Medicine 2023 Entry - Part 3

[opoponax]

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

Birmingham interview done. Went OK except for one station. Which may rule DS out but hope not as a return visit confirmed it as his favourite. 2 down 2 to go.

It's so hard isn't it? I keep explaining to my DD that it's really difficult to tell - even if you think it went badly, you don't know what they were looking for and your thought process / how you dealt with a question could be perhaps more important than what you actually said. Similarly, if you think it went well - thats not an indication that you're what they're looking for either. For most medical schools, they're rejecting half maybe of the interviewees, sometimes more - and these are all people who will have prepared, may also have come out and thought it went well. Its such a horrible, horrible process for them and the parents.

@Monkey2001 you only need one🤞🤞🤞

If anyone is interested, I've been sent BMAT info -
UK BMAT entries
2018 6455
2019 6696
2020 8550
2021 8947
2022 8688

The 2018 and 2019 numbers are probably low because there were August/September sittings. I am not surprised the numbers have gone down this year, having to apply before knowing the results is far from ideal.

@Monkey2001 it was an FOI request that I did, and according to the response, it was the number of all UK BMAT takers each year.

If anyone looking for more information is looking for more info on med school applications. I found a free 20 page guide.
medschoolmmi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Medical-School-Admissions-Guide.pdf

DC felt really heartbroken after Liverpool interview. Felt switch from MMI to panel interview was confusing. I guess it could be interview fatigue from having 3 interviews one after the other in just a week. I am trying to keep it together for DC sake. Waiting game will be stressful 😪

@kk10 - 3 in one week is really intense. Just trying to keep all the ‘why this course’ answers separate and remember what you said to whom. Hopefully he is being too hard on himself .

DD had her Edinburgh online MMI today and she was VERY tense when I went off to work- so I was glad I was busy and couldn’t sit and worry about her. In the end the people running it were lovely to them and she said she did her best and was quite chirpy when I got home. No idea if it will translate to an offer but at least she had a reasonable experience. I can see why people are more successful on their second attempt- it’s hard preparing for something you’ve not done before .

@Cathpot good to hear your DD had a good experience. Fingers crossed for all DC

@kk10 3 interviews in a week sounds awful! Hope the MMIs were good.

@Cathpot sounds promising for Edinburgh. They have a very high offer rate for RUK non-contextual as they interview so few!

@Monkey2001 I am feeling very down today after seeing disheartened face of our DS. Last interview is in 2 weeks now. I have told our DS to take couple of days completely off from this and enjoy himself. Hopefully a break will help him psychologically

The fact he has had so many interviews is amazing in itself- they have clearly already seen something they like in him.

Also all the preparation he has done for these 3 interviews will be useful to him in the final one, along with the interview experience itself that he now has. It is really hard to see them struggling with this process. A couple of days off sounds very sensible

I know you are saying this to be encouraging, but the selection for interview purely on academics really means very little in relation to the skills and attributes they are looking for at interview.

I think the real reason for optimism this year is that with the UCAT cut offs going up so much, such a small pool of candidates has received interviews this year that several are going to have to work though their waiting lists to fill places as the offers will be held by the same 7,000 people with UCAT over 2750. I think there are around 10,500 places to fill.

@Monkey2001
That's interesting- why have they done that? Presumably they know how many people have what score before the interview invites? I also wonder what’s going on with the unis that are still to invite for interview- is there a rationale there or are they just slower with admin?

@Cathpot I have heard that Leeds for example, is listed by a number of Oxbridge / UCL applicants, on the basis that its a BMAT uni, and a number of applicants will withdraw their applications for Leeds if they're offered a place by Oxford / Cambridge (Oxford offers already out, Cambridge is Friday) so they wait until quite late in the day to start interviewing - have to say I'm not entirely convinced by that logic as I imagine applicants want 2 offers.

@Monkey2001 when you say working down the waiting lists - presumably you can only be on a waiting list if you've been interviewed (rather than rejected pre-interview) so if that pool of interviewees is very small, won't there still potentially be an issue?

@Africa2go I agree re Leeds, they have always been one of the slower ones, and Oxbridge people often want it as an insurance choice - there was one on this thread last year who firmed Oxford and insured Leeds. People only withdraw if they have unconditional offers or have other insurance preference already in.

And yes, the reason I have said for some time that UCAS Extra or Clearing will be good for medics this year is because such a small cohort of applicants have secured interviews. At Sheffield, for example, they reject anyone who scored a 1 or 2 in any station, then make offers to the highest scorers and put the rest of the interviewees on the waiting list. This year I predict that everyone on the waiting list will get an offer by results day unless they had to withdraw from the list due to accepting an offer elsewhere.

Hello Everyone,
I posting after a long time.
DD did Leicester interview on 06 Jan. Interview went well and she is happy about it. She finished Imperial interview today first round. She thinks this went well too. For both the interviews she said, in the beginning she feels nervous and then in couple of minutes it is fine. It's hard. For anything I try to tell to relax, the reply is "you don't understand :-)"
Still waiting for UCL and Southampton interview invite.

Looking at the above messages do we already know how many applicants were invited for interviews? I could do with a good night sleep even if its false hope that this year hopefully going to be good in terms of offers ratio

Might be completely wrong but I don't think unis publish these sort of stats until after the application & offer cycle is complete. I think the numbers come from the UCAT results which show that only 20% of takers got more than 2750 (which equates to about 7,000 people).

@Africa2go make sense. Thanks

To be a bit of a outlier, lots of ours do BMAT for Leeds and Brighton, and don't even apply to Oxbridge. This may be due to their party reputations.

I think lots of waitlists this year too.

Do you think that the universities are aware of the unusual ucat/ interview figures and will factor that in their offers/ rejections calculations? Clutching at straws I imagine it will be easier to pop an ok person on a wait list than reinterview. I wonder whether there is an increasing awareness among applicants of being strategic.

3 down , 1 to go.
It's a horrible waiting game. Although DD does seem much better this year - her performance at interviews seems better- she has come out smiling from 2 of them , less so the online one.
Glad she has had experience of face to face this year as the online ones last year were awful.
Hope everyone's kids on this thread get offers- as @mumsneedwine and@Monkey2001 always say they only need one offer ( and the grades).