Medicine - average UKCAT score

[noddy33]

Hi my daughter has just got 640 score which is just average. She has 6 A* and 4A in science subjects etc and doing Chem, Biol, Maths and Eng Lit AS. Doing work experience and vol work etc. All pretty good but I'm concerned the UKCAT score will disadvantage her in getting an interview.
I know she has to go through each university policy to see where she stands but has anyone any advice now? Although the university might state they accept a lower score, many applicants will be higher and I doubt she will make the grade. Thanks

Of course :)

I applied to Leeds, Leicester and Newcastle

I never heard from Leeds apart from an acknowledgement of the application. I have my offer from Newcastle, and I got an interview from Leicester. I didn't go to the interview and withdrew from both Leicester and Leeds because I recieved the offer from Newcastle

Newcastle needs a higher UKCAT score than 640 though, and i think Leicester are going to be scoring the UKCAT this year as well so I think thats out as well

I almost applied to Southampton, but i changed my UCAS form before sending it in, because I didn't think I'd be happy there. However, there was no problem with my grades. Their UKCAT cut off for 2013 entry is 2500 (625) I think. I know you need a very good PS for there because they don't interview (only medical school which doesn't)

The Student Room's Medicine Wiki is the best place to look at entry requirements apart from the university websites themselves, obviously you need to double check everything you read elsewhere. However, all the information I've ever got off TSR checked out fine.

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Medicine

You can compare all the medical schools UKCAT policy at a glance there, as well as A level requirements etc

I advise making a list of every single med school in the UK, then crossing them out one by one until you are left with those you could apply to and get a place at. Then look at teaching (PBL, integrated, traditional etc) methods and go for the ones that fit D the best, because they are vastly different

thanks for sound advice xRavenx. I will let her see your response. At the end of the day, she has to make up her mind about whether to apply at this stage or go for 3 year audiology with a view to 4 year fast track medicine.
Fab to be going to Newcastle, that is a difficult university to get into so congrats again.

Honestly, when it comes to Medicine they're pretty much all equally hard to get into

Bear in mind how competitive graduate entry medicine is - far far more competitive than undergraduate

she needs to think pretty hard about Cardiff. They score GSCEs as 3 points for A* at GSCE and 2 for an A and last year the cut-off for interview was 25 points. The year before it was 23 points but they have suggested it may go up this year. Short courses probably don't count.

Although all med schools are competitive you can rule yourself out easily by failing the computer sift. UEA and Brighton don't use UKCAT a lot and she could look at those. Birmingham don't do UKCAT and if she has A* in maths, eng lang or lit and sciences it's worth a look. Not sure what they require for the AS though.

In addition to teaching style she might want to think about interview style and when they decide, it's hard waiting until March for all your choices.

DD decided to apply for medicine. 3 of the 5 choices. I don't really think it is a good idea but I accept it has to be her decision. She says if she didn't try she would always regret it so there wasn't much I could say to that.
It's been a hectic couple of weeks for everyone getting the personal statement ready and choosing universities etc. If anyone has a child thinking about it, I would advise to start planning it from GCSE year - vol work etc.

I have a daughter at one of the medical schools featuring in this discussion who became disabled during her first year ( developed after her course started). She has received very poor treatment from the medical school, including failing to provide her with support after being requested to do so by her consultant. The university proudly boasts about it's services and support for students but in our experience failed to actually deliver any of them. I urge you to please consider with your children when they apply what the particular university is really like, please consider satisfaction surveys etc. Sadly due to the application process being so dreadful, most students are just grateful to have a place and I feel this leads to an arrogance within medical schools. I also believe that failure/drop out rates should be looked at in the light of too many applicants admitted to the first year being unable to be admitted to subsequent years due to capacity issues. Just be aware!

Sorry to hear of your DDs experience. While I will be proud if my DD gets a place, I will be more concerned about whether she will be able to cope and most importantly, if she will be happy.

My daughter stat her ukcat, but unfortunately she got a low score of 580, she is really passionate about study medicine and has predicted grades of A*AA. she is unable to apply to her preferred uni due to the low ukcat score. we have considered universities that do not require the ukcat, however they require biology and my daughter dropped biology has she got a C in it at AS. we have also considered uni's that don't take ukcat into much consideration like leeds and st georges but st george require a minimum of 500 in each subtest of the ukcat. her lowest was 490 and highest 720. i feel like we are at the dead-end, shes been through alot since the beginning of her A-levels (loosing 3 of her cousins to a terrible accident). is there any other uni that dont take ukcat into much consideration, at least i would hope she can apply to 2 medicine and 3 biomedicine.

Zainabb - would your daughter be in a better position working on getting those A level grades, and applying the following year, giving her chance to reallly improve those UKCAT scores and spending the year working in a relevent area - care assistant, ward clerk etc which would improve her personal statement and make her more confident at interview.
If she did biomedicine that is a very expensive course and it is harder to get the graduate medicine places
One year working will also help with the medicine course.
My DD would have benefitted from a year out but had to start in 2011 to avoid the fee increase.

Student room wiki here www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/UKCAT Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton and Sussex and UEA either dont use or dont fuss much over UKCAT. I think Birmingham, UEA and Brighton require a better biology grade. Biomedical science courses may not be feasible without a better Biology grade.

Realistically I think she either needs to resit the UKCAT and perhaps apply next year (ideally resitting the AS biology too), apply to a course with a foundation year, opt for the few courses (e.g Bradford Clinical science www.bradford.ac.uk/courses/view/?c=clinical-sciences-medicine-with-foundation-bsc-4-years#5) that allow transfer to medicine or consider a different career, perhaps in chemistry or pharmacology.

To be honest I remember taking this exam and it was the best thing about our entire learning process pre-university. The thing is these days kids can get A*s easily because of the way teachers push kids to do mock papers and the decreasing difficulty of exams. The UK CAT was the only thing that differentiated from individuals that put in hard work and those that were just genetically superior in terms of intelligence. Everyone show embrace this fact and think maybe if my child can't get into Medicine then she wasn't meant to do it and try something easier like dentistry.

UKCAT Average Scores 2015 (from here)

Verbal Reasoning - 577
Quantitative Reasoning - 685
Abstract Reasoning - 640
Decision Analysis (replaced by Decision Making for this year)