Medicine 2023 Entry - Part 2

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

Just to add that if he is keen to do the MBPhD, he is doing the right thing networking early on. As soon as the programmes are released, he should get in touch with the supervisor of the research to gain a good understanding of what they are looking for. Also, if he can join societies in Preston and pick a topic for research that he'll have to do for his course relating to the field of research.

The main concern with DD was her limited lab experience but she managed to get some towards the end of year 3 and she learned fast!

Thanks @Manchesterrocks . DS is hoping to get lab experience next semester as St Andrews students do a dissertation in their third year and he wants to do a lab based project if he can. They are actually 4th year grads when they join the 3rd year medics in Manchester.

@Monkey2001 how does your son like studying at St Andrew's? My DD is wanting to apply there.
Does he like the course? Was the interview tough? We have heard it's very difficult to get an offer. She wants to then move to Glasgow for the final 3 years if possible? We have seen the interview will be in person this year which will suit her.
Glasgow and Dundee still seem to be online this year.

@workingfromhomeforthenow are you Scottish? Scottish route is very competitive for RUK applicants. He liked the interview, it was different from the others, they are interested in problem solving. I think SJT is quite heavily weighted. Loves the course and the town, he always wanted traditional and full body dissection, exams are very full on, content heavily academic. Accommodation after first year is a nightmare at the moment due to the bulges in 2020 and 2021, but we all hope that will resolve for the second year of current intake. The prices are unlikely to go back to where they were though - his group applied for a great house in town which would have been £840/month + bills (sort of relieved he didn't get it!), lots of students paying £750+/month.

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor I see, it’s wonderful to see so many supportive parents, medical school applications are one of the hardest parts of going to medical school and being a supportive parent can mean the world. My top interview preparation tips would be:

1. read the GMC documents about good practice, you don’t need to know it inside out but it is fundamental to be familiar with the guidelines so you know what is expected of you during a career in medicine and surgery and be able to demonstrate this knowledge at interview
2. read a few articles and make some notes of what they have taught you, not just the obvious (such as the study outcome) but things like the way the study needed to be adjusted several times to give the most reliable results, or how a team of individuals mentioned in an article worked to one another’s strengths to achieve an outcome. They don’t have to be medicine related, they just need to teach something that can be transferred to working in a clinical or other relevant setting. Several unis are known to ask you to discuss what you have learnt from reading an article so it may well come up
3. know the curriculum structure and other specific details of the university you are interviewing with - do they have an area of research they specialise in? Are they affiliated with any specialist hospitals? Do they teach preclinical medicine followed by clinical, or is the clinical experience integrated alongside the non-clinical teaching? Do they teach a spiral curriculum? What is their university life like, including sports facilities and society opportunities? (They will want you to show there is more to your personality than just medicine)
4. don’t be too rehearsed, on many occasions they won’t ask a question looking for a specific answer, they want to see how you communicate and engage with them so try to speak with confidence and back yourself up!
5. have a couple of examples from your work experience that can be used to answer questions about how you have dealt with disagreements or difficult situations during your work experience, look online at situations they may ask for and think about times you have experienced these situations and how you would discuss this with the interviewers
6. be familiar with your CV, they may ask you questions about what you have written on there
7. ask them questions - show that you are interested in their university. Easy all-rounder questions you can ask any uni are things such as what activities are available on campus, does the medical school offer extra curricular opportunities for you to further your learning within medicine outside of the taught curriculum, what do they think is the best part of living in that city/part of the country, what do they think sets their medical school apart from the rest that would make it the best choice of school for you to attend?
8. finally, don’t stress over it. Many interviewers are asked not to show too many emotions (although a selected few medical schools are known to have very friendly interviews!) so just go in there, be yourself, once you’re out of the interview don’t worry over things that are now out of your hands just reflect, make notes and move onto the next. Many successful clinicians went through multiple application cycles to get into medicine, some even had to undertake a whole separate degree first before applying (which is also another perfectly viable option for anyone worried they aren’t going to make the grades).

