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.

It’s Exeter - thanks, that makes sense.

Friend of DD also got the ‘on hold’ email- she forwarded it to DD to express a brief rollercoaster of emotion as subject header of the email was ‘University of Exeter medical interview decision’ and then you open it and it’s basically says. And the decision is?…… There is no decision.

I think possibly lead with that in the subject header?!

Lovely to hear more offer news. It’s so tense waiting to hear and not even knowing when they will be told . It’s an odd node of life when all these possibilities spread out from one decision about where or if they go to uni.

DD has a lovely friend who also found out she didn’t get to Cambridge today - although not medicine so she does have other offers. Only one student got in from their large 6th from college apparently which is unusual.

My DD got the same email today. Small moment of disappointment before she realised it wasn’t a ‘thank you but no thank you message.’ Not sure my finger nails will be intact by the end of this process!

I have a small lump of anxiety permanently in my throat! I don’t know how DS is coping - I’m trying to hide how stressed I feel. The email subject was not helpful.

She did indeed get a Cambridge rejection today but says she's really not bothered 'cos she's going to Glasgow... she would have liked it but getting that one has really helped.

The stress of waiting to see if an interview offer will come and then if an offer of a place will come is bad enough. And then I saw this article in the Times today which did not help either. Any takes on what this will mean for our cohort?

@ASeagull23 We were told this last year, too. There are arguments on both sides. It's undeniable that we need to produce more doctors, but it needs to be done in a planned way, otherwise: (a) there's a risk of overloading hospitals with students requiring clinical placements and (b) there's too great a risk of producing more medicine graduates without the NHS actually having postgraduate training posts for them.
These articles (there's been a rash of them recently) are well-timed PR for new medical schools tthat are currently unable to take home students because there has been no expansion of numbers.
On the other hand, there was an unintentional over-recruitment of medical students in 2021 and these extra students will be accommodated somehow. It seems strange not to build on that enforced bulge by increasing capacity for future cohorts.

Congratulations to all the offers. It is a nice feeling for students to feel goal acheived :-)
Here still waiting for interview invite from UCL (11.7 BMAT) and Southampton (2890 UCAT). This has been really long wait. We called and the unis have informed they are still in the process of sending invites.
It's just that with the late interviews, the focus on A level gets a bit diverted and grades are equally important for the end goal.

In case it helps anyone, Bristol have offered interviews for ucat score of 2920 this morning. That's 4/4 interviews now for DD - 2 done, 2 to go. Thanks to all the experienced posters on this forum for all the advice on applying "strategically". Fingers crossed now for one offer!

Another Liverpool batch has issued as well. Some TSR people say they have emailed and been told there will be another batch. I don’t think internationals have been invited yet so in theory they might be in the last batch, I’m guessing.

DD was happy after her Liverpool interview this week, which was great because we were expecting the worst. We leave this afternoon for the trek to Sheffield for interview tomorrow. Plane will hopefully leave on schedule this time, one of our booked trains (so far) has been cancelled already (fingers crossed)…we will have a lot of time to play 20 questions!

DD has received an offer too for Aberdeen! Very pleased and relieved (both of us!) Well done to all the DCs' offers and interviews.

Nice!!😃

Excellent news @BungledBundle 🍾

Well done to your DD @BungledBundle

Well done!

@BungledBundle well done, may see you there if that’s where they end up! Lovely and such a relief to have one in the bag.

Huge congratulations on those offers. You only need one 😊. Hopefully this trickle will become a flood in March.

Many, many congratulations to BangledBungle's DD! Fantastic to have an offer.

Good luck to those with interviews also

Southhampton interviews are starting to come out as DD just got invite, neatly sandwiched between end of mocks and her driving test. Looked at trains but they are both hilariously expensive and take over 6 hours. By luck it’s fallen into my day off so will go up the night before and farm out DD2 as DH will be away. Looking forward to this phase ending.

Very well done to all the kids holding offers - the relief must be amazing!

Can I ask a beginner question? She only has experience of MMIs and this next one has a panel interview section- is that just a more standard interview set up where a few people sit behind a desk and ask you various things?

@cathpot - last year ds's panel interviews were just as you describe (except online) and the questions asked were much the same type as MMIs. His panels usually included a med student alongside one or two med school docs. DS said he found panels better because there was more time to build a bit of rapport with the interviewers, and he could refer back to experiences he'd mentioned earlier without having to re-explain.

@Haffdonga
Thank you that’s helpful, I’ll pass that on to her

How is everyone coping with the long wait? Dd felt an anticlimax after her last interview which was also in the middle of mocks. Now though is begining to relax a bit. Out for the day with friends and is back to her hobbies which all seemed to be on hold for a few months.