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!

Of course they can ask about political issues - and do.

Just listening to Ed Davey with Fiona Bruce on iPlayer. Good to hear him addressing the question of the situation outlined above.

So you could be turned down if you were a Tory supporter?

I imagine that if you had a particularly whacky interview panel you could be turned down for almost any personal attribute. Not that that sort of bias is ever recorded in the feedback notes. But it's fairly unthinkable that any fair panel would penalise a student for holding a particular political view. They'd be looking for general awareness not to weed out students whose political views don't square with their own. That's fantastical tbh.

They are unquestionably looking for people who support the NHS (given that this will be their employer) and the values it espouses. That is explicit. We are not talking about general politics, only politics as it affects health care. But if somebody came in and said their political views were that the NHS should be dismantled as socialist medicine, I don't think they would get very far. The expectation would be that if you hold such views, you need to go off and do medicine somewhere like the US where those views fit with the medicine as practiced.
I doubt whether the candidate was voting for Keir or Rishi would come up explicitly, as I can't see how it would be relevant to the sort of questions they ask, but if the political views were such that they seemed to the interviewer contrary to NHS values, then such a candidate would likely be rejected on that basis.

What they are unquestionably looking for is that people have some general idea of what they are getting themselves into. And too rosy a picture of the reality is not conducive to that. So they try and ascertain that people really understand how tough it is out there, and that means the better the candidates knowledge and understanding about the realities of practicing medicine today, the better. Not that one can really understand until one gets there, but at least if there is some level of awareness of the political realities within heathcare, people are more likely to go the distance, that is the theory anyway.

but if the political views were such that they seemed to the interviewer contrary to NHS values, then such a candidate would likely be rejected on that basis.

Which is somewhat ironic given some of the systems they'll be expected to comply with these days are in themselves rather contrary to NHS values.

When I said Tory, I didn’t mean they would ask if they are a Tory, although there is a significant issue in academia that Tory supporters are being excluded and those there feel they have to keep quiet. This is not a good thing whichever party you support. But given the mess the NHS is in, it does require people who can think differently about how universal healthcare can be provided. We should not be looking for doctors who ‘support the nhs’, we should be looking for doctors who ‘support universal healthcare’. The NHS is a behemoth that is no longer fit for purpose and we should not require people to worship it.

I agree, in that I doubt that the NHS will exist in its current form in a decades time. I have no idea how it will look. An obvious example is the current post-F2 bottleneck which suggests a lack of clear thinking and planning, and which despite the obvious waste of trained and dedicated young people, no one seems to be addressing with any urgency.

If I were recruiting, I would be looking for realists not idealists.

there is a significant issue in academia that Tory supporters are being excluded

I have worked in UK academia for over 30 years. The great majority of people I have worked with who have expressed political opinions are capital-C Conservatives. Until 4 or 5 years ago, so were most students.

The fantasy that academia is a hot-bed of left-wing agitation seems to be one that lots of people are willing to believe because they want it to be true, not because there's any evidence for it.

Most prospective medics are too young to vote when they interview 😊.

Apparently teaching is also a hot bed of left wing radicals. Although I've never met a single one (can't say many of us are keen on the current lot but that's for what we are seeing happen in front of our faces, nothing to do with who they are).

Anyhoo, UCAT is a tough test and 6 weeks prep time is deemed to be optimal. It is a test where over prepping can see scores dip. I've tried it a few times and I will never be going to medical school 🫣

I think also there was some research about how poorly the ucat predicts success at medical school. So if your dc doesn't get a high score this time it doesn't mean they won't make a good doctor, it is just the only screening tool they use at the moment. Many students get better grades if they retake it the next year.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/58b5a7cd03596ec6631d8b8a/1488299985267/Left+Wing+Bias+Paper.pdf

I didn’t say hot bed, though the various protests and agitation currently taking place across universities are definitely to the left politically. Though I did go back to look for the source data for my understanding. It was a poll by Times Higher Education which does put it at risk of reflecting its readership, though it seems to tie in with a previous study using sampling; https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/58b5a7cd03596ec6631d8b8a/1488299985267/Left+Wing+Bias+Paper.pdf

@Karolinska if that's not a dig you have a poor way of being able to describe things. You can think what you like, the question was not 'do you think its fair' So why bother with your irrelevant response

I think you've added zero value over the last week in your comments all of which seem worded to spark debate off topic.

