Grades for midwifery

[Mummyzzz]

My daughter is hoping to study midwifery, so I wanted to ask what sort of offers anyone has had? We’ve had a look at university websites- a lot are roughly BBB/120 points. She is worried she may not achieve that, especially biology seems difficult to get a good grade. She is doing AS maths too so would that count? She has experience as a care support worker too. Any other advice welcome.

For nursing and midwifery programmes the headline/advertised entrance requirements are way higher than is actually accepted. It sends an external marketing message that this is a quality course with quality students. Because interviews are mandatory the selection is really much more nuanced. For midwifery there is more competition because there are less spaces - many applicants will have specific maternity support work or equivalent mother and baby experiences - could she get some voluntary roles in these areas?

It’s not just the grades but in my department we get about 600 applicants for 42 midwifery places. They all have BBB.

Yes, in my experience midwifery will want the grades it asks for as they have so many applicants. In my year 800 people applied for 25 places. I wouldn’t worry too much about experience with mothers and babies but showing a good understanding that the role is about supporting women is really important. If you know any midwives then having her meet with them before she writes her application might be helpful.

DD is in her first year studying midwifery at Southampton. From memory out of the five that she applied to Southampton and Manchester wanted AAB but both reduced her offer to ABB because she was doing two sciences (bio and chem). Nottingham and York were ABB and Oxford Brookes BBB. As others have said it is VERY competitive so I don't think there's much deviation from these grades. Although all except Brookes said they wanted bio or chem a few people on her course have health & social care btec and others have done an Access to Higher Education Diploma (Health Professions/Science). Places like Brookes that take UCAS points would use the AS maths towards their total. Any work experience is so good for the personal statement and also for the interview. DD shadowed an antenatal course, volunteered at a parent & baby group and also at a charity for pregnant asylum seekers, but it is difficult to be allowed to do these things if you are under 18. I'm sure the care support worker experience will be valuable. Good luck!

I’m a midwifery lecturer. We ask for BBB. If someone has an offer and drops grades then they often still get in but it’s no guarantee. It’s such a balancing act trying to ensure places are full but that we are not over full. So we make about double the number of offers compared to places knowing that in a typical year half won’t put us down as their first choice or change their minds.

but on results day of for some reason we hadn’t previously lost half of our applicants then we would drop anyone who hasn’t met their grades. But in a normal year we’d keep them because dropping them means going into clearing which we want to avoid. The university would rather keep someone with 85 UCAS points than take someone in clearing with 120. 🤷‍♀️

my advice is for her to do lots of reading about current issues in midwifery and weave some of that into her personal statement. And be able to talk about such topics in an interview.