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.

@Onewildandpreciouslife sorry I didn't realise that your DD still had Nottingham. Good luck to her for tomorrow. One offer is all you need.

I see on TSR that Bristol is telling people they should find out within 3 weeks of interview - should see some action on here soon, I will have to set up a new thread for all the decisions, gulp.......

Looks like those Bristol offers might have been real then.

Do we have any idea when Newcastle might start offering?

People say Newcastle are going to send out offers together, but that was what they said last year and has never been what they actually did. We are expecting March.

DS had a Newcastle interview today and they told him offers will be made in April. By the end of the interview though he was a frazzled wreck so had probably given up caring as the internet dropped out completely, literally as he joined the interview room. He just had time to see the interviewers smiling at him and then nothing!

Poor ds was very calm and the internet came back up after 5 minutes in time to do the interview but it kept freezing all the way through. Ds said he ended up gabbling all his answers at double speed to try and get it all in before losing the connection again.

Oh well. One more to go.

Hello. New to this site and would be grateful if I could get some advice
regarding GCSEs choices for Medicine/Dentistry. My DD needs to choose her subjects this month and so far has a fix idea or doing medicine/ dentistry degree. Her compulsory subjects are:

Mathematics, Religious Studies, English, English Literature, Combine Science (double award).

She can choose 4 from the following: Triple Science, Geography, History, Spanish or Italian, Latin, Music, PE, Materials Technology or GraphicsTechnology , Art & Design and French,

Having read another thread here where the question was raised if taking a triple science is a “must” in order to go into this career path. There were divide opinions which Left me where I started.
Also which of the other subjects would be more beneficial? She would do Spanish and she is good a Art and enjoys History as well as Science. However, I also read here that Art can take too much of their time and may not be suitable for Medicine?
We aren’t sure about Latin as well or another creative subject from the list that can be more practical as well as suitable?
Any pointers from you the experts having gone through this process before will be highly appreciated and apologies for jumping on your thread. Thank you

@Bethelight2211 it really doesn't matter which subjects she does at GCSE, but doing triple science will probably prepare her better for A levels. The main thing is to choose subjects for which she will get good grades (ideally 8/9s to keep her options as open as possible). Triple science will also help if she wants to apply to a medical school which uses BMAT (Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, Leeds, Lancaster, BSMS).

DS1 regretted not taking a language when he didn't get into medicine first time as he would have had a great chance of an offer in Ireland (no interview, just done on academics) but you had to have a language GCSE.

A level choices are more important. To keep all options open you want 3 out of Chem, Bio, Maths, Physics, but Chem and Bio and anything else are acceptable to everywhere except some of the Cambridge colleges. For A levels the MOST important thing is that she can get at least AAA.

@Haffdonga what an awful experience for all of you! My DS's interview started 10 minutes late because the previous candidate ran over for to technical issues. Sounds like your DS coped very well, demonstrated effective management of a stressful situation!

Hi all - grateful for some advice. Son has Southampton interview next week: last of the 4. So he’s done extremely well to get shortlisted for them all.
However he’s struggling to be excited as he got a rejection on Tues. it was from Cambridge and he was pooled - so considered good enough but no space unfortunately. I was v proud he’d got that far and proved his calibre.
However. a few issues as he sees them: one is that his sister got into Cambridge, also for medicine. So he feels wherever he goes it’ll be second best especially as it’s the same subject.
Secondly, he’s struggling to get excited about his other unis - obv Cambridge has all the bells and whistles stuff: ensuite, catered, lovely rooms throughout course. Whereas the others don’t: yes he can be resourceful and cook, share etc but I think it’s hard seeing his sister having all that done for her in a fantastic setting.
Finally, he’s now said he’s not sure about Medicine and might want to do maths(?!?!) and try for high ranking uni. He’s always been v good at maths but he only did maths - not further maths - at A level, so would need to cram that into a year after he leaves school this summer; plus I think the high ranking ones need MAT or STEP (I’ve no real idea) - and he’s no prep or experience of same and would have to teach and support himself, as he’ll have finished school. So with all that may not achieve the higher ranking uni he wants...
I think it’s all a case of perspective as once he’s studying medicine they all end up Doctors. However I think after the rejection he just wants to be different to his sister to avoid any comparison (even if just in his own head).
I feel torn now and scared to mention anything eldest is doing for fear of it making it worse but also can’t just ignore older DC. I have tried to explain that getting into medicine anywhere is fantastic as they all come out as doctors, that we’ll source lovely accommodation - can go private if necessary for the extras - and that he’ll love it once there but am failing to convince him and he’s quite down with it all. He also has to still get an offer and then the grades so he may not have the luxury of choice tbh.
Am not sure if he’s just smarting from rejection and - as he sees it - living under his sisters shadow, but any advice gratefully received.

