Medicine 2026 part 2

[mumsneedwine]

Thought I'd start another one.

Ah thanks @SuperSue77 - I thought it was but seeing some of the results on here (and what was required for Leeds and Manchester - now not so sure)! DD has no contextual but 9s and 8s at GCSE (plus the As and A*s predictions at A level)so we'll just keep fingers corssed. She's pretty resilient and is prepped to not make it this year and try again next year so could be worse!

Go, go junior @MyGreyBiscuit !!

Aw thank you… and I feel certain she will hear from them soon. I don’t know about your other two but given that you also have Sheffield and Southampton and we know those are abit later, I’m hopeful you will hear.

Keep me posted! DD is all set to do some interview prep with your DD at Xmas for Sheffield and HYMS 🤞🏻

Just booked the uni specific one £45 for an hour we will see how it goes

Nottingham a108 gateway interview offer received yesterday

I would be really interested to know the stats of the Leeds interviewees, to whom many congratulations

A friend’s son is applying next year and really likes Leeds but their selection criteria are not as clear as for some other places and he only has one chance (because of home fee rules for Brits living in the eu) so he sensibly is planning to be cautious in his application.

Hi,

DD has a Leeds interview 99999999998 GCSEs, 2180 B2 UCAT 3xA star predicted. We asked at the Leeds open day and were told 8 and 9 are scored differently. We chose Leeds because (as well as being our nearest uni) they weighted GCSEs and it has worked in her favour. She has applied to others that have lower min GCSEs too but we did try to be strategic.

Seems every year there are unexpected decisions by unis which is what makes the whole thing so stressful!

Just to add DD has a peer also with Leeds interview with a UCAT lower than 2000, similar GCSEs to DD but contextual.

ah thankyou @Randomactofkindness - your lovely DD was SO lovely and brilliant when we went up to Sheffield!!

From what I’ve seen on other social media sites so far, for a non contextual applicant, you need mostly 9s at GCSE and a 7th decile ++ Ucat score for Leeds. They are annoyingly opaque but you can work it out from the interview offers and rejections coming through. We opted for Manchester instead, and just missed the Ucat cut off (by 20 points) but would also have been rejected from Leeds as they need so many GCSE 9s.

How smart do people get for in person interviews? DD has a suit (and has decided to claim a silk shirt of mine to wear with it 🙄) but then I thought it might be a bit more smart casual. Don't want her to feel over or under dressed.

It's very unfortunate Leeds doesn't disclose their scoring scheme. The lack of transparency made a lot of people waste a choice on them. Here's an interesting profile from FB group. It seems genuine:

We’ve received all five responses now and I know this kind of information has been useful to me so here it is in one go! UCAT 2040 B1, 999999888 (maths and English Lang were 8s), predicted 2A* and A, non contextual, non Welsh, home student.

Interview invitations from Leicester, Cardiff and Birmingham. Rejection from Leeds. Offer for Biology at Bristol. Good luck everyone, this is quite the process!

Sorry about Manchester @Vista123 hope you r YP got the other 3.

Some people wore suits and ties (ties mostly men!), some more smart casual - smart trousers and shirt or smart top and cardigan. My DS was ‘smart casual’ as he felt more comfortable in that. He actually wore the same clothes he wore to his work experience. But if your DC feels more confident in a suit then that is fine too and you won’t worry about being too casual. Though so long as you are clean and generally well presented they shouldn’t count clothing against you as clothing could be a proxy for deprivation - poorer candidates unable to afford interview clothes.

My DD wore a trouser suit with a thin knit jumper underneath - she said she felt comfortable and smart - she wore this for all 4 interviews

Well, DD is out.

I shared previously that she was a marginal candidate as she had the wrong A Levels (no chemistry) and the wrong GCSE Maths grade. She decided late (i.e. this January) that she absolutely wanted to study medicine so it was always a long shot. She applied for the one single medical school that she was eligible for and that wasn't 7+ hours away from home and she has not been given an interview.

Onwards and upwards to Plan B. She has offers for Biomedical Sciences from three universities that have transfers into medicine after year 1 or 2 so she needs to decide which one she wants.

She's taking a gap year as well, and might use that year to explore medicine in our home country. We didn't do it this year as it was too much.

I'll probably unfollow this thread in a bit but just wanted to say a huge thank you to @mumsneedwine and best of luck to all your aspiring medical students ❤🍀

Good luck to her. My DS is applying for graduate medicine following a Biomed degree. He’s applying this year having taken a year out to work in an hospital and a care home but a few of his friends obtained medicine places for the year immediately after graduating. It’s hard but definitely doable. It’s a good idea to build up work experience on the holidays as some of the unis demand very specific work experience. There are good threads on the student room with helpful advice and stats.

No Unis require specific work experience for medicine. They do like to see commitment so long term volunteering good, but can be doing anything. Some knowledge of NHS but this can be a MOOC. Just didn't want anyone reading to think they need to be doing lots of wex.

It's tough this year, so many applicants with v high ucats. But you only need one

DD has received all four interview invites and a UCL Biology offer today. Thanks to the mums here, we’ve just booked Medic Hut for prep before their price hike! Wishing you all successful application journey!!

Oh, DD said, her offer from UCL is medical science

Many GEM unis do - and OP was talking about applications after a further degree.

Warwick require 70 hours of health or social care experience in the last 3 years. They are very specific about what counts. For example, working in the admin team in a hospital / GP practice or a school for special needs children DOESN'T count.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/study/ugr/applying/entryreqs/workex/

DD has an interview at Leeds. UCAT 2310 B2. GCSEs 9988888877. Predicted 2A*, 2A

Fantastic news on all the interviews. Coming nice and early this year.

@N0Tfunny apologies, Warwick GEM do like a few weeks of some kind of healthcare experience. And they do often take graduates from other medical related courses as it's GEM. No undergrad courses require wex (because it's so hard to get !).