Medicine 2026 entry - part 1

[rockstuckhardplace]

Starting a new thread for parents of prospective medical students looking to start in 2026.

Have fun in York/Hull. Weird comment from
the medical student ! They do have to work hard but they get a lot of time to have fun too.

HYMS yesterday was great. We all loved the campus and the med students were very welcoming and enthusiastic about their course. We were also allowed to attend the talks with DD so gained a lot of useful information from them too. HYMS are very transparent about their selection criteria which seems fair, DDs GCSEs will help her but she'll still need a good UCAT.

As they can't choose whether they spend the first two years at York or Hull DD wants to see Hull's facilities too now. Newcastle next weekend which I'd imagine will be horrendously busy too but whatever the feeling about the unis DD is asking good questions and really starting to think about living away from home and the practicalities of studying for 5 years and placements etc so it is all worthwhile even if she doesn't apply to the unis we've visited.

Once question for the experienced med applicants how important would you think dissection vs prosection is? Unis mention it as a positive for dissection and DD thinks it would be an advantage but I'm not sure? HYMS do prosection, not dissection but the students didn't think it was a negative unless you wanted to be a surgeon in which case you could intercalate? I'm probably not making sense as I don't fully understand it myself.

Medic here (and also have a daughter trying for medicine in 2026). To answer your question I would say that dissection is fun (I did it in my training) but pretty useless in future medical life, even if you want to be a surgeon. The tissues don’t look and feel anything like they do in real life, there are lots of you sharing a body and it really doesn’t teach you how things fit together. So I would absolutely not use this at all as a criteria for choosing a medical school.

@menopauseGP Thank you! that is so helpful to get your perspective, I'll pass on to DD. Good luck to your DD.

From.what I can see, Oxford do prosection and Cambridge do dissection. Which suggests to me there's no big advantage in one over the other.

Medic here!
I second what @menopauseGP has said.

Only thing my DD said was you saw how the insides of every person are a bit different. They had 12 cadavers and would look at everyone’s and realise livers vary a lot. She said it helped her visualise anatomy but would not have known any different if not done it.

It would not be a deal breaker I think.

There was a very interesting article on the merits of dissection in medical education in the Sunday Times magazine last year - pretty much divided opinion amongst the experts quoted, so not sure it’s really a significant deciding factor, as @mumsneedwine pointed out.

The only other thing my own DD has said about it (her uni does full dissection) is that for some (most?) students, it was the first time that they had seen a dead body, which is perhaps is an experience that’s helpful sooner rather than later? My DD had seen plenty previously (owing to our cultural background and also her job working in a hospice) and hadn’t appreciated that it wasn’t as common, generally speaking.

Hey everyone! My DD's open day season begins this weekend. We are going together to Keele on Friday and Manchester on Saturday. Purposefully picked two very different unis to be able to compare. I will report back, as it's been helpful to read others' experiences here. DD knows not to get her heart set on anywhere and just focus on UCAT now (diagnostic mock wasn't hugely encouraging!). She has 7 9s and 2 8s at GCSE so likely to include those that score GCSEs. Big blocker for her is that she isn't doing Biology at A-level which reduces her options quite a bit.

Have fun at those unis. We have looked at Southampton only so far but got Leicester planned for 5 July. My Dd liked Southampton and thought she would be happy there. I thought the campus was not especially attractive and the lack of dissection is a negative in my view but DD did not seem bothered, and her aspirations are to be a surgeon.

Their selection process seems quite unique compared to others as they do a 20 min interview and then a group exercise. They seemed really inclusive but I couldn’t find any med students to talk to, but we didn’t try hard.

We passed building works on the way there and during the talk they explained that they have new facilities being built that are due to open Sept 27 (which is when my DD would be due to start).

As @bluefineliner said, it was great for DD to start visualising what going away to uni might be like. My DD has a lot of independence to gain before she is ready to even start her application process, so I am hoping visiting the med schools is the start of that journey.

So, UCAT prep! My DD has been trialling Medentry and was all set to commit to a 60-day subscription today. What drew her to Medentry was the app, but also the new AI chatbot feature that can support with explaining questions, so I understand.

However when we came to sign her up, it's only the Premium subscription (£175 until end of this testing period) that includes the AI chatbot so she's having second thoughts.

She's currently trialling UKCAT Ninja but might also look at Medify.

We've both spent ages looking at all the online opinions of Medentry v Medify, and I know there's no right answer.

What I want to understand is how much support she might need. She did a diagnostic mock but didn't score highly so she isn't one of those who will score well almost naturally. Is it just a question of question practice (no pun intended) or can tutoring or even an AI chatbot make a difference? She has 8 weeks to prepare, of which 2.5 weeks will be at school, so she has 5 weeks available for intensive study.

I'd appreciate the views of those in a similar situation who've been through this before.

@rockstuckhardplace I’m not convinced the AI stuff is worth the money. You can see where you are struggling but looking at the answers you get wrong. Medify is great as easy to use on phone and not too expensive, just like Medentry. Practice and speed are the key. Look at some YouTube videos (Emil Eddy is good) who give great tips to improve your score.

UCAT website explains each answer for their practice questions - when done the question look in left top corner and there’s a button saying explain answer 😊. And it’s free.

