin and interview far greater numbers than usual. That may be more possible with interviews online.

Sounds like the sensible way to go to make it fairer!

The BMAT can't have any credibility this year, so, busy or not, they'll have to figure something out which relies less on it.

There's no way they will interview more. They're often cancelling clinics etc to be at the interviews in the first place and with the current backlog it simply won't happen.
To be honest I'm not sure that individual medical schools will bother that much about the fairness. As long as they have enough to interview with a decent score they'll be ok with that.
I remember being at med school and being in the admin office and watching them throw hundreds of applications in the bin (quite literally. No shredders in those days) and asking why they didn't just make it clear that anyone without 6 X A at GCSE wouldn't get an interview so no point applying - they just shrugged and said no one had suggested that.
Individual medical schools care about getting the right number of people on their course and those people being ones who aren't going to drop out. I'm not sure they care about fairness to the whole cohort.
This comes down to CAAT's failings and hopefully they will be held responsible but it won't mitigate against unfairness for any particular group/individual this year unfortunately.
Yet another reason why people should never ever apply for more than one BMAT uni in my (humble!) opinion - the main reasons being that most of them are very subjective in their criteria for interview and that you're applying blind.

@Chilldonaldchill normally not applying blind (except for Oxford) as could take earlier sitting. Covid has stopped that. And some Unis behaved brilliantly last year, using the resit marks to give interviews. I now have 1 at Leeds and 2 at Brighton because they did. Some just ignored the resit and the problems some students had.
I think most Unis are now v transparent as to how they select for interview, but do agree that it's a v brutal process. If everyone could just follow Sheffield's example life would be so much easier (& fairer).
Let's see what CAAT come up with for Wednesday. One of mine has had to take time off from his job to do it again so just as well I could tell them Friday. Doubt they'll give him his lost earnings.

@Chilldonaldchill have you seen the Imperial interview info for this year? They could give out loads of interviews and would not need clinicians to do the initial trawl.
www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/study/undergraduate/medicine-mbbs-programmes/MMI2021/.

@mumsneedwine the problem with exams last year was that schools varied massively in their approach. I read about some schools doing assessments but telling pupils what they would cover, others being more rigorous in making it feel like an unseen exam. Some used old papers, others didn't. I think the exam materials were freely available on line. There has been press coverage about Welsh pressure to drop exams due to pupils missing a lot of school due to Covid isolation. Over on the Y13 thread somebody who is very well connected, but obviously anonymous, said that at the highest levels it is being treated as a likely situation. May be part of the reason behind telling medical schools not to offer more places than they have.

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@Xenia I totally agree last year was a joke. Would have been v easy to run real exams as normal, with students getting a choice of questions. But would have taken organisation and cash. No excuse for it not happening this year. Not sure teachers will do all that work again for something that is solvable now.
I'm an examiner and I've been asked if I'm available to mark in June so they are assuming all going ahead. As a teacher we have the DfE guidance of how the exams will be modified so they assume they are going ahead. If they don't then it will be an utter disgrace.
Medical schools can not afford another last year, having to pay kids to defer or move Unis (some at Leeds have not sat BMAT as took the transfer from another UCAT Uni). So offers will be source.

I think offers will be scarce anyway. Ready for a rough ride!

Has CAAT said how many were affected by the BMAT issues? Was it a majority/minority/just a few? I know tsr estimate is 1 in 5, however judging by the number of regular contributors to this thread that have been affected, it feels like a higher percentage who either could not sit the exam or had a disrupted exam experience because of the server crashing or had a very delayed start.

@Monkey2001 sorry, meant to tag you 😊. Last year was stupid and I'm not doing it again. As I wrote both the GCSE and A level papers our students sat (this takes ages as have to ensure correct AOs are covered in the correct % and the correct number of each type of question is included) not sure who is going to do it this year. Or maybe the exam boards could do it since we pay them.

@notmedicmum all 17 of mine were affected in some way. Couple had 10 minutes trying to get in but were then fine. Some had constant crashes but managed to finish. Some lost answers, had to redo them and some finished, some didn't. And some couldn't get on at all. Latter lot are getting a resit. Others aren't.
One student decided Boris must be in charge of CAAT as it's such a mess.

@Monkey2001 v scarce. Going to be a v tough year. My unprofessional hugs are going to be v much in evidence I think.

@mumsneedwine @notmedicmum I couldn't see any complaints over on the Oxbridge thread. I guess you would expect centres with more candidates to be more affected. At our school is disrupted all the people doing exams as they all waited for an hour and a half whilst the exams officer tried to sort the problem, then just started anyway, but it will not have helped them to be in the right frame of mind.

Surely the only fair thing would be to have a new BMAT paper for everyone. Otherwise, interview selection decisions are based on no objective factors at all - subjective GSCE grades, subjective predicted grades and a BMAT with no credibility. It is all very well saying interview more but the interview process in its current form assumes that you have already demonstrated the academic ability to be a doctor and focuses on suitability. There would still be a missing piece in the jigsaw.

@mumsneedwine your school must have been more diligent than most!

I don't know what to hope for re exams. Right now it feels like TAGs would be very inappropriate, but I am worried about what results will look like at schools which did not manage pandemic learning well. Our school is pretty much in the middle, so given results will be pegged between 2019 and 2021, my DS should be fine, although there is no on line teaching any more so if there is much isolating in the months ahead that may change, but I am sure the people adversely affected by the disrupted teaching will be very heavily skewed towards the disadvantaged.

@opoponax I don't think it would be logistically possible. The only way you could do it in time by would be by emailing the paper to exam centres and letting them print the papers, but there are so many exam centres that it would be sure to leak.

@Monkey2001 we still teach remotely if kids off with Covid. So I live stream my lesson on Teams so kids can follow PowerPoint and hear me. No excuse for schools not to be doing this (although it is v difficult !).
The students will be given the exam content early in new year so will know what bits to revise. No way of making it pre Covid but better than TAG/CAG s again.

@mumsneedwine our school has decided that relaying on Teams is too difficult. I am sure they are not alone!

@Monkey2001 mmmmm. If I was their boss they'd not be given the choice. It's not that hard after doing it for over a year.

From Keele website: UPDATE -

1 NOVEMBER 2021

Applications

The number of applications received by 15 Oct 2021 was:

A100 – 2,793

A104 – 334

Do you know how many places that is for?

The target intake for 2021 entry was 177 home and 10 International students, apparently
www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/funding-for-providers/health-education-funding/medical-and-dental-target-intakes/

Presumably the target for 2022 is published somewhere.

Keele had 177 Home and 10 Overseas places in 2021 so 2,793 looks massive! Last year Manchester had 2,795 applicants for just under 400 places. Keele has always been popular with people who struggled with UCAT.
www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/funding-for-providers/health-education-funding/medical-and-dental-target-intakes/

Snap!

Just checked FOI and it continues a rising trend - 2018 - 1,531, 2019 - 1,652, 2020 - 1,825.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/682144/response/1629358/attach/html/3/FOI%202020%20158%20A100%20Admissions.docx.html