Medicine 2023 Entry

[opoponax]

Hi all,

I don't think there is a Medicine 2023 Entry thread yet, so it might be an idea to get one started.

Anyone out there with DC applying or reapplying for Medicine 2023, please join a friendly thread for mutual support and useful advice from those who understand the UK Medical School application process.

Hi All. DS applying to medicine for 2023. So much to do! What's everyone doing with the fifth space. DS says he only wants to go to med school and if he gets a bio med place he'll take a gap year. The next day he said he didn't want to take a gap year.

Where are you looking for samples/advice on the personal statement?
Anyone else looking at Cambridge and/or Imperial?

@Monkey2001 thanks for mentioning Birmingham. Yes it seems like we may need to book UCAT for early Sept. So we will not know where we are till much later in the process.
@NoNotHimTheOtherOne thank you for informing me about the difference between paid vs other type experience. I didn't know this. We will pay attention to this.

@Cratos I'm a bit late to the table in relation to helping my son with this process. The voluntary placements in a nursing home and hospice were something I felt he needed to do on a personal developmental level to make sure he understood what a career in a health care role involves. It did take a couple of months for all the DBS and references to get sorted and he did have to follow up but now he has been doing it for a few weeks he is enjoying it and likes the interaction and helping the residents/patients. I do know a couple of Consultants he can shadow too but when you read the University requisites they all seem to state shadowing a doctor is not sufficient they want to see hands-on volunteering/work. However, as I understand it this does not have to be directly related to a healthcare setting and it can be volunteering or working in a cafe or anything with FTF interaction. I paid for my son to have the Hepatitis B vaccine and the HepBsAb blood test shows he is immune so I am hoping once he has gained some confidence volunteering he can apply for more clinical caring roles to earn some money to bolster his finances. I intend to pay for him to do a venipuncture course so he can apply for phlebotomist jobs in the Summer of 2023. He is doing 4 A levels so I am mindful that this is a lot of work so I'm not asking him to get a job before then and he has to do voluntary work for his DofE Gold anyway.

On the open days we have been to, some Universities advised that the UCAT/BMAT courses are a waste of money. We booked him on the UCAT/BMAT residential mainly for the DofE Gold award factor and the fact that he will be spending 5 nights away in a busy city centre location in his own ensuite room with a kitchenette and apart from some organised evening activities he will have to fend for himself the majority of the time. He has done many residential courses before but they were all more team and shared accommodation orientated.

Honestly, I have no idea what University he will choose I am leaving that to him. I'm trying to be as supportive as I can now because I am feeling guilty for not really being on board from the beginning. Like everyone says it is all academic til he does the UCAT and BMAT tests and has his results.

@Hinsdale my son may have to take a Gap year too. 5th choice is a tricky one since from what we gathered so far moving to med school from another area is not that easy. Only some schools accept this and the numbers are limited. However some people are still doing it of course. Also how does the graduate entry option work with student finance? I don't know.

We booked Imperial open day. This may be an ambitious choice. Perhaps too ambitious I am not sure. Cambridge is a very distant dream (-: We will not apply. He is not getting 2 A* s as predicted. he might get one. Not knowing your BMAT score before applying makes me nervous as well.

Re transferring to medicine from other courses, it's best to assume this is impossible. A small number of medical schools will say they can take high-performing students after year 1 of other specific courses but it is entirely dependent on whether they have any places available, which they won't know in advance.

TheMedicPortal lists the opportunities that exist (or existed: I'm not sure this is fully up-to-date) - www.themedicportal.com/application-guide/graduate-entry-medicine/medicine-transfer-schemes/.

Students who do another degree first can apply for dedicated 4-year graduate-entry medicine programmes. A few new ones have opened recently at the University of Ulster, ScotGEM (joint operation between St Andrews and Dundee) and Bangor University (only accepts particular feeder degrees, the same as Cardiff), but some have also closed or contracted. Or they can apply for most standard-entry courses. Of these, they have to look out for the ones that are usually 6 years. I think Imperial allows graduates to skip the otherwise compulsory intercalation year, but I don't know whether UCL, King's & Edinburgh do. The financial situation for graduates on standard-entry courses is pretty bad; it's a bit better on 4-year graduate-entry courses.

