Medicine 2025 entry - part 2

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

Onto UCAT and personal statements now - good luck everyone!

@ipredictariot5 my DD is also a re-sit candidate and has applied to both Bristol and Sheffield too! She’s applied for a physio degree at a local uni for her 5th choice.

UCAS going in today. It feels slight surreal after such a long planning phase for it now to be effectively in someone else's hands.

Good luck all

UCAS submitted here, so hope that there is an invite to an interview or 2 soon!

Hi All, just a question how long do they have between hearing they have an interview and going to the interview? Just wondering when they should start interview practise....I don't want to put her through that if she doesn't get an interview.

Uni tend to wait till 15/10

Then they wait for ucat results. Check on ucat www when they send them. I want to say end of Oct but do check

Admin time to decide who they want to interview.

expect invites from start of Nov onwards. For some uni, its an easy decision who to interview. Rank ucat and top x get an interview. Others work out ucat, points for gcses, sjt etc and then decide who they want to interview so the process of choosing who to interview is more complicated.

They usually get a link to book an interview slot via email.

my two both had interviews in Dec. UEA had interviews in Nov last year

Many are done Jan/Feb

where has dc applied?

Others work out ucat, points for gcses, sjt

Surely for most this is done automatically at a press of a button too? It would be qualitative data that would slow things down - going through references and personal statements, reviewing rejects, WP, etc

I saw earlier Keele sends out an additional form for work experience? We haven’t applied there but do any other unis do this too?

Last year, DD’s choices all got back to her by mid/late Nov, with interviews in first 2 weeks of Dec and early Jan. But some unis stagger their interview emails (and interviews) in batches - some people were only hearing back in Feb/March. So it depends where your DC had applied. You can have a look at the uni-specific thread on TSR as that will have the info for that uni from last year, as a guide. And some unis are very specific on dates too so will be in their website.
DD started practicing as soon as the UCAS was in - she did lots of research on each of her 3 UCAT choices and what they were looking for etc. I think she treated it as another subject in her study timetable, to be honest.

I guess some unis will want to see how a ‘preferred’ batch of applicants perform at interview before deciding how many more to interview. Interviews are very resource intensive for the universities so they wouldn’t want to do many more than necessary.

We had all invitations for interview by mid November I think. Interviews were from end November until late Jan. from memory she’d done 3 interviews by the second week of December. As for interview practice, she started doing some reading prep as soon as she got her UCAT (mid sep), as we had applied very strategically and we’re pretty sure she’d get 4 invites. She ramped up the practice once the invites started coming.

Then they wait for ucat results. Check on ucat www when they send them. I want to say end of Oct but do check

Most recent information we had from UCAT was that we'll get results on 04 Nov. This was quite a while ago, though, so I'd allow a week or so beyond that in case there are any complications to sort out.

I saw earlier Keele sends out an additional form for work experience? We haven’t applied there but do any other unis do this too?

Keele doesn't do this any more, but Sunderland and Central Lancashire do. I'm not sure whether Manchester still does (it does for dentistry and physician associate studies, but it might not be used for medicine any more).

Manchester are still doing their additional form, DD has just received it from them.

Any others require additional forms you know of?

Not that I know of. I think Cambridge might, but not sure and DD hasn't applied there.

Cambridge has the SAQ which also gives the opportunity for an optional mini personal statement of 1200 characters

No - she hasn't applied to Cambridge either.
Just a waiting game now. As a first (and hopefully only) timer it's all a bit intense.

Hopefully they'll all get some interviews - let us know if anyone hears anything.

@Optimum19 - it definitely feels intense. First and (very likely) only time for us too. (Also have the fun of two sets of GCSEs and sixth form choices to contend with here this year though.)

Also crossing fingers for interviews for everyone - think it'll be at least a month based on DD's research before we hear anything.

@maybemedmum Yeah you've definitely got a busy schedule there. Mine is the baby (my other two are alot older & working- totally different fields). I meant hopefully she'll get in somewhere & not have to go through all this again next year. 😅

Hi all,
Have any of your DC been able to see their references from school? Ours said they are not allowed to see it, just wondering if this is the norm. Can’t remember from previous years

It's not really an answer to your question, @Justlikingit, but it is extremely rare to see a reference for a student applying from school/college that isn't very positive. This is one of the reasons why they are hardly ever read. In theory, the division of the reference into three targeted sections for 2024 entry was supposed to make them more uniform and therefore possibly more useful, but I think most medical schools still don't read them because they aren't going to reveal anything that might be important.

I think schools/colleges would worry that high-achieving students will get anxious that some detail of the wording of their reference will affect their chances of getting a place. This is vanishingly unlikely, and I would think it's better for them not to see it. They should, however, have talked beforehand to the person who's writing it if there are particular details they think should be included, particularly (or probably only) if they relate to extenuating circumstances.

References for graduate applicants, on the other hand... Oh boy, have I seen some spectacularly negative ones!

References for graduate applicants, on the other hand... Oh boy, have I seen some spectacularly negative ones!

That must make your day! Do you ever feel tempted to invite them to interview just to see if they are as bad as made out? 😂

We were allowed to see ours and also if they allow it, a good idea can be too get them to put stuff into the teacher reference you may not be able to fit into the personal statement. Unis may not read it, just like how they say they don't always read the PS so important stuff should be in the PS but stuff like subject olympiads etc can go on teacher reference. The PS process is changing I don't know if this year was affected by it or not

We got to see ours before it was submitted

Thank you all who responded. I guess it’s just her school.
I'm pretty sure we saw DS’s too a few years ago, but can’t remember properly.
oh well, we were just curious, but as you mentioned there is no benefit to not giving a glowing reference

Hi,
What are people doing to prepare for interviews, my DS has wrote out all possible interview questions for his 4 medical schools. Do you recommended writing model answers, bullet points?? Also is anyone paying for mock interviews.
Thanks for any help

We bought the book recommended by @Sybill above. Also, school are running mock interview sessions. Hope this will be enough….