Medicine 2025 entry

[HGC2]

Inspired and slightly terrified reading the 2023 entry threads and how much prep has to go into a medicine application!

DC wants to do medicine, probably in Scotland as a Scottish student, doing well at school but this doesn't seem to be enough! School has little / no experience of applications for medicine as a not fantastic state school!

Can anyone advise what work experience / volunteering they will need (currently volunteering at sports club with hope of job)
what are the spreadsheets that people talk about?
How do you strategically apply?

I have one child at uni and they just applied and got a place, this seems like a whole other level!

Thanks for the tips, will pass these on to DD. Now she has a date, it’s all starting to feel very real indeed.

Hi @mumsneedwine. Please may I PM
you also ?

@Honeylemonandginger please do. No need to ask 😊

Just wondered why you hadn't found the BMA helpful.? You also said months (not years), so sounds like a recent decision.

The question of which medical school is a bit premature, as first you need your UCAT score and then your strategising as to where you might get an interview.

Of more relevance is choice if either you have an insane UCAT, so you might have a chance of going anywhere (but then, depending on how good you feel you are at interviews, there are places that give you a fillup for a good UCAT, while there are others that it is all on the interview, and places where interview to offer ratio makes entry more difficult than others, so with an insane UCAT you might be better of prioritising somewhere where the interview to offer ratio means you are more likely to get in). Some of the people with insane UCATs only get one or no offers, despite four interviews, because it does need a different sent of skills.

BUT if you are in the fortunate position of then holding two or more offers, that is when the choice really does become more relevant. One of the things my DS says is that although he knew that Nottingham was very heavy on anatomy, he didn't realise that meant that they actually have more anatomy on the internal exams as well than other, less anatomy heavy, medical schools. Having decided that actually anatomy is not the part that really interests him (absolutely no interest in being a surgeon), and he might well have preferred pro-section to dissection, he might have made different choices (although he loves the city of Nottingham and the university environment, and you do have to live wherever for 5-6 years). But he didn't know about the anatomy until he made his choices and went to medical school.

There is a lot of this sort of stuff that he could tell you now about choices - but let's prioritise (also good if you are going to be a doctor). Not much use falling in love with a medical school if you can't get in, and so, so many applicants simply get no offers at all (@mumsneedwine do you have the statistics for last year? One of the recent years I think it was something horrific like 15-18% of applicants for medical school got a place). Once you have your four offers, then start asking around about which medical school. Obviously if you physically will struggle to get to a place, it is not a good place to be, as practicalities like taking all your stuff back and forth are also important, but the process is really very grueling and tough.

No stats of no offers out yet. But the mantra is 'you only need one offer'.

Maybe I am very naive about the process (I am) but don't you to think of all these things though? If the chances are you might only get one offer, you need to make sure all four places you put down are ones that you would go to. I know for us London and Bristol would be very expensive and the South coast would be very far (we are North East). I guess we have to assume enough prospective students at the opposite end of the country feel similarly... (not that there are many options in the North East). I agree it would be pointless to decide to like anywhere too much before getting UCAT.

@ColouringPencils but you have to apply to the ones where you'll get an interview. If you have all 9s, a stellar UCAT of over 3,000 and SJT 1 then you can choose. But otherwise you need to fit the stats.

Make a shortlist of where you currently like for the course, city etc. Rule out any that don't fit your GCSEs, predicted grades or A level choices . Then can cut to 4 when have UCAT.,

With respect, no one asked about deaneries. It’s great your DD’s doing well post graduation, but on this thread, the focus is on actually getting a place at university to study medicine. And not everyone will, so your musings on whether your DD will still do well career-wise despite not doing her F2 in London is a bit, well, tone deaf IMO.

<goes back to lurking>

I disagree, I think it is interesting hearing about DC that are further along the process and with the benefit of hindsight. Also useful to think about placements, as it does seem very different at different unis. I am grateful for all the insights, even though our DCs may not get any offers as far as we know. We all know it is a big risk.
The main thing it makes me think is that getting into medicine is really hard and that's why people who have been through it (as parents) still want to share their experiences and learning, even several years on. Reminds me of how I felt about the early years of parenting!

Sorry, was responding to the earlier debate. (Probably should have stayed well away, especially if it came across as tone deaf.)

