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!

Hello all, I am a long time lurker of these marvellous threads ( I think I began with the 2023 thread!) and @mumsneedwine I am a fan - and of you all really as we attempt to navigate this road!
My daughter has has some issues over the summer unfortunately but went ahead with the UCAT anyway and achieved an overall score of 2490 SJT3, sadly lower than any of the mocks she had been taking. Obviously this limits her choices but hey we only need 4, right, and ultimately we only need one😀- all eyes on applying strategically and hoping maybe for a wee drop in the UCAT preliminary scores.....
I have attempted to start my own version of the spreadsheet of offers/scores per uni, does anyone have an up to date version you could share with me please (trying not to keep tagging mums need wine here)?

Thanks

They don’t generally seem to have a cut-off. They just have a lowest accepted that year - which they won’t know until after they have accepted them - and an approximation of where that may be based on previous years.

Any Scottish applicants here? DD struggling to decide which 4 to apply for. Which have your DC's chosen and why? They all teach differently and come with pro's and con's!

@CycleQueen if you PM me your email I'll send you mine 😊

@CopingHagen they don't know their cut offs as it depends who applies each year. Unis get UCAT scores in mid Oct, rank this years applicants using their scoring system and then invite top 900ish for interview. Some will offer these in batches, and as they reject people they'll invite more, so lowering the UCAT each time. Some will just interview the top x amount.
Everything is a guessing game I'm afraid.

@HGC2 don't over think it. If no favourite then choose the nicest/nearest/cheapest city. Can't go far wrong with any of them 😊.

Probably a silly question, but do some medical schools publish their actual UCAT cut off prior to admission, or is it a process of deduction?

If they select on the basis of UCAT scores, the cut-off will depend on the scores of the people who apply that year. They will have a fixed number of interviews they're able to schedule, so if people's UCAT scores are higher/lower than the previous year, the cut-off will be different. Some publish the cut-offs from previous years.

See https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/smph/undergraduate/medicine-admissions#stage-2 for how Sheffield does it, for example.

Thanks mumsneedwine and KielderWater

I think that's what I thought, but was looking again at the Edinburgh page this morning which says "Applicants...whose UCAT total score falls below our cut-off score for that cycle are removed from the selection process" and wanted to check if I was missing something more formalised

Surely, it is more a question of which one to miss out? As you are applying for four out of five you will be taking in a range of expectations whichever four you choose.

The critical bit there is for that cycle - they will decide that once applications are in.

A few of them do have a cut off in the initial filter eg must be in the top four deciles (can’t remember who that is ) but most don’t and the cut off is low. It isn’t how they choose, it just chucks out a few applications at the start then the choice, as everyone says, will depend on the application cohort.

on the Sheffield link it says the below. Does that mean that last year they interviewed people down to the cut off level of 2240? Why do you think there was such a drop from the previous years? & is it likely to bounce up dramatically again?

here:

@SoTiredNeedHoliday I think it's wrong I'm afraid. Unless something v strange happened after interviews were done (students were rejected with 2700).

@mumsneedwine your answer makes the most sense to me as well, as its a very big drop and is identical to their minimum threshold

@SoTiredNeedHoliday I have asked them but no reply yet. I had a student rejected with 2700 and great stats so interested in the answer.

@mumsneedwine I can't work out the points for Hull & York, all I can see is the below. Is there somewhere it tells you how to calculate the points, EG what is a 8 worth at GCSE and What are the SJT 1,2,3 worth etc

Might help.

www.keele.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/undergraduatecourses/medicine/medicinehowtoapply/#shortlisting

Hull and York are rather elusive with their scoring and they respond to their FOIs refusing to provide the information of their exact scoring. I found a ‘rumoured scoring’ on a forum when I googled it - you could try this but it’s not confirmed so unsure how accurate it is.

Sorry. Sent you Keele

www.hyms.ac.uk/medicine/applying/selection-procedure

I split each section equally. Eg GCSE best 6 out of 30. So assume a 9 gets 5 points, 8 gets 4 etc. But it's a guess as they don't give any more information.

I think you are right @mumsneedwine because they did tell the students their score when interview offers / rejections came through. I think we worked out that it was 15 for SJT 1, so presumably 10 for SJT 2 and 5 for SJT 3. You have to reverse engineer it from their calculations, although of course they could change it another year.

And can you remember roughly what lowest score was called to interview?

It was a couple of years ago, I think it was fairly high maybe 75? @mumsneedwine might have the threshold from last year. It is hard getting an interview if non contextual and without a high SJT/UCAT.