Good luck to all the 2023 applicants, I’m sure all your (not so little) ones will get their place at medical school when the time is right and will thrive in their careers. Just keep supporting and they will do you all proud

@bimkom @monkey2001

Thanks for your replies. Great to get a different perspective.

I got her ucat score wrong it's 2880. Band 1,
VR 650
Dm 700
Or 780
Ar 750

Gcses are 10 grade 9s and an 8 in further maths so they are very good even with tag.

So, you'd be careful about Cardiff, even though from website and open day she would be in with a good chance (we are south of England not Welsh)? She really loved Cardiff.

She's done the Birmingham website calculator which says likely to get an interview. She gets almost full points on the calculator. They rank on gcses a bit we understand? Plus we think she has contextual offer at Birmingham (but only Birmingham as far as we can see) because her comprehensive secondary school doesn't send enough people to uni.

I think bristol is out and Southampton in, unless overall ucat scores are lower than anyone expects.

So:
plymouth
Southampton
Birmingham ?
Cardiff ????

Others we visited: Nottingham, Bristol.

@FullOfDoom with 2880 B1, 10 x 9 and 3 x A* predicted anywhere is fine except Edinburgh (Keele/Sunderland depends on her R&R). Cardiff is risky because a lot of people with great stats were rejected last year, so it is not clear what they are looking for and they have said their scoring system is under review anyway, which means that if you have great stats (like your DD) there are so many places where she is guaranteed an interview that it is not worth taking the risk unless you love it. Is she interested in Nottingham? Very popular course with free BSc and her stats are almost perfect for their scoring algorithm.

I would say Bristol is probably OK, I don't know whether they cut their interview numbers last year, but we can be more confident when we see the final UCAT stats next week. It looked like the applicant numbers were going to be similar to last year.

@Monkey2001

I guess we wait now for final ucat scores.

I'm going to have a chat with her about Cardiff at the weekend. I just want to make sure she gets some inter interviews, like bimkom said, only one outsider choice.

Thank you for the advice and insight. Good luck to all of us!

Hello everyone,

Really informative thread. I have been following very closely as my daughter is applying for medicine 2023 entry.
Could you please give your feedback on the choices? No WP applicable.
Here are the stats
ucat score wrong it's 2890. Band 3,
VR 570
DM 800
QR 780
AR 740

Gcses are 11 grade 9s and an A in further maths.

EPQ completed in year 12 and achieved A*

Work experience at hospital and GP.
Volunteering with Age Link.

Preferrably looking to apply for London or nearby Unis.
Have been looking to apply
UCL
Imperial
Southampton
Leicester

5th Non medical is QMUL Biomedical sciences.

About to submit and teacher's feedback is to check if we can change one BMAT uni to UCAT. May be King's. But reading the details on King's website and the discussion here, King's might not be good considering Band 3. We were thinking of changing Imperial to QMUL medical. Not very sure because the entry requirements are almost same except that QMUL is UCAT uni and we already have UCAT score.
What do you think about the above choice as is? I mean two BMAT unis and both are competitive. Is this veyr risky or quite ok?

with regards,

@Monkey2001 @mumsneedwine What do you think?

@medParent Leicester and Southampton both very safe for interviews. Barts (QMUL) looks good if predicted A*s with the boost from the EPQ, particularly if she has anything else like music/drama/dance grades >5. Kings were terrible for admin last year and I think they need an band 1/2. Would get an interview at SGUL, but I think the B3 might be a disadvantage later on.

With those GCSEs she is clearly good at exams and BMAT is more like GCSEs than exams, so definitely worth going for at least one of UCL/Imperial.

more like GCSES than UCAT

Sorry, was past my bed time on a school night. They look like good choices and if they want London then BMAT it is. But as Monkey says there are plenty of UCATs that are safe(ish).
It's such a tough game and at the end of the day you only need one offer.

Ours are due in today and I'll be a bit relieved as have had so many similar conversations the past few weeks. And then we wait .....

Any idea of how long they will wait after the ucas deadline (other than Kings which definitely is not on the list)?

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor UCAT results are delivered to universities in early November, in previous years interviews started around 20th November.