However, there's no guarantee they will get a medicine place as a graduate. For this reason, it is vital that their first degree is something that will be useful to them for a different career. I always advise people very strongly against just assuming biomedical science degrees are the natural choice. There are few people for whom biomedical sciences would be the best choice of degree if they are not progressing into medicine. They need to think about what kinds of things they would want to do if they can't do medicine and find the best degrees for those pathways. Most medicine degrees accept graduates with a fairly wide range of degrees; many accept graduates with any honours degree at all, albeit usually with additional A-Level or GAMSAT requirements.

This is a link to register for a free talk on BMAT next week.

www.admissionstesting.org/for-test-takers/bmat/preparing-for-bmat/bmat-live-chat/

I would echo the advice not to rely on either transfer at the end of the first year or GEM.

Transfer at the end of the first year is super competitive, you can only apply to the institution you are studying at and you will have built up an extra year of expenses even if you are successful. Much better to take a gap year and earn money, gain useful experience and apply to 4 medical schools.

GEM is also super competitive, worse than undergraduate medicine. Many grads end up applying to A100 courses and they have to self-fund the fees for the first 4 years (until the NHS bursary kicks in), which is only an option if you have family money behind you or take time out to work.

As Ecolier says on TSR, the graduate route takes longer, costs more and, most important, is more competitive.

@50istheyear passing your insight to him is an amazing contribution and your plans for 2023 is great. He seems to be doing all the right things for his application. If my son cannot get in and has to take a gap year this is exactly the kind of jobs we should be looking at as well I guess.We were late to the party due to lack of understanding and also due to a couple of unfortunate things that happened during the last months. Let's all cross our fingers (-:

This is really helpful thanks @Monkey2001 . My son is struggling with Chemistry but in his end-of-year mocks has got an A in Maths, A in Psychology, A in Biology and B in Chemistry. His chemistry went from a D to a B when he asked for my help (I am terrible at chemistry I just printed off many past papers with answers and set up mock test conditions for him at home). Chemistry is definitely his weakest subject. The lists you've provided that highlight Chemistry as not crucial are so helpful, and in honesty 4 of the Universities on there are ones I like, thanks. I don't want to influence him too much but I can see how logic and playing to your strengths are definitely needed now you've highlighted the differentials each University applies. It is exhausting!

@Cratos my son is the same he is happy to take a gap year and get more work experience if needed. I just want him to be sure and happy. As a previous post highlighted, there are a lot of health care students who realise too late they don't like dealing with bodily fluids I just feel he needs to be exposed to this aspect before he commits.

Sorry, A star Maths and Psychology the star did not type.

We lived in an EU country for the first 8 years of my DS's life and my husband and I were hoping to move back to our house there when he has done a year at University and is settled (easy for him to travel as there are loads of direct flights from airports in the UK). I know student finance for the first five years is covered if we are residents in England on the first day of his course what I am not sure of is if this applies to the NHS bursary in years 5 and 6 (do we have to be resident in England when applying for this?). Any advice recommended.

Meant to say student finance first 4 years covered if resident in England on day 1 of his course. Not sure about NHS Bursary years 5 & 6 if we move abroad.

I know student finance for the first five years is covered if we are residents in England on the first day of his course

To qualify for home fees your son needs to have been ordinarily resident in the UK for three years before this, unless he has other protected rights under the EU exit agreement. It's worth checking this carefully. This will also affect eligibility for student finance.

Start from www.ukcisa.org.uk/Information--Advice/Fees-and-Money/England-HE-fee-status.

Looks like AQA are going for analysis rather than TAGs. The world is not quite as mad as we feared, but there will be a lot students worried about whether enough people have cheated to affect the grade boundaries.
www.aqa.org.uk/news/update-on-a-level-chemistry-paper-2

Oops, wrong thread!

@NoNotHimTheOtherOne I just wondered if you might know what happens to students finance (university fees and maintenance loans) if students do an intercalated medicine study ( I noticed you mentioned the first 5 years is covered above) Thank you🙏

They get normal student finance for the first four years and then NHS fees/bursary after that. This includes years taken for intercalation. There's a pretty clear explanation on the Queen Mary University of London web site: www.welfare.qmul.ac.uk/guides/funding-medical-and-dental-students/intercalated-degrees/

