Medicine 2022 - Decision time!

[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.

Lots of interviews now done, fingers crossed for lots of offers, but we know it is a tough year and that most applicants will have a bumpy ride. Best of luck everyone!

Previous thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/a4358647-Medicine-2022-entry?msgid=114590369#114590369

2023 applicant thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4459778-Medicine-2023-Entry

• anything

This may be of interest;
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/30/exhausted-medical-students-in-england-struggle-to-qualify-amid-financial-woes?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

No word re wait list, but DS got his interview score (53/70) and has decided to accept that a gap year looks very likely. I don't think it is impossible that he will get an offer, but the range of interview scores posted by wait listed people so far is 53-58, so his high UCAT might help, but he will be low on the list. Apparently the cut off last year was 56.

I had an interesting conversation with a consultant paediatric oncologist on Saturday. He said he sometimes got involved in interviewing medical students and he had observed that the top 20% were very impressive, the bottom 20% dreadful and the middle 60% all fine and not much to choose between them. He said the top and bottom ones were mostly boys and the middle mostly girls. He also had interesting thoughts on the cause of boys doing less will on the whole which related to neurological changes around puberty which meant girls were, on the whole, more likely to do well at interview at 18 as their puberty is 2 years earlier, but it evens out over the next couple of years.

We have requested scores but not received them as yet.

I saw on TSR scores of 57/8 out of 70 being rejected.

also saw a couple of posters that had declined / deferred to next year so maybe a few more places will come up soon. I hope your son gets one x

Well ds has finally plumped for Bristol after spending a v positive weekend there with friends (and a couple of heavy conversations with us about accommodation prices and being an independent adult) so the Newcastle list may soon move by one.
I hope the A level studiers get a chance to enjoy the long weekend and lift their heads from the books for a while.

@Haffdonga good choice (DD2 loves it there as a vet). Fab city, but is pricey - but doable as most student stuff seems discounted a lot. DD had a fantastic time at Orchard Heights, even during covid, and now has a massive house 10 minutes walk from Uni.

No movement on any wait lists with my students. Not expecting anything until after June 9th. And then dribbles until results day. Then, who knows !

Hope he enjoys his time in Bristol

DC2 is off to the Bristol open day in s couple of weeks for s look around

DS has firmed Newcastle (was initially leaning more towards KCL after going to the offer holders tours there). Both look like good choices but the costs and scramble for accommodation and the (probably linked!) high proportion of students who commute from home at KCL slightly swung it for him. Hopefully that frees up a KCL place for someone on their waitlist...

At last. DD has hit firm for Oxford and firmed with Leeds. Rejected Newcastle. Sorry that it took some time but she was sunning herself in Spain post exams 😬.

Hello.I'm new here and I am not sure if this is the right place to ask.My DS is hoping to apply for a medicine degree this year.He is interested in Nottingham and Birmingham but he is worried that his exam results are not good enough.He has four 9s, three 8s and three 7s in his GCSE exams. The 7s were not in important subjects. He has three A star A level predictions for maths,biology and chemistry.He is not contextual.Thank you for any advice you have.We are new to all this and finding it quite confusing.

You will get better experts than me coming along I hope with advice but to start things off...
Great news about the predictions which will help (depending on UCAT score) at somewhere like Exeter which is prioritising predicted A level grades next year.
Birmingham has a very helpful algorithm which gives you a score. Nottingham does too. Both (from memory) look at the top 9 GCSEs. Unless his UCAT score is outstanding then both Birmingham and Nottingham might be risky choices as they really weight GCSEs heavily (and with some schools having really inflated grades last year, I can't help feeling that 8/9 only are going to get interviews at Birmingham, Nottingham and Cardiff this year).
He might be better off looking at one of the medical schools that isn't quite so focused on GCSE grades.
Good luck to him and hopefully someone else will be along to advise later...

Nottingham for 2023 entry (note they may change every year) are scoring as per this:

www.nottingham.ac.uk/medicine/study-with-us/undergraduate/undergraduate-medicine/undergraduate-selection-process.aspx

His best eight GCSEs are scored - that would mean that he would receive 4 points for each of his 9s - ie 12 points, 3 points for each of his eights, so another 9 points, plus 2 points for one of his 7s - so a total of 23 out of a maximum of 32.

However, Nottingham much more heavily weights the UCAT - the cognitive sections are out of 60 (note they weigh different sections differently), and the situational judgement section is out of 60, so in total the score is out of 152 of which he is only 9 points down.

Much more critical is how he performs on the UCAT, and particularly on the situational judgement. There were be relatively few invited for interview, if any, who get less than Band 1 on the situational judgement.

So until he has sat the UCAT and knows what his score is, he really doesn't know if he is competitive for Nottingham.

BUT if he is set on medicine, the key point is to apply where one has the best choice of interview, even if it is not necessarily ones "dream" university. There is no point apply to one's dream university if one won't get an interview, so it is key to apply strategically. So with a high UCAT but not such strong GCSEs, it is worth considering those that only interview on UCAT, such as Bristol and Sheffield. With a lower UCAT you need to look at other alternatives. Many universities don't score the Situational Judgement at all, or only eliminate you if you have Band 4, so very different to Nottingham which gives you 60 points on Band 1.
Birmingham is known to highly favour contextual applicants, and it is very difficult to get an interview if you are not contextual (or at least it was the last few years). Maybe if he had a very high UCAT to balance out the GCSEs, but he has to bear in mind that he is competing with people with contextual points, so even though he would probably only drop two points for the one 7 (they score eight GCSE subjects, and he has the maximum points in seven, as they score 8s and 9s the same - and they have changed the requirements with respect to including English literature as one of their compulsory scores this year - when my DS applied, English literature was compuslorily scored, and he only got a seven in it, which is why we decided not to apply to Birmingham) - unless his UCAT is very high, if he is not contexual you would need to think hard about applying.

