Studying medicine in Ireland

[Melassa]

My DD wants to study medicine and is going through the process now with CAO but neither of us knows much about Irish universities, so I just wanted to get some feedback from people more enlightened than us.

DD has put down only 3 universities, all in Dublin (Trinity, UCD and RCSI, in that order) as she thinks it’s easier to travel out of (we live elsewhere in the EU so she’d need easy access to flights) plus she’s unconvinced about the west of Ireland as she was told by friends who used to go to Cork every summer that it rains all the time. Not sure how true this is, but as we live in a Mediterranean country as trivial as this seems it is something possibly to consider. Also it appears the university of Limerick has a different HPAT exam? So she’d need to take it twice? Is this true?

Does anyone have any insight? I imagine the 3 universities above are stiff competition to get into. DD picked the order purely on international standing, she liked the courses for all 3. Is there anywhere else anyone could recommend? Reading up I heard good things about Galway (yes west of Ireland but if the course is good she’d probably be too busy to go outside to get rained on anyway). If DD only puts down 3 universities will it be looked upon unfavourably?

Finally, I hear accommodation in Dublin and elsewhere is hard to come by and eye wateringly my expensive. Have prices really shot up in the last year? Which are the good areas to live in to access the universities easily? Is everything easily reachable on public transport?

Hi my DD is also preparing for HPAT 2023
Its on 17 th febr. her fav is Trinity.
She has a gap year and did IB last year.
So hopefully, she can get there.
Melassa, is your girl doing HL math? If so, she get 25 more pts.It can help a lot

Moreover, since February she can be put on waiting list for accomodation in Dublin.
Go and check in online, Trinity hall etc.
So good luck in less than 2 week. Its hard.

Goodness! Thanks for the info, we’re not at all organised with anything beyond the HPAT at the moment. My DD is also doing hers on the 17th. Her maths is SL as she chose sciences and philosophy as HL, so no extra points for us, sadly.

I do wonder if mine should take a year out, the IB is a huge workload in itself and the time for practising HPAT is not very much.

This is a standard clause to study medicine in Ireland.

www.ucc.ie/en/ck701/
Applicants who have previously been unsuccessful in any Medicine programme are deemed not to be "in good standing" and will only be considered for admission to UCC’s Medicine programmes on a case-by-case basis. Applicants should include any details of extenuating circumstances along with their application.

Hello,
Please, encourage her to work hard on HPAT and if she gets 43 as predicted she is safe. After February she can work hard on IB score-its doable, not that bad, even it looks horrible.
No gap year- its boring. All her friends are away... my girl did IB last year and she thought she would never be over 40 so she did not sign up for Hpat.
However, in July she found out she got 42 so then she finally decided for Ireland. Her first choice was Bologna Italy, u just do IMAT and thats it- no high score IB needed. But when she knew she could go to Ireland with that score she decided for Dublin. We went there in sept and it was her love at the first sight:))).
..She said she would work hard on Hpat since sept till febr. and she would see. If no luck then ITALY or Prague ( we live in Prague)
Its coming soon and we all r praying. Will pray for your girl too.
Take care and GOD bless u

Thank you @Goodm and good luck to your daughter too! We are in Italy so Bologna or Rome is one of our back up options.

I think the same - as tempting as it seems, in the end they will be sorry when seeing most of their peers moving forward. Moreover, I think they would lose the training of being in school, they will forget things that they learned... I mean, if they will not get in after applying, it's another thing. But at least they should try.

My son will sit the hpat on 20th and afterwards we'll visit Cork, Dublin and Galway, to make an idea.

By the way, don't forget to register to the accommodation lottery, if you hope for a place in the uni campuses.

As for Italy, did you find any news about the IMAT for this year? It will not be Cambridge anymore. So far nothing is for sure. It's such a shame that they decided to change it right now...

Good luck to everybody!

Also, it is a standard clause to study medicine here in the UK as well.

University of Cambridge:
Applications from students who have failed at or been excluded from another medical school will not normally be considered for entry to Medicine at Cambridge.

Good luck with all your kids, I have two friends with daughters who are doctors, it is difficult but worthwhile.
I mentioned this to my daughter who works in Dublin, but yearns for Prague where she did Erasmus 😊

Hello,
Good luck to your son on 20th febr. :)
My DD loved Trinity the most in Dublin but Galway is a nice city too. It has great vibes. Smaller one but very cool student city. To be honest, Cork was her least fav., not idea why.
U will see when u get there.
Yeap, IMAT is not organised by Cambridge anymore.
They did not update anything, just that sign up time is July and the exam is in sept, as always.

egandonnion-Thanks a lot:)
Did your daughter like Prague? I live there.

