Medicine 2026 Part 3

[MyGreyBiscuit]

Hi everyone, here's the new thread!

Out of her three medicine offers DD’s preferred option has the lowest grade requirements. I thought that you can only put an insurance which has lower grade requirements.
If so her 5th option (biomedical) would have to be her insurance?
Any advice? Thanks

Well done @Fairyfeet40 !

@Curlyshabtree I'm no expert but with multiple medicine offers I would think - always firm the university you like the most. Insurance can be higher grades requirements... I wouldn't insure non-med though, unless your YP doesn't want a gap year, and wants to do a biomed degree.

Say your firm offer is AAA and insurance "A star AA" and your YP achieves "A star A B" or "A star A star B. If the firm choice is not flexible with grade 'near misses', your YP will get rejected by their firm.

If your insurance med choice is a bit more lenient / flexible, they will offer a place even though a B was achieved, as you have A star grades. That's my reasoning anyway, but happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

I think you're right.

DD has firmed Newcastle and insured Leeds today so a decision is made, phew! All her offers are AAA so our only hope if this is not achieved is that Leeds may allow a grade drop but I don't think that would be the case. We will have a plan B by then though.

Who is still waiting for which offers still?

Waiting for Southampton BM5 - hopefully not for a long time as they said end of March.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Congrats to all those receiving Liverpool offers!

@Curlyshabtree i work in a sixth form and quite a few have same/higher grades or points for insurance. They have gone for the university they really want as their firm and the insurances are not always lower. Some have researched and seen that their insurance has places at clearing/sometimes drops grades. Others not. Put somewhere your young person would be prepared to go and be happy with that decision x

We went to the Sheffield offer holder day and DD loved it. Parents weren't allowed in the medical teaching unit but we got the opportunity to socialize a bit and ask questions - there were some lovely students there. DD also enjoyed talking at length to one of the patient educators, an older lady who was there to explain how patients volunteer long term with the med school (think it's called a community attachment scheme), to help students learn how to interact with patients, take patient history, etc. (Sorry if I'm not using the right terms, this is all foreign language to me).

Newsworthy: they're making changes to the course effective Sep 2028. This means those starting in Sep 2026 will do the pre-clinical years under the current model, and the clinical years under the new one.

Some of the changes mentioned: more focus on surgery care in the clinical years, better integration with primary care, better alignment with the academic terms at Sheffield (meaning their famously short holidays will lengthen a bit - but it will still be 3 semesters in the clinical years), slight change in when intercalation happens to make it easier to transition back to med school, increased use of simulation, bringing forward some of the exam dates in later years to allow them to study more for the final (MLA?) exams, etc.

Did anyone hear from Manchester on Friday?

Has anyone heard from Southampton BM5? They started offering this morning.

On a Sunday? Poor staff.

Perhaps they schedule them to go out on a Sunday, don't know. I remember they also sent invitations during the weekend.

Emails can be set to go out in advance 😊

Oh OK @inaeand @mumsneedwine I didn't think the unis scheduled their own emails, and UCAS is down for maintenance this weekend.

UCAS was available earlier today. DD checked hers after we saw offers on Reddit. She is keen to firm / insure and move on 😂 I just realised though, Soton hasn't sent any emails - offers were only issued on UCAS and those can definitely be scheduled.

Congrats @inae! How strange to get your offer on a Sunday! Is your daughter firming Southampton?
We haven’t heard anything yet…

Sorry for the confusion - DD didn't get an offer - I just meant she checked her UCAS portal after we saw people mentioning offers. :)

Nothing here from Southampton either @inae - we did the same thing as saw offers yesterday (Sunday) on reddit and facebook. Fingers crossed for all the YPs waiting x

I'll take that back - DD just got the offer from Southampton, 10 minutes ago. Very pleased. She can now fim Sheffield and insure Southampton. Good luck to all still waiting! 🤞

Brilliant! Congratulations to your DD @inae!!!

congrats!!! Are the grades requirement the same? we are still waiting - or at least I think we are!

Congratulations, looks like offers are coming through again which is great.

Do we know if many are still waiting?

Congratulations to your DD! 🎉

Great news @inae congrats

Waiting for Yp to get home to see if she has heard from Soton, it's likely to be her insurance if she has an offer.

Thanks all. Grade requirements are AAA for both. DD's favourite is Sheffield, so she firmed it. She is studying Bio, Chem, Physics, and Maths, which means she needs three As in any of her four subjects, to secure the Sheffield place.