Medicine - 2024 Entry

[LaMereDuChat]

Just thought I'd start a thread for anyone else who feels like me... Dd has just announced that she'd really like to apply for medicine. It seems pretty much impossible to get into and I'm dreading the process as the odds are stacked against her - private schooled, grades a bit iffy as she's chosen a language as an A-Level and it's hard, though she loves it. Anyone want to join the pity party 😬?

Your DD will be group B.

Thank you for responding, really appreciated.

The following extract from the admissions policy is what I find confusing. It reads to me that A level results will be adjusted based on schools performance and as my DD went to a good school her results will not be scored particularly high? Any thoughts appreciated.

Stage 2b: KMMS introduced the concept of contextualising all applicants in groups
A and B in our first admissions cycle. The underlying concept is to consider academic attainment relative to the average for the applicant's school, at A level/B, which is the senior achieved qualification for group B applicants.
The "contextualising everybody" policy compares the applicant's attainment relative to the school's average. We therefore replace absolute grade attainments with relative attainment based on schooling. There is strong research evidence that this is a more fair metric, in terms of later performance at medical school; and we have shown that this policy makes a considerable impact on widening participation.

@MsMAK if your school average was A- for A level then there is no contextual points to gain. This clause means getting AAA when school average is B-. Or lower. Sorry. V high UCATs get rejected from KMMS over much lower ones and it's all down to your results against the average for the school.

Yes that is how they explained it at the open day @MsMAK , because she was only just above the average for her school she would need to do better on the ucat than someone with the same grades but from a lower achieving school.

For the ucat has she looked at some of the YouTube videos for advice and tips? Dd found it quite useful to watch for tips on how to complete it. Using more than one platform helped too. Hope she gets a higher score this time.

Thank you so much for your replies.

Adjusting the UCAT based on school makes sense, I thought a level results were adjusted so was getting really confused!

She is not doing it for another 2 weeks and is revising every day, so hopefully will improve

Oh still lots of time then. Try Emil Eddy's clips https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6xkKvA1u3xk they really helped with strategies to use. There are other YouTubers around as well. Dd watched two a day as well as the practice tests. She used medify mainly but then about ten days before switched to Medentry because the medify subscription had run out I think having a change helped because some of the tests were slightly different but between the two they were representative of the actual ucat.

Thanks all for advice for my DS.
Definitely not me pushing for Cambridge for him, seems a risky use of a slot to me!
Will look at open days in Sept and start interview and BMAT prep.

@weasle I think Cambridge have recently said they have plans for earlier clinical in future, if that's a consideration for your DS.

Newcastle have posted last years figures. Big drop in applicants !

@mumsneedwine do you think that this is because they are transparent about their UCAT threshold for interview and the fact that it is so high is driving down applicants?

@Scoobyblue yes, in part. I think only high UCATs will now apply there, which keeps driving it up. But a few years ago (2018 I think) it came shooting down because of this, as not enough applied !

I think it will stay above 2,800 this year though. Unless numbers taking UCAT are down.

So do you think UCAT 2900 SJT 1 would be ok to apply?

@Randomactofkindness yes ! I think somewhere in the last few years what is a fantastic UCAT has got a bit lost. Anything over 2780 should mean there are at least 4 Unis that are 'safe'. Even lower scores can secure interviews.
2900 will be in top 5% I'd imagine.

Caveat. Nothing is certain. Weird things happen. But still, unless everyone with a UCAT over 3,000 applies for Newcastle (& some will have taken it for dentistry), you should be ok.

@mumsneedwine thank you - from celebrating her result she is now worrying she won’t pick the right places and get no interviews - The Student Room have good advice but are very against Scotland and think Newcastle are sneaky with their figures! She’s going to speak to her school tomorrow - she just can’t face having to do the UCAT again and having to take a year out.

@mumsneedwine very interesting data on Newcastle, thanks for sharing. It’s not on DD’s radar as her UCAT isn’t high enough but I wonder if the drop was driven by less international applications (hence the much lower UCAT threshold for interview) Home threshold seems steady enough over past 3 years

@Randomactofkindness with that score she would get an interview at UEA and have a very high chance of an offer (unless they have changed the criteria) because ucat counts towards whether they offer. It also is a really nice course. She could then afford to have a slightly riskier course in the mix.

@Randomactofkindness Newcastle are not sneaky at all. They are v open and upfront about how they select !
Your DD has loads of options. Every UCAT only Uni plus lots of others if her GCSEs are good too. She really should not worry !

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor thank you - she is very keen to stay up North and gutted she is being advised not to apply to Scottish Uni’s but will definitely get her to have a look.

@Randomactofkindness Scotland is tricky as they have limited numbers for English students. These are capped by the government so it's harder to get in from down south.

@mumsneedwine I thought that too but on the TSR spreadsheet they say it’s 2870 for Newcastle (despite it saying clearly it’s 2820) and say she’s taking a risk applying there. I think we both need to step away from TSR!

@mumsneedwine yes - she’s looking at Sheffield and Leeds too so need to pick a third - possible Liverpool or HYMS 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Randomactofkindness I can assure you it's 2820 - one of my students going in a few weeks on that score.
Sheffield safe, Leeds no one has a clue as new method of choosing, HYMS a little risky unless have some contextual flags.
Good choices, UEA, Southampton, St George's.
If v good GCSEs then Nottingham and Leicester.

So can choose 4 as safe as can make them choices and Leeds could be a punt (although I do think that score should be ok, but we don't know how holistic they will be)

What would be good option with UCAT score of 3220 and all 9's at GCSE. Thank you

@mumsneedwine shes now discounted HYMS now as it’s not intergrated - GCSE’s
9’s - bio chem maths French
8’s - computing physics geography
7’s - eng Lang further maths
6 - eng lit

so good but not amazing