She loved Prague, and would prefer to live there than Dublin...but the grass is always greener perhaps! Its certainly cheaper and easier to whizz around on trams.

Raluca- Good luck to your boy, Hope he will do fine .
Its coming soon and my DD is very nervous.
She said she wanted it to be over no matter how it goes. The waiting and anxiety is the worst.
Also we all need to wait for the results till end of June.
U will be given raw score and percentile only but it can give u a clue if u are in..
Final offer is in sept..So much waiting.
anyway, good luck and take care

Good morning ladies.
Hpat is done:)
It went smoothly.
The exam itself was ok-ish, on the level on Medentry exams.
Now, its time to wait till june.
Good luck to your kids

Thank you @Goodm !@Goodm
In our case I think I am the only stressed one. My son is zen. He's playing the guitar right now and the exam is tomorrow morning 😅He didn't use the Medentry, but the Career Services training. And the Acer resources. What annoys me is that we cannot predict anything at all. I meen, we calculated the percentage of his raw scores for each section from his preparations tests, and applied the formula related to the sections' weight, and he would be around 200 points in that scenario, but we don't know if it works like that... Nobody knows how they mark it. Let's hope for the best. Good luck to all our children!

Hello, our test is done and dusted. There was some minor drama in the morning when her log in didn’t work but the proctor managed to sort it before DD lost her cool. Fingers crossed!

for the accommodation do we just go on the uni website? Is it worth putting your name down on all of them or are you only allowed to pick one?

Hi, @Melassa
Good for you! You must feel relieved! As far as I know, for accommodation you can only apply for one location. The application window is one month (already open) and it doesn't matter when you do it during this window, as long as you don't miss the deadline. Then you see if you got lucky and if so, you pay a deposit. If you're not accepted in that uni you may receive a part of the deposit back (if you cancel the booking in certain conditions). We'll give it a try in Galway and Cork. I didn't check Dublin yet, but I think it should be similar.

As far as I know, for accommodation you can only apply for one location.

That's not the case. You can apply for accommodation at all the universities you apply to. However, you may not get the deposit back if you don't accept the place.

We lost the UL deposit for ds1 as he got his first choice of UCD. Both dd and ds2 had Galway as first choice and points tend to be lower there so we didn't apply for accommodation in the others. In Galway you can only apply for either Goldcrest or Corrib Village. The other universities had different policies but most didn't limit you that way as far as I recall.

RalucaS-
Its the best for your boy to remain calm and do something different.(sport, music)
Is he doing IB or A levels?
Hope he will do great tomorrow.
200 raw pts is an amazing score. I do not know how it is transfered into percentile, but last year 200pts was 100percentile:)
So u r on a good way.
Take care:)

Mellasa, Hope your girl is relieved and satisfied:)
We will try to apply for Trinity hall on 25th febr-they open it that day

That's not the case. You can apply for accommodation at all the universities you apply to. However, you may not get the deposit back if you don't accept the place.

Yes, I meant you can only apply for one location in each university. Indeed, Galway has 2 possible campuses to choose from, and in Cork I think there are 5 or 6. You can only choose one campus from each uni to enroll for the lottery.

@Goodm thank you! Indeed, it's better for him to relax before the exem, though eventually he decided to do a new full test again🧐

I don't know if 200 points as we calculated are anywhere close to how they set the marks in reality. All we could do was to calculate percentages of each section's right answers and considering those the points, then applying the formula [(s1+s2) 2+s3]/53

Anyway, what will be will be. He did his best. And to answer your question, he's doing IB.

Best of luck and peace of mind for everyone 🤗

Limerick advertises heavily for applications in the US, where medicine is postgrad. It's positioning itself as a superior alternative to Caribbean med schools, which is where a good many American hopefuls go if they don't get into a school in the 50 states.

Definitely put Cork and Galway on the list. The entire island is further north than the Med and winter darkness envelopes it all.

Relatives who went to both Cork and RCSI did very well. Friends who went to UCD likewise.

Is DD set on medicine or has she explored dentistry too? This was a fifth choice for a friend of mine who now has a thriving dental practice...

HPAT done for us too. All went well, difficulty on a fair level, compared to what he practiced before. All the questions were successfully attempted... Now fingers crossed for everybody and may the waiting be as less hurting as possible 😅
At least I know that we will visit Ireland with a feeling of hope in our hearts. I'll get back to you with impressions, if you care about that.
It was a real pleasure to chat with you, ladies. Being able to feel that I am not alone, was quite a blessing 🤗
Take care and best wishes for all of you!

RalucaS, my pleasure to chat with you.
Your boy gonna love Ireland, I think Galway is impressive and all the Irish people very polite and friendly.
Enjoy your trip and hope we can meet here in June sharing positive news:)
Take care