Medicine 2023 Entry - Part 2

[opoponax]

Anyone out there with DC applying or reapplying for Medicine 2023, please join a friendly thread for mutual support and useful advice.

Popping on to say hello so this appears in my threads. Good everyone doing good with the short listing.

Morning all, thank you for the new thread @opoponax DD is still thinking about options but so far BSMS is her top choice. She’s finding the personal statement a challenge, the word count and how to make herself stand out!

@justjuggling don't bust a gut on PS. No medical school scores it any more (with possible exception of Cardiff), some will read it before shortlisting and it has to meet the criteria set out on their website, others never look at it. This list may not be up to date, but the trend is towards reducing reliance on it, so unlikely to have got more significant anywhere.

The ones where they still read it when I last checked were Aberdeen, Birmingham, Cardiff, Imperial, King's. Lancaster, QUB, St Andrews, UEA.

Cardiff is the one which cares most.

Check the website/open day presentations to make sure you know whether it is worth putting work in and what they want to see.

Yes dd's ones mainly said they don't look at PS or only consider it for a tie break situation.

And Southampton use it for discussion in your one to one interview but it is not scored for interview selection purposes.

All brilliant advice, thank you!

And don't worry about 'standing out' too much. I remember when DS applied, a very wise contributor said, when speaking about interviews, that when candidates stand out, it tends to be for the wrong reasons. Solid is fine!

Hi

Im one year behind you all in this mine field! My dd is looking to apply for 2024 entry, so I’m watching and reading for as much advice as possible.

good luck to all those applying right now

Joining in again! DS is a through to the tth round of UCAS checking at school (tutor/Oxbridge mentor/ senior tutor/ UCAS officer) and he hopes to get it off this week! PS held it up. Despite rhe fact we know most places won't read it!
Cambridge, Sheffield, Birmingham and Exeter. Plus a very interesting sounding 5th choice degree at ICL which he clearly won't get an offer for!!!
Then I guess the nail biting starts!

@shabpat this is where the Medicine 2023 thread has moved to. Just in case you lost us.

@Monkey2001
Thank you so much for your prompt reply. So we have now whittled it down to:
-SGUL
-Manchester
-KIngs
-LEICESTERSHIRE/ Southampton - would really like an opinion
-tempted by Newcastle partners ( we do qualify ) but worried about the high UCAT
-ARU : unsure as relatively new and she prefers bigger city universities.

Just dipping in to say hello so the thread appears for me. Thank you so much for all your advice so far this thread has been so helpful. If my DD ends up going through this again next year I hope some of you will still be around for advice!

@Shabpat Southampton 2022 UCAT cut-off 2750 so that looks fine too. They don't use GCSEs in scoring for interviews so that mitigates against grade inflation pushing the cut-off up, although the cut-offs do fluctuate a bit from year to year. We have visited both Southampton and Leicester and both seemed good options with integrated courses, attractive compact central campuses, good accommodation options and decent placements. DD preferred Southampton as a city but there was a big rugby match on in Leicester last weekend which probably made it seem much busier than usual. If you read page 38 on the previous thread, Monkey gives a good summary of what she found out about Leicester, from her visit to the open day last weekend and it was all very positive. I have a second-year Newcastle med student DS so happy to answer any questions about Newcastle but I don't know much about their partners programme and any UCAT adjustment within that. I only know that Newcastle's standard UCAT 2022 cut-off was 2850.

Also Manchester would be an option if your DD prefers bigger city universities. Depends how she feels about PBL though.

@Shabpat do have a look at the thread in The Student Room last year on Kings. It was never in the running for dd anyway but it sounds organisationally challenging, both in terms of getting in and once you are in.

@opoponax, @Unexpecteddrivinginstructor Thank you so much for your guidance. Much appreciated. I am so glad I posted, you guys are so helpful and well informed.

I have a question about applying to Glasgow as a non Scottish student (for dentistry). They only have 14 RUK places but dd's UCAT is safe so hopefully should get an interview (she already has her A level grades of A star A star A A) but I'm just wondering if there's any point?

@beneathhereyes It was Dundee which had 14 places for RUK, I am sure Glasgow has more!

@Shabpat there is some confusion around the Newcastle cut off last year. Based on what happened on TSR it was 2850, but their published threshold was 2800 Home and 2710 Partners. I think 2750+ is safe for Partners.

Meant to link
www.ncl.ac.uk/mediav8/medical-education/files/admissions-documents/ucat-thresholds-18-22.pdf

@Monkey2001 I spoke to admissions today and they said 56 places for home students and 14 for UK. With that amount of competition it makes you wonder if its worth trying. In saying that though with her UCAT she has to be very strategic, she can't afford to be fussy. She was going to put Manchester as a 4th choice but they confirmed their UCAT cut off last year was only 10 points less than she got this year, so it's a massive risk.

@beneathhereyes that is a mistake! This is a link to the Scottish numbers for 2021-22. There were 274 places at Glasgow, no way it could be down to 70!

www.sfc.ac.uk/web/FILES/announcements_sfcan152021/Intake_Targets_for_Medicine_AY_2021-22.pdf

However, Glasgow will almost definitely have a higher cut off than Manchester, probably over 2800.

@Monkey2001 it's dentistry, not medicine.