FYI i'll be ignoring your posts from now - feel free to have the last word. Either you are one of those posters just out to derail, or you're just having a hard time explaining yourself with thought put into how your answers will land.

@Needmoresleep super helpful for me as DD is also dyslexic. Interestingly DD was talking along this strategy earlier this week too, which I think is quite mature of her

@mumsneedwine I have 2 with offers this year with 2450 UCAT so it is possible if not stellar at it. Just have to be very strategic.
What unis were these at? Also what is 'Insight' and how does it make UCAT not so important? thanks

My dd did the UCAT a few years ago.

She did five weeks of prep in the Summer holidays - she was disciplined and did 9 til 12 every week day morning (obviously with breaks for cups of tea, chatting etc) so that she had plenty of time to see friends, work a part time job and enjoy the holidays. She bought the book mentioned above but found using Medify much more useful and bought a short term subscription which covered the five weeks. She felt that it was relatively realistic in terms of the type and difficulty of question and was useful to practice on the computer as it replicated the exam environment. She came in the top 3% of her cohort.

For the situational judgment part of the test, she read through all the information which was available online about the values required of a doctor. It is then a matter of keeping these at the forefront of your mind when answering the questions and then going with your gut about what to do eg respecting patient confidentiality, reporting to a senior etc.

The questions are not inherently difficult but it is enormously time pressured and there is a real technique to getting through all the questions in the time, knowing when to guess and move on etc. From her experience, I would say that there is no real value in paying for expensive courses etc, it is something that the student can work out for themselves based on their strengths and weaknesses as they practice. There are explanations on Medify for the answers to each question so lots of help and useful resource there.

Good luck to everyone.

Thanks, this is useful information.

DD doing hers in August. Anyone got dates in July? Thinking is once she has had a week break then she can dive into intense revision/ practice. Her school recommended the aspiring medics aim
to do it middle of August ( obviously taking into consideration those who may have holidays booked, will make their own adjustments)

Just from dipping into it, speed seemed to be the big thing, followed by the ability to take a strategic approach. There are probably a few people who are very wrong on situational judgement, who will be good to rule out, but most will understand what is asked/expected. But I can easily believe it isn’t a good predictor of medical school success, but even more that it is not the best predictor of success as a doctor. For some areas of work maybe, but all specialisms.

DD is July. School finishes next week but no real work so will focus on it after school. Then the diary has been cleared for three and a half weeks of focused prep. Her teacher noticed that students who did it earlier tend to have better scores the those who left it late. Probably because the earlier ones focused and organised their time around it, whilst the later ones tended to take a less disciplined approach, thinking they had more time.

Quick note to reassure 2025 candidates about politics - interviewees (your dc will be so sooner than you think) will be asked general questions like What do you think will be the main challenges facing the NHS over the next 10 years? or What career paths may a doctor take after graduating from med school? They will definitely not be expected to nail their political colours to the mast (and indeed that would be a bad idea) or to have an in depth understanding of the reasons for the training post bottleneck.

Interviewers will be looking for people who can express ideas without being dogmatic and remaining open to other opinions.

DS found himself working in a team with a nurse who's an extreme vaccine conspiracist and believes in aliens the other day -part of teamwork can sometimes include shutting up about your personal opinions!!

@Sloejelly I think also more slots become available so those who don't feel that they are ready will delay the test but they might still not be ready at the end of September. You will also have some students who are applying in yr13 or beyond who have finished A levels and then devote themselves to study from now on, whereas a yr12 still has another few weeks of school. Because they might have done the ucat before they are perhaps more attuned to the revision strategy which works for them.

@SoTiredNeedHoliday Keele and Bristol. Insight into Bristol is a WP programme they run where you get a guaranteed interview for medicine if you are accepted into the summer school. Then it's down to the interview alone.

@Haffdonga my DD had one of those 😂. Never thought she'd be diagnosing measles in 2024 !

She came in the top 3% of her cohort.

Wow @Scoobyblue that is such an achievement! Your DD sounds impressively disciplined in a sensible and balanced way.

Thanks for the great advice, v helpful.