I think though that my last point about looking at placements offered to medical students is valid. Having free accommodation can make a big difference to cost. Important especially for years 5/6 when students no l9mger get loans. The NHS bursary is not generous. It one of those things that you may not think of in advance.

Again sorry.

It definitely made me think of cost of placement accommodation,@Needmoresleep. It is useful to think about . Tbh I am kind of terrified of the costs of studying for 5 years anyway. I have a younger son, so there would probably be 2 years overlap and I have no idea how we would manage. We earn too much for anything more than the minimum loan, but not by much at all! So all these tips on unis that potentially make it more affordable are gratefully received.

Thanks.

DD had several friends who did not have students loans. Either because they had already taken a degree or came from a part of the UK that did not offer them. (Northern Irish students don't get loans, and only have one local medical school to apply to, and Scottish students may have similar issues when wanting to borrow to cover fees.) One of her peers was a mature student, with a wife, kids and a mortgage, whilst others clearly had to count every penny. Medical schools also vary in terms of how much of the summer vacation they eat into with pre-sessional stuff.

Medical schools will be used to this, and it is a reasonable question to ask at an open day. Graduate students were able to get free fist year accommodation by working as senior residents in halls, lots did HCA shifts and worked through vacations, and negotiated placements with free accommodation, raiding the nearby supermarket for food with yellow stickers and cooking together. One way or another they seemed to manage. DD was lucky to have a car, but alway found herself with three passengers as the medical school seemed to check that sufficient cars were going to GP or other placements.

On the UCAT tests I have been told that some centres can be very noisy so it might be worth taking earplugs.

We are in Wales. Have been reading some of this thread. DS will apply to Cardiff - he has a place on a medical summer school next month, but is far too laid back. Managed to pin him down and going to Birmingham this weekend and Liverpool in sept. He hasn't even looked at UCAT yet, just finished AS levels and waiting for biology Olympiad results. Doesn't help that he has failed his driving test twice so is focused on doing that as well 😫
It's really hard to know how likely he is to get an offer. He has good GCSEs - 10 A*s but I would imagine so have most other applicants.

Yes, on the one hand, but on the other, if you won't get an interview (or if the interview to offer ratio is very bad, so you don't get an offer despite the interviews), then it doesn't matter how accessible the university is, you aren't going there.
One of the things that we (ie DS and I) did was to think of it as a two year process, and if he didn't get in first time, then to try again - at that point the BMAT existed, but he decided after doing his UCAT not to do it given it was the middle of term and he wanted to concentrate on his A levels and interviews, but if he hadn't got in first time, he was definitely planning to do it second time around. That made it easier to pick universities the first time, on the grounds that it was also a trial run. But we picked only one that he really liked but was risky for interview (and in fact he didn't get an interview). We didn't know about the interview to offer ratio, so picked Liverpool where he knew he would get an interview, but didn't end up getting an offer, and argueable in retrospect that was a mistake given how many people they interview for the offers they give, but given he got two other offers, it didn't matter. And yes, it is brutal, which is why I am still lurking on these threads. It was a very stressful year.
But DS is also interested in medical education (that is his home base for his dissertation for his BMedSci) and the whole system and how it works (or doesn't), so he remains interested in these kinds of questions. He says he can always take a year out of the system and do a masters later in areas that interest him (eg after F2), you don't have to incalcate. There do seem to be a whole range of other options. There are different kinds of research, not all of the lab based.

DS seems to think that sometimes if you do a masters post F2 there might be other kinds of funding available, although I may have got that wrong. Depending on what you are doing of course. And at that point there might be locum shift work you can do as well.

And there are other considerations. DS just told me there has been some research that shows the A&E consultants have a five year lower life expectancy than even other doctors (sigh). If it is not public health (and the bigger picture), then A&E is where his heart really is, but everybody says that it is too brutal on the family life and he shouldn't.
And different things inspire different people. DS shadowed a paediatric A&E consultant for work experience (note, he only got that because he was involved for a number of years with a disabled children's charity, and this particular A&E consultant volunteered her time at the charity, and he asked her if he could shadow her), and the really formative experience for him was watching the team in A&E dealing with this kid who had fallen head first onto concrete from a second story. The ambulance of course radioed ahead to say they were coming, and he watched the team form with the doctor at its fulcrum and then move as one to stabilise this kid - and he was like - this is what i want to do! And when I said to him this year, when he was so, so busy and I really wasn't sure he was managing his medical studies - maybe you should give up co-responding with the ambulance service - he was like - but doing this reminds me of exactly why I want to do medicine. It is not that he is not academic, he got the top possible grades for his A levels, - but it is not what drives him. And even in terms of research he is interested in making the NHS as a system work in the real world, not research in a laboratory. But understandably others have other interests.

