Do you need straight 9s at GCSE for medicine?

[Notcontent]

Dd is thinking of doing medicine. She is now in year 12 and got eight 9s at GCSE and one 8 and one 7. The 7 and 8 were in English Lit and a foreign language. Is that likely to hold her back?

Not at all, her GCSEs are good enough to apply

She should be fine in terms of GCSEs. Which subjects is she studying? Keeping on top of them all and aiming for at least AAA predictions is important.

That’s good to know. She got really high raw scores in maths snd the science subjects but if course universities don’t see that!

@Notcontent her GCSEs are more than good enough for medicine. Many places require 5-7 grade 7s and then nothing else matters. A few score GCSEs but only the best 8. It's mostly down to the UCAT/BMAT score these days.

She is doing maths, biology and chemistry plus one other unrelated subject.

Some have a surprisingly low threshold for GCSEs and most grade an 8 and a 9 as equivalent. Assuming one of the other GCSEs was English Lang the 7 probably won't even be in the calculations.

thank you for all the replies!

her GCSEs are all A the 8and 9 are A* in the old money
the BMAT and UCat score matter much more
wishing her luck

Consider just doing three and an EPQ. Most places give no additional credit even for an AS, but some will drop the offer to AAB if she does well on an EPQ.

Absolutely not! Her GCSE grades are excellent and far more than she needs.

I seem to remember the year DS (year 6) applied, the cut off for interview was only 7A*s for medicine at Oxford. I think they ranked students based on 50% GCSE grades and 50% BMAT score to select applicants to interview.

You can find out online how each med school selects applicants for interview. With those grades, it might be an advantage for your DD to tactically apply to med schools that do use GCSE grades as part of the selection criteria for interview.

Some like Sheffield will need a minimum level for GCSES. After that they're not considered and they will be called for interview depending on the UCAT score. After that it's decided on whether they get a place according to how they perform at the interview.

I'd recommend looking through the Medicine 2022 thread, joining the Medicine 2023 thread and getting DD to join TSR and have a look to see if there's a relevant medicine thread for the year she'd start on there.

Well there are 9500 medicine places in the UK and as only about 2000 student received straight 9s this year and less than 800 the year before Covid you would think not. Especially when you consider that not all of the pupils with straight 9s will be applying for medicine.

Her GCSE grades are above average even for medicine. Even for medicine at oxford her grades would be above average, their average med student had 8.5 GCSEs at grades at 8 or 9.

To be honest of she is capable of those GCSE results you would think she would be capable enough to google and work out that her GCSE results are higher than the average oxford med student so clearly absolutely fine.

It would seem that the biggest thing impacting getting accepted into medicine (as long as you have the grades of course, which in her case are fine) is the type of school. If she's private it will be more difficult.

@Drivebye - can you explain your comment? DD has just successfully applied from a private school (3 offers out of 4). Why do you think private school applicants don't get offers?

Sorry, but absolute rubbish. The most important thing when applying for medical school is the UCAT and/or BMAT. Yes, students from VERY poor areas might get a contextual offer, but they won't get even get an interview unless they have a good entrance exam.

What I've said is the general feeling from a few schools I know. There was a feature getting a place for medicine on LBC a couple of weeks ago and a woman rang in whose grandson has straight 9's and A stars at A level and did not get an offer, his father then did a new application in UCAS but put a state school and bingo 4 offers. Whether people believe it or not it is happening, rightly or wrongly.

@Drivebye that is actually impossible. How did they apply to UCAS using a school they don't go to ? Because the school send the UCAS form off, not the student. So basically, they were talking rubbish.
What has happened is Unis have increased their outreach to state schools, so more state students think they can do medicine, so more apply, and more are therefore successful. This has meant that some private schools have had less success, because their students are not as competitive as the state one who got the place. I'm afraid buying your way into Uni courses is starting to be a thing of the past. Thankfully

And you can have 900 level 9s and 200 A stars. But if you don't have a good UCAT or BMAT you are not getting an interview. Maybe that dad needs to ask the school why they didn't advise their child better.

The Dad couldn't get an offer without going through an interview for medicine and I think they might notice in the interview that he wasn't a school leaver. Plus the application would need to be in by mid October so unless this was over a few years the boy would not be rejected until after the deadline, so that dad would need to apply the next year to test his theory so is playing the really long game! Some unis do prioritise those from state schools for interviews, but this information is generally freely available and not all medical schools select students in the same way.

Or all state schools. Just ones eligible for contextual - and v v few Unis prioritise Amy students, usually it's the newer ones set up for local students.
@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor I think we can agree that dad was a bit of an idiot to spout such utter drivel.

*not that you have to be a school leaver to apply but often the selection process is different. As @mumsneedwine says much depends on the UCAT/BMAT score so I think the family(and maybe school) possibly just don't fully understand the process.

Not all state schools that should have said !! Most are treated much the same as any school for interview selection - Birmingham is an exception with a small uplift the poorer your demographic.

Maybe this 'dad' sat his UCAT and BMAT, attended interviews and passed himself off as an 18 year old 😉

@HoneyMobster 😂😂 and managed to get the school to write his reference and send off his UCAS for him. What a Wally.