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.

[quote mumsneedwine]@Monkey2001 'only' £90k more 😳. I had a little sit down when saw how much it costs.
[/quote]
as pointed out, in other countries that would be considered cheap! Not an option for all of us, but I think boarding schools are £42k pa. And £90k if you have the means and can't get into a normal course might feel like good value to access a good career.

@Monkey2001 different world to mine 😊. Not sure teaching is ever going to pay enough for me to help my DDs more. Thankfully comprehensive schools were free !

Yes but some who saved on schooling are then able to help their DC at the next stage. I know plenty who are now having to fork out for two years of law conversion/law college. Ditto Masters. Lots last year did panic Masters, because the job market was so grim, which had to be paid for, and there seems to be an direct link between the cost of the course and the help it gives towards gaining good employment. Masters from places like Imperial can be as much as £35,000 for the year. Similarly plenty of medical students find the funds to intercalate.

We would have found the money if it meant DD accessing to the career she wanted, but then we are a two career family so not reliant on just the equivalent of a single teachers salary. We had also paid off our mortgage, and have always relied on family hand me down cars, rather than go the leasing route. A more frugal lifestyle and no holidays would have been a small price. As it was DD got a place, but it is still worth people knowing that there are alternatives. (And Buckingham used to be AAB - I don't know if it still is.) I suspect there is no way on earth DD would get a place now given the changes to both Birmingham and Bristol's admissions policies. UCAT is a timed test and not easy for those with slow processing speeds.

And in context, even Buckingham is nothing compared to the amount of money US families have to build up in college funds, for their DC to even do a basic honours degree, let alone go on to med school.

My husband has a nice job too but even with our combined funds we could never have that kind of money. I've inherited £76 in my life - our families were v v poor. We wouldn't have the money to find even if we stopped eating 😊. Money was never my main motivation when choosing a career & it's made me happy 🤷‍♀️.
However we are still much richer than my students - they think I'm posh 😂.

Am I right in thinking the final UCAT deciles are due to be released this Tuesday? What do our resident experts - @GANFYD @Monkey2001 @mumsneedwine predict? The interims weren't too far off the 2020 results were they?

@SandyBayley yup, due out Tuesday. Normally they go down between 40-60 points from interim. But nothing this year feels normal ! Expect they'll come down a little bit 🤞

Down a bit would be good. Would be nice to see DD comfortably in the top decile.

But that is you. All I am saying is that there are other options if people have the money. And I certainly know people who send their children to state schools who have been able to afford expensive new cars every three years, several nice holidays a year, major house refurbishments, and sometimes, second homes.

For some reason these threads on MN seem to require people to plead poverty, like some sort of competitive deprivation. I do not know if medical students in Nottingham, say, are all on maximum loans and bursaries, but in Bristol plenty appear quite well off. (And quite a number of doctor's children.) A couple of first years managed to turn up with brand new BMWs, their parents being so chuffed at them getting a place, and indeed DD tells me that leased VW Golfs seem to be the most popular student car.

If you can buy your 18 year old DC a new BMW you can probably afford Buckingham. So an option for some.

It's not just about the affordability though. In my view people can choose to spend/waste their hard-earned or inherited money however they choose. However, the bigger question is aren't the UCAT/BMAT hurdles and standard Medicine A level grade requirements there for a good reason? It seems to me quite bizarre that these can just be circumvented by just paying up. Or am I missing something?

@SandyBayley top decile will make them pretty safe for an interview at most places 🤞🤞. Just sent my lot from school off tonight - sent some last week and Unis were v quick to get back to kids which was nice.

@opoponax totally agree. But it's always been the way that money buys ways round things. Sure they must still make good doctors though or the GMC wouldn't certify the course.

I think I'm right in saying that the bar is set a bit higher for international students when it comes to med school applications.

The international students that come to boarding school in the uk and are applying for medicine are typically not the sort to baulk at Buckingham's fees......

@mumsneedwine - I think DD's will go off this week. I've given up trying to persuade her to substitute Nottingham for Newcastle. Lots of posters have said such good things about Newcastle that I'm a bit happier about it as a possibility than i but as before.

I do still hanker after something a bit closer to home. I dropped DS1 back today and it took 75 mins one way. Newcastle would be at least 5 hours 😬

@SandyBayley - DD's form has gone off into the UCASsphere and her 4 choices are an average of 290.5 miles from London.

She's clearly trying to escape her parents.

@SandyBayley DD is at Nottingham so bit biased, but Newcastle is fantastic. Amazing city, great course and an airport! Kids there snd at Durham fly home to Heathrow as quicker and cheaper than the train.

I know it's about DD and not me @MidLifeCrisis007 but I can nip to Oxford or Bristol for the day from London quite easily. Newcastle or Leeds involves an overnight😬

I guess when it comes to it she will be lucky to have a place anywhere...

@SandyBayley I know how you feel. When DS first said Newcastle was his top choice all I could think was how far it was from London and it made me feel a bit sad. As the time went on I could see he was trying to keep an open mind as he would have jumped at any med school offer but Newcastle was the one he really wanted. I think it was a mix of the Medical School and the way they communicated, its course structure and the best of both worlds with great campus accommodation and the vibrant city centre just ten minutes away. When we all visited together, I could see exactly why he would love it and I was also blown away by the beautiful Georgian architecture of the city. Everyone is so friendly too which helps when leaving them so far from home. Before making his final decision, he was weighing it up against Bristol (very similar course structures etc.) as Bristol was much closer to home but he decided to follow his heart. I'm really glad he did. I asked him the other day if he felt he had made the right choice and he said 100% and that he loves it as much as he thought he would, maybe even more.

Thanks @opoponax - I know it's silly to fret about locations at this stage. If she gets an offer at Newcastle I will be delighted. And I'll enjoy mini breaks there if she'll tolerate me!

Newcastle would be a win for us as she would overlap with DS at Durham for 2 years! She has finally put down Barts as her 4th (despite months of anti-London fulminations) and will press the button tomorrow!

Fingers crossed that Tuesday’s UCAT update speeds her on her way.

In other news, I thought I had ordered a string of 100 fairy lights for her party. Parcel arrived today. 100 METRES OF FAIRY LIGHTS… Good thing it will never be me calculating drug dosage.

@SandyBayley if you think Newcastle is far, think of me with my DS1 in St Andrews, particularly last year, when his 20th birthday was spent on a zoom call to us with an Indian take-away due to Covid rules meaning hardly anyone was there. When I take him it is 8 hours each way. If DS2 gets in to Newcastle it will feel quite close to Bristol! 😉

It's only now that I can appreciate how my own parents felt. I remember skipping off to study in Paris at nineteen and then, once working in my early twenties, my mother leaving messages on my home answering machine to the effect of "If you pick this up, could you please just let me know which continent you are on." Sometimes I have to remind myself of that.

For some reason these threads on MN seem to require people to plead poverty, like some sort of competitive deprivation.

Yes quite. Very tedious.

SandyBayley the East Coast line to Newcastle is fantastic. Not that you'll be using it I'm sure. I reckon you're looking at a double drop off - to be highly recommended.

The kids at our school would always go Newcastle over Nottingham, every time. Nottingham is regarded as very dull by comparison.

Hi @goodbyestranger so lovely to have you back 😂😂