Hi sorry to crash the thread! DS2 wants to study medicine.
Someone mentioned earlier that Birmingham is the place to watch out for if you are non WP... can I ask what this means pls? Uni open day there tomorrow....
Been to Exeter which he liked (he is likely to get 3 A stars and an A for predicted worst case 2 A star and and 2 As and Exeter seem predicted grade heavy).
UCAT booked for 1st Sept. He starts PS next week now mocks over and plans to study an hour a day for each of ucat and bmat over his summer hols.
I know that extra curricular is not really important to med schools but DS2 is House Captain and runs all House events from years 7 to 12, coaches hockey with young teens, works at preschool care with junior school kids and is also teaching an autistic 8 year old to play the piano. I was hoping that although not 'work experience some of this is worth putting on his PS? He doesn't want to give up all his extra Curr stuff. He is doing 4 A levels and a medicine based EPQ and can't fit a lot more in. He has done on line work exp (Brighton (?) Uni one and GP one) and organised time to speak in depth to a local GP. Plus he has read a lot of books!
Local care home here have not been overly happy to have adhoc volunteers and because he does 4 A levels he can't help at the sessions run by school in a care home.
He is white and middle class at an independent school. Tbh I sometimes think he might be v disappointed and so don't want him to give up his 4th A level (music which he loves) nor his hobbies (hockey, piano, violin , musicals, DofE and associated groups) just to tick work exp boxes to then find he isn't given any offers. It's so tough!!!
Anyway sorry for the long post. I only really wanted to know what WP meant!!! I am finding this all quite a lot. No medical experience here at all. DS1 is going to art school!! And that was a whole nightmare too.....

@Lottsbiffandsmudge For Exeter he needs 3 A* predictions or it's unlikely he'll get an interview. And a v good UCAT. Birmingham is WP heavy, WP being widening participation (giving more access to disadvantaged kids who traditionally wouldn't get into medicine). He'll need near perfect stats from an independent school (unless they change the rules !).
He only needs 3 A levels, no one will even look at the 4th. And EPQ can be useful as not only gives something medical to talk about at interview, it also can give you a lower offer (so AAB at a few places).
Priority now is acing the UCAT and/or BMAT. Then narrow down where your stats fit the best to gain interviews (look at selection criteria, not entry). Look at course type, what is offered, type of Uni. Then choose 4.
It's more where you fit than where you want to go. So try not to have a favourite !

Thanks we know his 4th A level is 'irrelevant' but he honestly can't decide what to give up. Getting A star in music is extremely difficult so he'd prob have to drop that even tho he prefers it to Maths. I am so conflicted as it feels very like putting all your eggs in one basket. So if he drops an A level or all his hobbies and does the 'right thing' for medicine but still gets no offers he would feel very unhappy. You can't get back performing in your last ever show at school but I guess he could apply again to med school.
His current plan is to see what UCAT he gets and then if its good sack of BMAT and just apply to 4 UCAT places. We will then have predicted and UCat and can see where would be best I guess. (Does anywhere look at GCSEs?)

@Lottsbiffandsmudge no need to give anything up if he can get the grades ! Medical schools like rounded people who don't just study. He can use all his hobbies at interview to show skills needed for medicine (resilience, patience, tenacity, time management). But you do have to be quite set on doing medicine as it's a long slog of a degree if you don't really want it.
Cardiff look at GCSEs (need all 9s really), and Oxford usually (didn't this year and might not next as were TAGs). And some like Notts use them along with UCAT.
Once he's done his UCAT if you post on here, or TSR, you'll get loads of good advice about best places to secure an interview.
This year has been brutal. I'm hoping next year is better.

And this year UCAT and BMAT will be extra important as TAGs mean that loads of students will have loads of 9s. Some schools did give them out a little freely.

Thank you we will carry on. He is determined and works very hard on academics and all his extra stuff and has read though the Oxford reading list! (Not applying there tho!) Its just he has no more time for a cafe job etc or more work experience. He is starting UCAT work soon. Tbh that looks absolutely fiendish I don't even understand the answers!!!
he has straight 9s at GCSE and would have got them if he had sat the exams which is a little frustrating. Having had DS1 sit A levels this year with no GCSEs I have to say they have been majorly disadvantaged. His whole year group have found it incredibly tough. And the exams seem to have been universally hard and very different in structure to past papers. They haven't gone easy on them atvall despite the disrption to year 12 and the 'advanced info' seems to have made it all worse. so slightly dreading next year. At least they will have had the whole 2 years of teaching (fingers crossed...)

@NoNotHimTheOtherOne Thanks we have been residents in the UK since 2014 so his first 4 years are covered it's the NHS Bursary years 5&6 (is year 6 covered by NHS Bursary I thought it was?) I am concerned about if we (his parents) move back. Nobody on the open days in student finance can give me a definitive answer.