How would post qualification admission work for medicine/oxbridge

[bimkom]

We have been discussing on another thread the likelihood that there will be post qualification admission within seven years in the context of somebody contemplating medicine as a possible career. And that made question how it is all supposed to work for medicine.

The proposed University Alliance timetable has applications being made in the week commencing 1st August, and applicants receiving their decisions by 3rd September. To balance this out, they allow for applications to 12 different courses.
For medicine, that would seem to mean that almost all medical schools will have a tripling of applicants, as one of the biggest restrictions on the number of applicants to medical schools is the one is only allowed to apply to four medical schools. If my DS had had the option of 12, he would have applied to 12, as it really doesn't matter where you study medicine, the most important thing is getting a place somewhere. He comfortably overachieved his predicted grades, so applying grades in hand would have made absolutely no difference to him. Just about every other medical applicant will feel similarly. So unless the proposal is that of those 12, only 4 can be medical schools (in which case, those determined upon medicine will actually only apply for four).

So assuming they can apply for 12, how in hell could the medical schools deal with a triple more applicants and work out who to interview, knowing that every single one of those applicants have the grades in hand to be accepted - and then interview, rank on interview, and offer in a month? How are they going to find the staff willing to give up their entire August to do this (given that the presumably teach the rest of the year, and have traditionally had holidays like everybody else in August)?

Oxbridge presumably will have a similar issue - although they do usually interview within a few weeks. But most of the students they interview, the Oxbridge interview is their only interview (unlike with medicine, where they might need to have applicants zig zagging up and down the country, assuming they want to go back to in person interviews) . And presumably Oxbridge will, regardless, have run their HATs and PATs and other entrance exams earlier in the year, so will have a better idea (probably a damn good idea) of whom they will offer interviews to by the time the grades come out (even if no formal application is received, they will know the identity and numbers who have sat their HAT and PAT etc - and who therefore will be applying if they get the grades). So they will be able to effectively draw up a list and just drop those who don't get the grades.

Unless the proposal would be that everybody uses UCAT or BMAT as their only criteria - and they will assume that each one of the eg 37,000 people who sat UCAT will apply if they get the grades, and they will simply take from the top.

Has anybody given any serious consideration to how it would work?

Sorry for the multiple typos, difficult to see what I have typed on my screen. Hopefully you get the gist even if some of the English isn't great.

As I said in the other thread, what the RG, UCAS and most others are supporting (given that change will happen cos the Gov wants it and the alternative is post qual application) is post qual offers. Applicants apply to more or less the same timetable as now, but won't receive offers till their results are known.

It's bollocks and solves nothing.

This is the consultation and detail of what is proposed:
https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/64635347-b3fa-4ad7-86d3-cac01b664f12/consultation-on-the-higher-education-admissions-system-in-england-updated-18032020.pdf

Agreed - if this is the change implemented, then it makes very little difference. the applications and interview invites would all happen during Year 3, and the same criteria would presumably be used as now (with the possible exception of there being no predicted grades and/or no personal statement - so the universities would have to use other criteria, such as GCSE grades or other tests such as UCAT, BMAT, HAT etc to determine who to interview) - just nobody would know whether they had received any offers until early August. For medical students, who are often the last to know they have any offers, it might feel fairer - at least they would have an equal stab at accommodation.. But the general consensus on the other thread was that there was no point looking at how the system for medical applicants works now, as it will all change due to post qualification applications - whereas what you are saying is that most likely this is just not true, the system will be virtually the same, from the point of view of most medical applicants then and now.