@Angharad01 it's tough for him if he sees Cambridge as the pinnacle. I don't 😂. For medicine there are many different ways of teaching and Oxbridge still have the traditional theory first, then meet a patient.
Maybe he could think about the benefits of actually meeting patients early on, learning hands on how to take a history and examine a real life person. That might make him a better person doctor than his sister (it might not - I'm just trying to find ways for him to feel equal to his sister).
Cambs is lovely and pretty but so are many other places. And his sister didn't try and get in during a pandemic which has disrupted the offer process massively.
If he wants to be a doctor he needs to just be grateful he gets an offer anywhere. No one cares where you qualify - yet to meet anyone who checks where their doctor went before treatment. And there are many benefits to studying at a different place to his sister - they can share resources and experiences. By the end they've all learned the same stuff 😊
Hope he gets his enthusiasm back soon. Southampton is lovely - near IoW, beaches and fab night life.

@Angharad01 - I don't have any particular advice but I guess the Cambridge rejection is still very raw for him. It's way too early to start considering major changes in his plans. The fretting about accommodation sounds like a distraction to be honest.

I'd let it settle for a few days and when he's ready talk about the benefits of medicine elsewhere. As you'll know from your daughter, Cambridge and Oxford medicine is quite different to almost everywhere else and he might find out that early patient contact would be more satisfying.

In the meantime I think it's best to just focus on the Southampton interview.

@Angharad01 from an outside perspective, this sounds more like an issue about his relationship with his sister than the actual rejection. We have this issue in our family and DS is only 14!

He has done incredibly well to get 4 interviews! There are plenty of people on this thread whose DC would be envious of that (my own included).

When DD got very down about her prospects a few weeks ago, we had a long conversation about resilience and her options, and she concluded the best thing to do was just focus on getting good grades, and then she’d be in a better position to make choices for next year.

If one rejection has made your DS reconsider medicine then maybe his heart was never in it? It’s probably worth him having a good think about it in the summer when he knows what his option are.

@Angharad01 as a veteran of Cambridge rejections I feel your pain! DS1 was like a lost soul after he was rejected first time, then in real shock when he was rejected second time as he had a super high BMAT and achieved grades. He just did really badly in Cambridge interviews because he cared too much. After a couple of weeks he focussed on his other choices, when he did not get any offers he was very down. I told him it gave him an opportunity to have another go at Cambridge, tried to stay positive. Now, as a second year at St Andrews, he is really happy there, feels the workload is intense enough and is glad he doesn't have to do an essay every week!

Apart from the elements of other courses which many people prefer outside Oxbridge, there is also the issue that your F1/F2 options depend on your placing within your cohort, so if he is a bigger fish in a smaller pond he may get a better ranking. As mentioned above, this is an unlucky year, when Cambridge publish their stats I expect you will see another drop in the number of offers due to current grade inflation. Not all colleges have lovely accommodation - my niece at Christ's didn't have en suites, so if he had been picked out of the pool, he could not have counted on that!

If he meets their widening participation criteria (non selective state school and postcode) he maybe have another opportunity in Adjustment.

Re Further maths, do you know that everyone is entitled to 3 years of sixth form? DS2 did the wrong A levels, no Chem or Bio, so he could only apply to Manchester with a foundation year and Newcastle this year. If he doesn't get an offer he is staying in at school for a Y14 to do Chemistry. Our school teaches FM in a year anyway - if you do double maths you do normal A level syllabus in Y12, FM in Y13, so it is not a problem doing FM in a year and it doesn't have to be alone. The admissions tests - MAT for Oxford is taken at the same time as BMAT, STEP for Cambridge is an offer condition and is taken at the end of June. Both are super hard.

I would advise you to let him know you will support him in whatever he wants to do, but that there is no hurry and it would be great to do his best to get offers to keep his options open and prove to himself that he can get offers.