He has four options, so he should try and find four (or at least three, maybe one can be risky) where he stands a good chance of an interview.

@Papercutting great advice here.

This year you needed PERFECT stats to get an interview at Birmingham if you did not go to one of the state schools on their list - www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/college-mds/courses/undergraduate/medicine-and-surgery-mbchb/medicine-contextual-institutions-2020-21.pdf . It is likely to be even worse for 2023 entry unless they change the calculation again as at a national level that cohort had even more generous GCSE grades than the 2022 cohort. So not worth considering if he did not attend one of those schools.

Nottingham, as noted above, comes down to the UCAT - if he can ace the Verbal Reasoning and the SJT, he can make up for the GCSE blips. I would not consider Nottingham without a Band 1 SJT and that is the UCAT section people tend to ignore a bit.

Come back when you have full stats to this thread or the 2023 entry thread (linked in the first post) and we can advise you/him.

BTW I see from TSR that several people have got offers from the Nottingham opt in waitlist. Some a couple of weeks ago, some a week ago, and somebody posted today. So at least some waitlists are moving.

@Papercutting
As above, when your ds knows his full stats then you will get really good advice on the 2023 thread. @Monkey2001 is one of the experts I was referring to!
I go into school and take a couple of sessions on applying to medical school and I always tell them that they have to get used to this process feeling unfair for them.
Firstly they don't get to have a relaxing year 12 summer like most of their friends - because they will be preparing for UCAT.
Secondly many of their friends will have several offers in the bag by January/February and might even have been able to decide on a firm/insurance - but they will probably still be waiting for a single medicine offer and might not even have heard about interviews yet (and will still be waiting for months potentially) Thirdly they can't choose where to go in the same way based on the same criteria - they have to apply strategically based on where they will get interviews and their friends don't even have to consider those things.
Statistically (and this is population level obviously not individual) if they get 4 interviews they are likely to get 2 offers so maximising their number of interviews is their best chance of getting some genuine choice at the end of the process..

Thank you all for so much great information.It helps a lot.We will wait and see how the UCAT goes for Nottingham. I thought his score was 27/32 using the scorer (4 x4 for 9s=16, 3x3 for 8s=9, 1x2=2 for 7s=2 total=27)but I guess he would still need a very high UCAT anyway.He is not on the list of schools for Birmingham so he will forget that one.

@Papercutting think your score is correct. It's a good one. But, as has been said, that nasty pesky UCAT will be viral. Especially SJT if Notts is a favourite. DDs tip is to know the NHS values and don't waiver from your instincts.
I'm so hoping next year is a bit more normal. Most of mine without an offer this year are planning their next year's work and reapplication (not to KCL though). Loads of HCA and care home jobs going !

Sorry, you are right, for some reason i miscalculated, so his score is even better. So really has only dropped a small handful of points, meaning that if his UCAT is good, and particularly if his SJT is Band 1, he should be very competitive for Nottingham. A lot does ride on that UCAT unfortunately.

@Papercutting sorry, meant to add. Get your DS to choose what he wants from a medicine course. Full body dissection, early patient contact, campus, city, variety of placement hospitals etc. Look at selection to interview criteria carefully (unless Welsh, forget Cardiff and if not Scottish I'd steer clear of Scotland). Short list about 10. Do UCAT and that will narrow it down further.
And don't set sights on one Uni. One offer is all you need.

We applied for Nottingham this year and interviewed then rejected.

there is a fast track to interview is your dc is a talented sports person

my son had all sorts of ideas as to where he wanted to apply ( inc Birmingham which we swerved in the end) but we had to wait for his ucas result and apply strategically .

i got this chart from TSR which may give you some guidance.

TSR had a wealth of info and a thread where you cd post your stats and they would give advice on where to apply.

Thank you.You are all so generous sharing your knowledge.He is happy to stick with English ones and concentrate on the ones that he has the best chance with.He knows the UCAT is really important and will work hard to do his best in that. He is quite sporty but not so accomplished that he would get any points for it.Thank you for the chart.It is very helpful.We will look at TSR too.

Have been chatting with DD (been qualified a couple of years) she is old enough to have applied with AS marks in her pocket but says doing it now she would have sat A levels having been able to concentrate on getting excellent grades then worked in a people facing job (care home, NHS, childcare or even a shop) while applying for med school. She felt those on her course who weren't straight out of school were so much better at the practical and social aspects of the course and would have been much more confident at interview.

The number of gap year applicants increased a lot for 2022, it looks like it might be even higher for 2023. That will make it harder for the Y13s to get offers as the older applicants will tend to come over better, particularly if they have grown up a bit from working.

It hasn't been said for a while, but it is worth remembering that treating medicine applications as a 2 year process can be a wise move which will help mentally if they are not successful first time round.

I am still expecting a lot of offers between now and results day. Funnily enough, with DS's score he might be more likely to get an offer ultimately than he would have been in a normal year because there will be more waiting list offers than usual, and he would probably have been the wrong side of the cut off in any year. For us it comes down to how many people miss the grades and whether the medical schools allow any leeway.

@mumsneedwine can I ask why if not Welsh to forget Cardiff? Do Welsh applicants get priority?

@mubarak86 The first hurdle for Medicine applicants is to get interviews. Cardiff are not totally transparent about how they assess applications. They score GCSEs and, if non-contextual, you need 27/27 (ie 8/9/A* in all GCSEs), but then they also review the PS. Because so many people now have a complete set of GCSE top grades, the PS review is a significant risk. There is a much higher success rate for Welsh applicants although they do not disclose what the difference is. Most people who have been watching medicine applications for a while would not advise you to apply for Cardiff unless your UCAT score makes other places more risky.