The worst bit (if you have good stats and are confident of interviews) is waiting for decisions post interview. Sheffield publish a timetable which used to give the week in which offers will be made, but now just says March (2020 was Feb half term), so it looks like it is going to be another slow year and some will be waiting into May, groan......

Also, some give you a good choice of interview slots and quite a wide timeframe to book from but others are at fairly short notice. From memory of 2021 entry thread, RUK St Andrews didn't give much notice of interview.

@Monkey2001 Thank you for your feedback. Yes she has predicted AAA* in Bio, Chem, Maths for A levels. Forgot to mention in the original post.
She is still very much keen on applying for both UCL and Imperial.
Thank you @mumsneedwine . Her school's internal deadline is today as well. She is trying to speak to her teacher to get extension to the deadline until beginning of next week. Not sure how good that is considering most students are asking for deadline extension 😀.

@medParent do you know you can submit to school without putting all your choices in at the beginning? Once it is submitted to UCAS you have until 15th October to add more medicine choices. Has she tried some past BMAT papers? I don't think 2 BMAT is that risky for people who are very good at exams. DS1 applied for 2 "blind" in 2019 and got interviews at both. As long as past papers are good under exam conditions I think she should be fine.

I ( and DD ) are tying ourselves in knots so need advice.
Which Unis accept an A at resit?
Does anyone know anything about KMMS? - her school is just above Eng average in all domains. Last data was 2019, now academy so no fresh data.
Thanks

Predicted A level is A star A star A star.
For some reason it is not shown correctly in my prev post.
@Monkey2001 thank you for the info on updating UCAS later until 15OCT. we didn't know about this. I will check with daughter on this.
She has been doing BMAT prep and has just started doing the past papers. I think in section 1 and 2 she is getting around 6.1 I don't think so she has tried section 3 in exam conditions yet. I will ask her to do that as well.

@medParent those are comfortable scores for UCL and Imperial. Imperial don't need much on the essay, it is easy for someone with English as first language to get a 3A, which is enough, so she should be fine.

@coffeeandbiscuittime I started doing a list, but don't know what I did with it! I think HYMS, Sheffield and Bristol are happy with A, but I would check with Admissions before making final decision. What was her UCAT? KMMS always feels a bit risky because so opaque.

Hi,
Sorry for the long post.
I am looking for some advice, please.
I am asking for my son. His UCAT score is 3320, band 2. 11 GCSEs (all 9) and HPQ A, predicted 4A, working on EPQ. No volunteering experience due to Covid restrictions. Has 2 weeks of work experience. He is appearing for BMAT and is thinking of applying to Cambridge and Imperial. UCAT options are Glasgow and probably Birmingham. We live outside UK now but are hoping to apply as home student.
Would Glasgow and Birmingham be ok with Band 2? I heard that Nottingham and Edinburgh need Band 1.
Should we be looking at a safer option considering that he is applying to 2 BMAT unis?
He is very quiet and I am not sure how he would fare in the interview. Is there any Uni which looks at the application holistically rather than just the interview performance once you reach the interview stage? His school has internal deadline for UCAS application this week.
Thanks in advance.

@FullOfDoom have you considered Sheffield? My daughter with very similar stats to yours ( sane GCSEs and UCAT 2960) and applied last year -originally she put it as her back up option - but after visiting it was her first choice. The EPQ will give her a grade lower if she gets an offer and the band 1 is counted as a station. My daughter also had offers from Birmingham and Leeds as well, but preferred the greener city, friendly feel and slightly smaller numbers on the course. The cost of living is also a bonus compared to some other places.

@Cat462 the ones which use academics post interview are Aberdeen (50% UCAT/A levels), Edinburgh (50% UCAT/SJT/A levels/GCSE), UEA (50% UCAT, SJT a virtual station). If you think interviews might be tricky I would recommend including Aberdeen as a choice. He will get interviews at Glasgow and Birmingham with than stellar UCAT. Cambridge a very good idea if super bright but quiet.

@dustybee

Thank you. I will put it on the list. It is a very long way from us in Berkshire, she wants to be closer, inside 2 or 3 hour drive, that's why we didn't look at it. All suggestions very welcome at this stage!