Good luck!

@Angharad01 another thought is that my DS1 would not have liked being in the bottom quartile of a cohort. He is comfortably in the top 10-15% at St Andrews, which feels like Cambridge by the Sea and is full of clever people. If your DS doesn't make it this year and decides to re-apply to medicine, itvmay be useful to know that St Andrews has 1 place a year for years 4-6 at Cambridge, but DS is no longer interested in going there.

@Angharad01 My DD is studying vet medicine at Cambridge and my DS medicine at Exeter. He didn't apply to Cambridge due to the nature of the course outlined above and wanted a more vocational route. They are both equally happy with their choices but I think your DS may be romanticising Cambridge a little. My DD does not have an ensuite and they have to live out in a shared house after year 3. There is the option of doing his foundation training in Cambridge? Also when we visited Southampton they had the best first-year accommodation of anywhere else we visited. I wish him the best of luck with the interview!

I did degrees at both Oxford and Southampton many many years @Angharad01 and agree with what others have said. Accommodation at Oxford could be pretty poor unless you were lucky (old medieval buildings were often drafty and cold, minimal kitchen facilities) No guarantee that you can live in throughout your course plus private rental costs are very high. Southampton campus is very green, the part of the city the uni is in is green too, hospital is not too far from the main campus. Also to bear in mind that whilst at school DC might have been top of the class, at Oxbridge everyone is extremely bright and they might feel differently! DD’s second choice is Southampton but we haven’t been invited to interview (yet,fingers crossed 🤞). Good luck for your DS next week, best thing is to focus on his interview for now.

@Angharad01 - the real question your DS needs to answer is - did he decide to do medicine because big sister did (and received lots of kudos from all and sundry for getting into medicine at Cambridge), and he wanted to show he was as good as her, or because HE really wanted to do medicine. In these kinds of competitive sibling situations, sometimes the more junior sibling gets swept up in the idea of out competing the older on their own turf, without considering whether it is really what they want to do. Obviously you don't want your DS to make rash decisions, but there is also the possiblity that actually, his heart is not in medicine, and he would do better in maths, which would allow him to differentiate himself and be his own person.
And i confess, while as everybody says the rejection from Oxbridge is very painful for all of these very able DC - assuming that he applied to the same college to your DD (same accommodation you said) - Cambridge is, from what i understand, quite a small place, and medicine at a particular college is even smaller, and would it really be good to be the second of your surname doing medicine there in very short order? When would he come out from under your DD's shadow? During his F1 placement? My instincts would be, just from your description of the dynamic, that he would be better off, if he really does have his heart set on medicine, to do it somewhere else where he can be his own man. I can really empathise with the turmoil and heartache he is no doubt going through, it is a rough one, but it might be one of these things that he will look back on and think, thank goodness, as it enabled him to see he either didn't really want to do medicine OR he really did want to do medicine and it was not just sibling influence and therefore better to do it somewhere else.

I feel for you, @MidLifeCrisis007 . What was the outcome from the other two unis she applied to?

Thank you all for your wise and kind words.
Sometimes it's difficult to see the woods for the trees when you're so emotionally involved.
I've just taken a lunchtime call from DS - his friend got pinged his 3rd pre-interview rejection in class this morning and was in tears so I think it's been a bit of a reality check for him and he's starting to get things in perspective.

Applying to medicine is really brutal and a massive wake up call for kids who have till now found academia fairly straight-forward.

I'm going to step back a little and let him focus on Southampton interview: offering any help I can if needed. However, I think the penny is finally starting to drop that getting into any uni for medicine is incredibly difficult/competitive and getting just one offer will be a massive achievement. .
I'm not sure if the talk re: change of course is little bit of a coping mechanism if he doesn't get any offers to mitigate his disappointment. However, I did not know about the Y14 option so many thanks for that as will follow-up in summer, if he still has a change of heart, and once things are a little less pressurised.
Both he and DD are bright and I guess they aim for the top; not sure if that's slightly spilled over into sibling rivalry/misconceptions but will keep reassuring and pick that up with him in over the hols once offers/rejections and grades are known.
Many thanks for all the kind words and views - it really helps to have such a supportive space to get a bit of helpful experience and cool heads. I think I'll have a stiff G&T tonight now I have a semi-plan!

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