Give-up Imperial offer and reapply for medicine in 2023

[Jalapenopepper]

DS has just finished his A Levels and has accepted a place to study engineering at Imperial starting September 2022. He now has second thoughts and wants to reapply next year to study medicine. He was debating between engineering and medicine all of last year - liked them both equally and was quite torn. He finally decided on engineering but has now changed his mind. He wants to take a gap year and apply for medicine.

I feel quite anxious knowing how competitive medicine is. If he doesn't get a place, he may end up with an offer to study chemistry or biomedical engineering that he does not want to do. Any thoughts?

OP,

You imply that your DS has some history of medical volunteering already? That sounds like a big plus, especially if he could do more this summer.

I think starting now at Imperial with an eye to doing medicine could easily backfire. Your DS will have to declare that he is doing Engineering at Imperial on his medical school applications. To say that this will raise questions in the admissions tutors’ eyes is an understatement. Convincing them of his dedication will be a challenge and if he manages to do that they will consider the question of why he knowingly took someone else’s place in one of the UK’s most competitive degree programmes as a holding position. It isn’t a great look.

OTOH your DS sounds very, very bright. The question is, how much will that count for and what other assets does he bring -enough to offset this slight underhandedness? We can’t answer that.

Student Finance will be fine with an extra year, although of course it adds to the loan.

Keep the offer until he knows he has his grades. If he still wants to withdraw on results day, then he should withdraw then.

I'm a medic so I'm biased. But it's very common for people to change their mind and choose it a little later down the line.

If he's sure he wants to do it, starting another degree he isn't sure he wants to do, particularly in London (££!) is a colossal commitment that's quite a mess to get out of.

He sounds very bright. If he's good enough for engineering at imperial I imagine he will be absolutely fine with medicine. Best of luck to him.

If it's of any use, my friend's DS applied for medicine at Exeter, natural sciences at Cambridge and engineering at Bristol, Loughborough and Sheffield. He got offers for all bar Cambridge. He just wrote an extra personal statement for Exeter. He was also offered an engineering place at Princeton. He ended up taking a gap year because of covid and reapplied for medicine. He's currently a medic at Oxford.

Just so you realise it's possible to make the 5th choice something other than bio-med etc. It might put off the likes of Imperial who probably want to see a committed engineer, but Exeter wasn't bothered.

Congratulations to your DS - mine also had an Imperial engineering offer this year, but turned it down (hopefully!) to take up one at Cambridge.

My brother did medicine, after doing economics and becoming an accountant because he wasn't 100% sure that he wanted to be a medic, when he had to apply at 18. If your son is 100% SURE that's what he wants to do, then I would withdraw from Imperial and apply for medicine next year. It sounds as though he'll ace the UCAT again, and if he spends the year on work experience, will be in a really strong position to apply next year.

amazing- so a natsci personal statement got him engineering at Bristol and Sheffield? amazing.

Indeed! He ticked a few contextual boxes which may have helped.

Engineering and medicine are both vocational degrees leading (mostly) to really quite different sorts of careers.

I would be really querying him on what sort of life he wants. Not so much the hours factor or even the NHS minefield but other things like dealing with the public as a doctor, usually in a very stressful/sad situation vs dealing with other professionals as an engineer. Feeling like you are helping people as a doctor vs perhaps less so as an engineer (not saying engineers aren’t helpful but you know what I mean!!). Working generally in a hospital (unless a GP) vs an office/on many different sites as an engineer. Ability to be self employed at some stage in future. Etc

Caveat: I don’t know either of these careers well so apologies if the above differences are total rubbish! But you get the idea.

The best surgeon I work with did Engineering as a first degree and then postgraduate medicine. Best of both worlds.

Medicine is now in clearing.

@Motnight where ? I look every day and haven't seen anything for undergrads since Extra closed.

Apologies what I meant was that it does go into clearing - not sure when, in previous years it has been the day that A level results are released.

@Motnight thank you. Thought I'd missed something ! This year has been hell and so many waiting lists in place, so no clue if it will appear in clearing. Even St G have said no and they always have a few clearing spots.