But what I was really asking about was how on earth do the proponents of the other alternatives think it can work for medical/Oxbridge students. It seems to me that one of the real flaws with the more adventurous proposal is that while it should work reasonably well for those courses that do not interview, it doesn't seem to work at all for those that do - unless those courses require a compulsory gap year (with all the unfairness that led to the compulsory gap year for Oxbridge prevelant in the 1980s to be scrapped). Without a proposal as to how to deal with these courses, these alternatives do not seem practical, and no wonder everybody is plumbing for the "it looks like we are changing things but actually there is very little change" option. For non interview courses, it works fine - as it did in the country where i finished high school, where you applied to a bunch of coursees in preference order, you got your scores from the exams - but they could be much more easily sifted, as the letters were far less relevant than the actual score out of 100. Whether a score was technically a B or an A made less difference than the number, a 79 out of 100 ranked just below an 80, and above a 78, so if they had enough places for the 79 but not the 78, the 79 got the offer and not the 78, despite both being a high B). But you can't have courses that interview in those time frames.

*Year 13

Dropping the predicted grades (even leaving the rest of the system in place) doesn't seem like a huge loss. Most students will seek guidance as to what they might realistically achieve - and those that are over confident will just end up bombing out.

The personal statement is interesting though. While I totally agree that it is open to abuse, so should not be scored, as more advantaged candidates have much better access to help to finesse it - I do think that compelling candidates to write about why they really want to study a particular subject is a very important exercise to put candidates through. It does force them to really consider in a way that we certainly didn't. I applied for a Law/Science degree (combined LLB/BSc) - because I was interested in Physics and Maths, but Law was much harder to get into, and you needed a much higher score. Many others who applied for either Law or Medicine did so because of the prestige, and that it showed you were academically able and "could". As it happened, I got a bit intimidated by the lack of women in theoretical physics, and that while I was goo,d I was not going to come up with a unified field theory, and ended up working in law, which I enjoy - but that was more fluke than anything else. And there were a whole host of medical and law school drop outs because of the system.
The situation where my DS has had to justify every step of the way as to why he is absolutely 100% set on a medical career seems a much, much better preparation.

I just briefly looked at the document and realised I don't have time to take in the detail right now. One suggestion I would put forward (perhaps it already has?!) is that the university year (for medics at least) should run from Jan-Dec and all applications should be made post results.

@MidLifeCrisis007 - the problem with doing that is that those medical applicants who do not get in will find themselves on an enforced gap year, and not be able to apply to anything else, as it will already have started. At the moment, if somebody applies for four medical schools, they can also apply for a fifth non medicine course, eg biomed, or apply for something else in clearing. That option would be taken away, potentially deterring those who do not have the resources, or the confidence, to "throw away" a year.

In order to prevent this, the solution would have to be that every course starts in January in the first year. But that means effectively cutting the length of current degrees by a term (unless you plan to eliminate the summer holiday).

And the other courses would be required to allow applicants to wait, and not accept offers made immediately. Because most courses would want, once they knew who they wanted to offer to, and knew they had the grades, for the students to accept and give them some certainty. They wouldn't appreciate being strung along because the student was waiting for a medicine/Oxbridge offer. So unless regulated, the temptation would be to only give applicants a limited time to accept (eg two weeks, three weeks).

@MidLifeCrisis007 - This has been suggested every time post-qualification admissions has been up for discussion. There are huge problems with changing the academic year. Apart from the fact that it leaves universities either with two separate year-1 cohorts at the same time or with a half-year gap with no tuition-fee income, it would also mean England would be out of step with most other countries in the world (including Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland, which would be unlikely to agree to the change). This would present problems with years abroad for language degrees and other programmes that offer this as an industrial placement option.

For medicine, specifically, it would also mean several cohorts of junior doctors would have to stay in one-year jobs for a year and a half to avoid having no F1s between August and January the year the first January-starters graduated.

If countries can transition from driving on the left to the right or change currencies overnight, a big step change is possible!

Perhaps students could (be encouraged to) do some environmental or community based projects or national service or even work as teaching assistants during that 3/4 month "interregnum" to support themselves.

If we were to design a system from scratch, I'm sure we'd opt to open university applications after students had got their results rather than before - and allow universities a few weeks to make their decisions. The endless stressing that DD is doing over her med school application at the moment really isn't helping her to apply herself 100% on her school work.