The main thing it makes me think is that getting into medicine is really hard and that's why people who have been through it (as parents) still want to share their experiences and learning, even several years on. Reminds me of how I felt about the early years of parenting!

Fair enough @ColouringPencils However if like me you also had an older child interested in applying for medicine and had read past prospective medic threads, you’d have seen the exact same v small group of parents - with a name-change or two - who’d already been through the trenches make the same points about their DC and have the same arguments again and again every year and dominate the space, to the point that one year the parents of applicants for that year left their own thread and started another one. And that year was several years ago and it’s still going on.

But I’ll get my coat.

@SkillDuggery oh right, that makes sense! Yes, I am new to all this (probably very obvious haha). Did your older DC do medicine or go on to something else in the end? I think we will also go to look at biomedical sciences at the local open days we go to this weekend.

@Bimkom so Liverpool have a high interview/offer ratio? How did he know he would get an interview? Liverpool is one I thought could be a good option for my DD...

@ColouringPencils don't over think it. The UCAT needed for Liverpool is lower than many places and they interview a lot. But this is good if you think you'll do well at interview.

Go see ones they like. Get UCAT. We can then shortlist based on most likely chances of interview.

Not all students have all A stars, and you do not need them (except for Cardiff where you also really need to be Welsh as they are given priority). Many students get in with 6s and 7s - just needs careful selection.

Yes, this summer I am encouraging DD to think about UCAT, volunteering, few open days, maybe visit some cities not on open day. After UCAT we will see what looks likely.

With the high chance of not getting a medicine place, I feel like she should also be considering other subjects at this stage, but obviously there is far less pressure from them to actually do anything. She is also not against a year out.

Colouring pencils, I do hope experience of someone who has been through the process is helpful, even if not everyone agrees. I received huge valuable help when DD was applying from posters who had been through the system, including a couple with trenchant views (whatever happened to Petrenas?) with very kind and constructive suggestions, some of which made all the difference, and others that went into forming Plans B & C. DD got a poor UCAT, and we were struggling to find places for her to apply and it was tough. I also hope that some diversity of view is helpful. Mumsneedwine and I disagree on a few things, which I flagged up when I mentioned intercalation, but heyho. If there were only one set of priorities, applicants with uniform results and talents, and one set of course the whole thing would be not be as confusing.

(Bimkom, I understand that post grad loans are available, and there might be specific ones for medical related subjects. The advantage of doing the academic year as an undergraduate intercalation is that you get student loans for 4 years and then the NHS pay fees and a small grant for the remaining 1 or 2 years. Ie you don't have to pay fees for the extra year. Also some intercalations are Bachelor and some Masters. I am not sure if you can do the Bachelor ones later as a stand alone.)

Another thought on costs. It is common for medical schools, either via outreach, foundation years, or similar to seek to recruit local students. I understand that they are interested in training doctors likely to stay in the area. This means that there will be plenty who live at home. It does not seem to make a huge difference. You might spend the first year in hall, a typical London approach, but med students have lots of contact hours, and are together on placement, so get to know each other quickly. There are also a host of medic societies. It is worth looking closely at local medical schools and seeing if there is a fit. There has been a huge expansion in the number of places so it ought to be easier.

My further advice would be to consider making it a two years process. Not least places do open up during the summer and people who were rejected earlier can be reinterviewed, especially if they make the grades. (My instinct is that as this is the first year of everyone using UCAT, things could be quite fluid, with more than usual ending up in clearing.) DD eventually had three interviews in March, which resulted in two offers. By then she was already so invested in planning her gap year that she asked to defer.

Who gets rejected? If about 80% get rejected, there are presumable a relative large portion of those for whom an objective observer could see they were unlikely to get through?

And what is the success rate for reapplications? Higher as more determined? Or lower as were previously rejected and some of the reasoning for that still applies?

I remember a talk about applications for graduate places where the university said the standard was much higher as there was much more self selection happening (though success rate was low due to number of places available).