My dd used Medify (initially for free and then when she found it useful she signed up for a paid subscription for the period before the test) and the UCAT website.
She did five weeks of practice. She’s an early riser so did from 9-12.30 every morning with weekends off, allowing lots of time to see friends, relax and do other stuff as they really do need a break over the holiday as well. But everyone works in different ways so this might not suit everyone.
She definitely improved from the initial mock but it also got to the point towards the end where she started to second guess herself and she would say that she would have started to go backwards if she had more time practising. There is definitely a saturation point!
Her score on the day was her second best ever and enough to apply to any UK medical school and get an interview. It’s a test that you can prepare for but it is also a test of holding your nerve and being able to focus in unfamiliar surroundings, both of which are needed to be a good doctor I suppose.
Medify give good explanations of the answers to each question so I would say that you don’t need to pay a premium rate for the AI stuff.

Thanks both. DD decided to go with Medify last night, despite having been looking at Medentry on a free trial. She said the platforms actually look very similar, and she felt more comfortable choosing the more popular UK platform. That's as good a reason as any.

I also listened to a few mins of an Emil Eddy video, and one of the things he said was about tutoring not really helping, as the learning is in going back over the questions you got wrong rather than overloading yourself with questions or relying on others to teach you.

@rockstuckhardplace my DD has gone for Medentry but I'll happily get Medify too if she thinks it will help. Early days for her so far so she's deliberately not done the diagnostic mock yet as doesn't want to until she's watched a few of the videos on how to tackle different questions. I feel UCAT might be very tricky for perfectionists (like my DD) who are used to being top of the class, which probably covers the majority of med applicants!

@bluefinelinerspeed ! Read, if stuck or taking too long, guess, flag and move on. Better to answer all
the questions you can with 75% accuracy than 50% of questions with 100%. Do as many mocks as you can - lots on UCAT site and maths physics tutor for free.

At the Cardiff open day today. DD not loving it, which is probably for the best as it now looks like she doesn’t meet the entry requirements - even via feeder degrees or graduate entry. But useful to compare to her current preferred uni.

Morning, just preparing to go to Newcastle today, one of DDs favourites on paper so it will interesting to see what she thinks.

On the subject of predicted grades, DD has been given 3 A star predictions in chem, bio and psych which she is obviously v happy about. As far as we can see, unis don't take PG into account, so would there be any unis that would favour higher PGs that I am not aware of? (UCAT I know is the deciding factor).

Many thanks 😊.

@bluefineliner Exeter. They have a grid that shows points for mix of predicted grades and UCAT.

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/v8media/recruitmentsites/documents/BMBS_Admissions_Policy_2025_(V7).pdf

So DD and I were at Keele yesterday. We were both very impressed by the medical school. I was impressed by their attitude in selecting and developing future doctors and their statistic that they are number 1 in how well their graduates feel prepared for foundation years. The campus is nice enough (basically the very large grounds of Keele Hall) but it was just all a bit... boring. And uncool.

We were officially shown some of the top-end accommodation which was fine if a bit drab. We then took a nosy round the cheapest stuff peering in through the windows, and some helpful Estates staff let us in and showed us all the other options. The cheapest rooms were really like prison cells. I was a student myself 30 years ago but even I thought it was a bit grim.

Royal Stoke hospital is a short bus ride away, which is maybe a contrast to many city unis where the med school is next to the hospital. For clinical years everyone spends some time in Shrewsbury/Telford as well as in Stoke.

They sit the AKT at the end of yr 4 (with the option of a resit and retaking the year), making year 5 a pure dummy run for the foundation years.

@rockstuckhardplace that is interesting about Keele, we haven't managed to include it in our open day visits so helpful to hear your perspective.

We did Newcastle today and DD loved it. Went to a clinical skills workshop, a talk on the course and applying (which was very informative) and a simulation session on taking obs and assessing a patient with chest pain. All very friendly and inclusive and down to earth. I was impressed at how they appeared to look after their students.

It was interesting that they said their number of applicants had dropped due to social media warning potential applicants the UCAT was really high to get in so people didn't try. This resulted in a much lower than normal UCAT cut off and about 1500 applications in 2024.

I still think at an average of 2800 (consistent pre 2024) it is reasonably high and wouldn't be one you'd want to gamble on if you didn't reach that score.

Fingers crossed DD gets an ok UCAT so she can apply now.

@bluefineliner thanks for sharing about Newcastle. It's our local uni and DD wants to spread her wings, so isn't on our list. We were at Manchester today and DD was chatting to a girl who was at Newcastle yesterday and didn't like it but that was due to the campus and city (fair enough, her opinion). I think it seems a great place to be a student.

Interesting about the high UCAT. I guess Newcastle doesn't advertise or have a minimum UCAT threshold then? Both Keele and Manchester do. Keele's is 1700 for 2025 if I remember correctly and they use UCAT as part of their scoring model. I think DD said Manchester was 1800 but they rank based on UCAT score for interview so 1800 is a minimum threshold, and they said you need a "top third" score to have a reasonable chance of an interview.

@bluefineliner, my dd has just finished her first year at Newcastle. It wasn't her first choice originally but she absolutely loves it and wouldn't want to be anywhere else now! I'm sure she would be happy to answer any questions that your dd might have.

Good luck to everyone in the early stages of this journey...it can be a bit of a rollercoaster at times but dd has no regrets at all so far! And there is lots of really fabulous help and support on these boards. The dedication and generosity of some posters is incredible.

Minimum UCAT is a bit useless. What’s important is cut off for interview and Newcastle had got a bit high, so they changed their scoring. But people didn’t realise. It’s a bit of a game - Bristol was 3020 this year so only people with v high ucats apply, which pushes cut off up.