Medicine 2025 entry - part 2

[HGC2]

Not sure how to link old thread, can anyone help me do this?

Onto UCAT and personal statements now - good luck everyone!

Thank I fully agree with looking more widely - but very hard to change the mind of 17 yr old!!!
she has predicted grades of A star A star and her teacher thinks A star for third A level - she is saying she should aim for A ( more realistic) but is it not better to get the highest predicted grades you can get … or am I missing something very basic here?

Many medicine offers are AAA
having been through daughter missing her AAA offer and now resitting 2 I would go for schools that want AAA. I know @mumsneedwine will be able to give better advice on predicted grades than I will

Yes my friends daughter rejected BSMS for Cambridge and really regretted it when she met students from there on a placement and found out how more relaxed and fun they were than her classmates

@Niceday203 i don’t know about this cycle, but do double check Exeter. Previous years 3 x A stars were pretty much essential for interview. Even though offers were 3 x A

Yeah you are right 3A* predicted is super helpful and more important than the final grade in a way as for most med schools you only need 3As

I also know this year people were able to get into med with less than those grades but had been predicted 3A*

I think a lot of schools probably inflate predicted grades so if your child's school doesn't it may already be a little disadvantage but the predicted grades seem good anyway

Just to say re Cardiff I think 9 x 9s at GCSE would give the full academic marks of 27 so it may be worth a go!! Also Exeter may be a goer if the three a levels are all
a star predictions but I also think they’ve changed the entry mark scheme to something quite odd so a bit unpredictable- and also check ucat deciles when published to see if 2670 is in top 3 (cut off was 2660 last year so it’s tight )..
re actual offers a good epq reduces some offers from A star A A to three As ( this is why Dd is doing it - had some shock results in her school this summer including a friend who didn’t get grades for a contextual med school offer and overall results in science were v disappointing - all her teachers are downgrading expectations for A level results this year so she feels
she can’t rely on a stars. Chemistry threshold for A star was above 90 per cent in most of the papers fir their exam board apparently)..

Why are they deciles not noniles when they divide them into nine categories not ten? Do any universities use the deciles rather than just rank them by score?

Varies by university. And yes, the terminology and handling of "deciles" is really odd. Exeter misname for instance

I think you need to have a pretty firm conversation with her. Putting choices that are no hopers on her form is just a waste of time and asking for wailing and gnashing of teeth later in the year. Time for her apply some of those situational judgement skills :-)

Some of this comes down to what does the candidate really want. Do they actually want to be a doctor, or do they want to go to the same sorts of unis as their chums who are doing other subjects? Because a commitment to the first often means letting go of the second objective.

I see this with friends of my DC. "Oh I really want to read medicine" becomes but I only want to go to Oxbridge/Imperial/Ucl or whatever. Or my niece and sister "But none of her friends are applying to Leicester - they are all going to Durham and Exeter". Well yes, because they would naturally have no interest in Leicester being a lovely med school that would like their UCAT scores because they plan to read english or business or whatever.

How about she does very strategic applications this year, probably gets some interviews practice, hopefully gets a place and then she is utterly free to spend a week celebrating the end of A levels and then settle down for an early UCAT resit if she still wants to try for different schools next year.

Do you mean Exeter in general or the way UCAT presents them? There are 10 deciles for UCAT, its just the way its reported that gives the impression that there are only 9. They only say 1st - 9th decile on their results website, but the 10th decile (for 2023) is for a score over and above 2890.

@Niceday203 if she hasn't already I would encourage her to set up an account with the student room and post her stats on this thread https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7312527&page=425 they like them laid out in a very specific format. It is not that you will get any different advice on there but she might take it better from randomers on the internet than from you.

It is hard, especially if the school is not very well informed and looks at an A* student and thinks she must go to a 'Russell Group' university. My advice would be to apply realistically this year with at least half the choices - obviously ideally all strategic. Hopefully get some interviews and offers. Go to the offer days etc. If she still is unsure then sit the UCAT again early so she knows what she is working with. If she scores really highly and has good achieved grades then she might decide to apply again and have a gap year.

There is no 10th decile. The 9th decile and above is the top 10% is scores though.

I wouldn't worry too much about decides at the above average end as most will just rank UCATs.
Exeter now use a combination of UCAT and predicted grades so if have an amazing UCAT don't need all A stars.

If a student only wants to go to certain unis (where realistically they have little chance of an interview) then, as their teacher, I'd question their desire to be a doctor. Wherever you go you'll have fun !

Oh I apologise @mumsneedwine - I should stop posting on here! I always thought each decile was 10% of the cohort score so there was essentially an "unnamed" 10th decile.