If we were to design a system from scratch, I'm sure we'd opt to open university applications after students had got their results rather than before - and allow universities a few weeks to make their decisions

Would we? A few weeks to arrange auditions, interviews, portfolio assessments and applicants to attend said auditions, interviews etc and then to decide whether to offer or not - not a chance!

Of course a big step change is possible. But is it desirable? In this case absolutely not.

Btw why is your dd stressing about her application now - it should have been submitted months ago

So a big step change for the better is that universities get a few weeks to make decisions to recruit into lifelong careers.How could this possibly improve the process?If stress is such an issue at this stage, what about the much more stressful years ahead at medical school and beyond? There are sure to be some who are endlessly stressing about their applications to the detriment of their schoolwork but there are enough candidates who cope with balancing both.Some might consider it part of the selection process.

One of the issues that is worth looking at is if interviewing for certain courses is essential. This would remove one of the problems with waiting till after results day to allocate places.

If places for medicine were allocated purely on exam results (A Level plus assessment) it would be interesting to see if this would ultimately lead to a higher drop out rate. It would no doubt add stress to the process in a different way as the academic requirements would be driven upwards.

I also think it might make Oxbridge admissions more diverse & inclusive if it was a first past the post system with places allocated on a pure points system!

Having said all that, the current system has worked well for my older two, who got in to their desired courses in spite of dropped grades.

The problem with dropping interviews for medicine is that academics are only one part of the requirements of a good doctor. You could have an academically superb candidate who falls short in other important areas.

The difference with medicine is that you are recruiting into a career not just for a university course.

Well they don’t interview in Ireland & it seems to work out ok!

Which is why I think it’s worth researching. What is the drop out rate etc in Ireland versus UK. Are there more complaints. And so on.

If places for medicine were allocated purely on exam results (A Level plus assessment) it would be interesting to see if this would ultimately lead to a higher drop out rate.

It does. It's been tried in several countries, mainly in The Netherlands. There are complicating facors but, overall, medical students who go through a non-academic selection process perform better - and have a higher completion rate - than those who don't.

The additional issue with using school-leaving qualifications as a selection tool is how to take account of where they were gained. There is clear evidence that the higher-performing your secondary school is, the less well you will perform at medical school (Mwandigha et al., 2017). While aptitude test scores add some predictive power, they also show some schooling effects themselves.

I left medicine in 2016. Instead of concentrating on increasing intake they should look after the ones they have better. People exiting medicine is huge.

Maybe the solution is graduate medicine only (like the USA)…go to a broader undergraduate degree where you can cover the pre-med requirements, then apply after undergraduate. Include pre-med and you can probably cut a year off the medicine degree - so you’d go to 3+4 or even restructure the graduate degree and undergraduate requirements and go to 3+3.

Or just create a “pre-med” undergraduate degree where by the end of year 1 you either transition to medicine or to bio-med, pharmacology or whatever.

I also think it might make Oxbridge admissions more diverse & inclusive if it was a first past the post system with places allocated on a pure points system!

Well, clearly not, given that 70% of A-Levels awarded to private school students are grade A or higher, compared to 35% for sixth-form college students. Even in 2019 (pre-Covid) the figures were 44% vs 22%. Private school students routinely get higher grades than equally able students in maintained schools, which is reflected by the fact that they perform at university at an equivalent level to state-school-leavers with A-Level results two grades lower.

Source: www.gov.uk/government/publications/analysis-of-results-a-levels-and-gcses-summer-2021/summer-2021-results-analysis-and-quality-assurance-a-level-and-gcse#analyses-of-a-level-results

@DorotheaDiamond

Having gone through medical school. I would most definately support graduate only entry. So many young people enter the profession and they are not emotionally equipped. In addition the whole training path needs a complete overhaul.

@hobgoblingold

Definitely agree! Having to know you are aiming for medicine before you take GCSEs so you can choose the right a levels /do all the work experience etc is just too young!

@DorotheaDiamond

I remember frequently having conversations with some of the a level school leavers and combined with the privelage of there education (a lot privately educated) they were completely out of touch with the real world. It was depressing as fuck.