I really feel for your DD, @Niceday203 - it's such a different process and different expectations to most other courses, and generally prospective medics have found school comes relatively easily up until now. I guess she's still got a bit of time to think about it - maybe she just needs space to reassess her options and move on. Agree posting on the TSR thread mentioned above might be a good idea. I feel for you as well - inevitably as parents we are invested in the process and want the best for them, but ultimately, she has to decide what she wants to do and all you can really do is be a supportive presence.

As an aside, DD has been quite taken aback at how uninformed/misguided some of the advice prospective medics are being given at college is, now that most of them have their PGs and UCAT scores. The 'oh, they're predicted A stars, best try for Oxbridge/Imperial etc etc' attitude is so prevalent. I think it's quite hard to swim against that tide sometimes.

@Africa2go you keep posting. Think you give v v good advice 😊. It's a weird system.

Yes we experienced the same. You have good predicted grades so should apply to Oxbridge despite the course structure being entirely different to the ones dd was interested in.

I agree with this 100%

Can I just say please how very much I appreciate this thread? Even with (ancient) experience of Uni applications and much more recent experience with older DC, the medicine process feels labyrinthine.

I am so grateful the perspectives, experience and insight from everyone posting - thank you.

(Puts mic down to return to gently trying to nudge DD into thinking strategically and counter the "oh but oxbridge"/"choose the city you love" narrative from other sources)

Why are they deciles not noniles when they divide them into nine categories not ten? Do any universities use the deciles rather than just rank them by score?

There are ten categories (deciles). There are nine boundaries between them, which are the decile scores on the UCAT web site:

1st - boundary between bottom (1st) and 2nd deciles
2nd - boundary between 2nd and 3rd deciles
3rd - boundary between 3rd and 4th deciles
4th - boundary between 4th and 5th deciles
5th - boundary between 5th and 6th deciles
6th - boundary between 6th and 7th deciles
7th - boundary between 7th and 8th deciles
8th - boundary between 8th and 9th deciles
9th - boundary between 9th and top (10th) deciles

I saw one web site referring to "nine deciles, each accounting for 10% of the cohort", which is almost cabinet-minster-level innumeracy.

There are some that use deciles in selection. I know Keele give points for deciles, for example. Queen's Belfast puts scores into its own set of 6 bands. Others, like Nottingham, give points for specific ranges of scores on each subtest rather than deciles, which aren't published for the subtests.

That was my understanding but you've explained it so much better!

Absolutely agree with this - especially as the parent of a Leicester med student, which you’re right, is a really lovely med school! DD is the happiest I’ve ever seen her (albeit that it’s only day 3 😂) But she’s had some incredibly rude comments on her choice during the year. Thankfully she is mature enough not to feel the need to justify it to people who don’t know any better, but it was difficult at the start of the process when she didn’t have that confidence/knowledge.
DD always said her favourite med school was the one that would give her an interview and then an offer. Having a choice beyond that is a lovely problem to have

University snobbery is unfortunately a thing in some schools. Understanding that for medicine they choose you and one offer is enough can be hard to convey. If possible just nod, smile and walk away. Then go have a fab time at the Uni you get into.

Totally agree with @Sybill and @mumsneedwine
When dd scored highly in the UCAT, school were keen for her to take the BMAT and apply to Oxbridge! She never wanted Oxbridge nor any of the London BMAT schools so declined to do it.
I’m certain that the applications for those schools will go up massively this year as lots of students before would have been happy applying just to UCAT med schools.
Having said that, she has a few friends who didn’t do so well on the UCAT and so the BMAT was a blessing in disguise! It will certainly shake it up a bit this year with only one exam type!
Dd was also of the thinking that she would be grateful for any offer from any med school and so never had a favourite. The mantra should definitely be ‘you only need one’.

After DD went through the process last year, I do feel that when it come to Medicine applications, it's a very different and long process compared to others.
You could be still waiting on your first offer when some of your peers already have most of their offers on hand - it wasn't the easiest to go through especially the preparation starts way earlier than everyone, eg Ucat during summer.

Everyone is different, therefore what suits one might not suit others.
After attend some open days, my DD realised that she would like to stay in London due to the city life, the campus/uni town is not for her and we fully support it.

University snobbery is unfortunately a thing not just in some "school", as I did get few comments from people who knows her on-paper-stats said to me that "How could you agree to not apply for Oxbridge"?
The looks given was like I am a bad parents for not pushing her. Fair to say that I have not attend any group get together since then.

On a total different subject, I agree with @Unexpecteddrivinginstructor, this thread on the student room is a very good starting and helpful place.
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7312527