Should we care that 50% of state schools didn't produce any medicine applicants in 3 years?

[legallady]

Well if no one from those schools wanted to study medicine then maybe not but if they are not achieving the grades to be able to apply or are not being given the correct advice then maybe we should.

Certainly it seems wrong that half of applicants in that time frame came from independent and grammar schools. It suggests that our qualified doctors a few years down the line will come from a very narrow demographic - similar to our lawyers and politicians - and that can't be good for our society.

What (if anything) is going wrong?

legallady
Do you have a link for your headline stat BTW
is it 11-16 schools?
or 16-18 6th forms ?

because if its the latter its an utterly bilge statistic
as colleges like Sparsholt are not aiming to get kids to Med School

"My understanding is that the 'professions' are largely becoming 'hereditary"

Medicine has always run in families, in Britain at least, hasn't it?

People with doctors in their immediate families find it much easier to arrange work experience and relevant enrichment activities, and generally sound well clued up in the demands of a medical career because it's been part of their household for as long as they can remember. And they speak the lingo.

Also, given the number of state school, the number of children educated within the state system and the number of very good and equally demanding career choices out there, it doesn't seem all that surprising that 50% of state schools had no medicine applicants. Medicine is not the only career choice for DC who are exceptional at the sciences.

Sadly nothing new
When I was at school (mediocre comprehensive in the north) and choosing my GCSEs it wasn't even possible to select all 3 sciences as they were only available in 2 slots in the timetable, I suspect it never crossed their minds when putting the timetable together that someone might want to study medicine, dentistry or veterinary at Uni and need all 3.

Any volunteering or charity work experience that shows experience with health problems and social deprivation is a positive for prospective medical student. Possibly teenagers in a rural setting requiring transport might find access to such experience harder than somebody living in an inner city.

Summerends
You are missing the point.
If the poor kids are not at school they are out seeking work or signing on.
If they turn down a JobCentre job "to volunteer at a Medical centre"
they are likely to lose their benefits
or get sent to stack shelves in Tesco on workfare

being able to take time and money to go volunteering on the off chance is not affordable to over half the population

having the spare cash to take a train to London and buy lunch there is way beyond the means of low income families the ones whose whole take home family income is less than a set of private school fees

I agree Talkin, my point was that this statistic gives a very superficial overview about where pupils come from.

My DC just didn't believe it, they claim their fellow students on their courses are mainly former state secondary pupils.

I thought medicine applicants were expected to have A-levels in all 3 sciences. If you haven't already done all 3 at GCSE then you're on a back footing before you even start.

What are you on about TiP? Most med school applicants are school children, they are not 'signing on and likely to lose their benefits if they don't take a JobCentre job'.

And why do you keep talking about going to London or some other city centre? There are loads of opportunities closer to home.

Talkin a DC who is from a social background that means they need to work part time to support themselves in the sixth form won't need volunteering experience of social deprivation, they will have that experience first hand. Ditto if they are the carers in their family. What is more of a problem is them accessing the right academic framework for the grades needed, even with adjustment.

This thread and the report tells us two things. The first being if you have not been educated in a Private, Grammar school or have educated parents the odds are totally stacked against you. The other thing this report shows is that bog standard or the majority of Comprehensives cannot prioritise the very bright pupils over the weakest pupils. A mainstream comprehensive school would be breaking its remit by attempting to give the required support at the inevitable cost to the rest of their pupils.

People need to wake up and realise that real "Comprehensive schools" not the fluffy ones Mumsnet children attend are unable to help children. They are incapable of getting their pupils on to academic courses or in to careers as diverse as the Media or Medicine . The reality is that most comprehensive schools were never set up for the reason of getting pupils in to high flying or academic careers ,but to save money by educating everybody together.

I don't believe that anyone determined to study medicine couldn't "afford" to volunteer in a local care home for two hours a week! There is no minimum tariff for work experience to apply for medicine. To say that you need to be affluent is ridiculous!

I would agree that you don't need to be affluent, but you do need some degree of support, guidance and encouragement from either your school or parents.
I doubt many places at medical school are offered to kids from bog standard comps who don't have educated and/or motivated parents - I'm sure there will be the odd exception that proves the rule but doubt very much there are many sadly

summerends your comment is unbelievably condescending.

It's like saying rich kids need never be chosen for school trips as Mummy and Daddy will have already taken them in the hols.

Those with motivated academic families in and around selective schools have NO idea what it's like to come from one of the 1/3 homes with no books.

smokepole - is there any evidence that comprehensive schools cost less than the old grammar/secondary modern system???? I would have thought the old grammar schools were pretty cheap to run, because they didn't bother with all that expensive equipment for teaching practical subject, and that to turn them into comprehensives was actually quite expensive.

Talkin I know how resistant you are to accept there is any problem with the educational system as it is vis a vis applications for the most selective courses at the most selective universities .

But the fact is, there is a problem.

Yes, internships and voluntary stuff doesn't help in some industries (arts, media, publishing, fashion, politics, the bar etc) but that is not the issue with medicine applications.

No application for med school needs to be accompanies with a stint shadowing a world-renowned brain surgeon for two weeks! Volunteering at the local care home, or with St John's Ambulance, or any local hospital is fine. Universities are simply looking for commitment to real people in the real world.

What lets applicants down each and every time is the wrong GCSE choices, the wrong A level choices and the wrong grades!

And this issue is replicated across the board on all the most competitive courses, which will result in in the continuance of the status quo!

As for numbers of privately educated and grammar schools at sixth form;

More DC defect to them from non selective state than vice versa. Your observations of your DD's school do not follow the national trend.

Those DC leaving grammar and independent at sixth form often have no choice. You've said yourself that your DD has noticed how weak the pupils are from the various private schools. There's probably a reason for that .

Talkin not condescending, the reality is that medical schools would welcome with open arms a student from a socially deprived background versus a student from a MC background with only medical shadowing experience. The issue is the support to achieve the academic standard not (as WF says) the perceived necessity to shadow brain surgeons or GPs.

"Aren't grammar schools state schools too?"

It depends on the LA. We don't have grammar schools round here - no eleven plus. The only grammar schools are private and cost £££. DD's school has grammar school in its name, but it is a very old school that has kept its name. It is in fact a very good comprehensive school.

Talkin' I am not surprised if would-be medics are not getting very far if they fail at the first test of initiative.

DD spent the summer working in a care home, just over the boundary from the County you live in. Initially they said they would not pay her as she was only 16. However she was sufficiently diligent and they were short staffed, so they ended up adding extra shifts and started paying her. Mainly kitchen duties but lots of having to be cheery with elderly ladies, help them with their food, and working with colleagues from all sorts of backgrounds. You certainly did not need to be from a private school, and indeed the other summer worker was a local 17 year old saving up to buy a car.

One thing she did notice was a difference in aspiration. DD was there when she got her GCSE results, and whilst her crop of A*/As would be considered good but not stellar in London, they were seen as extraordinary on the South Coast. Implying that at local schools As/Bs would be seen as good enough. In medicine this is not so.

I suspect that there are plenty of schools, often with solid middle-class catchments, who have not got the message across to their pupils that there is a big tough competitive world out there which is expecting top grades in the right subjects. And also perhaps, nice areas of the country where aspiration is limited to going to a local University, getting a steady local job and raising your children round the corner from their Grandparents. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not going to get a heap of kids into medical school.

But isn't the question whether it is really necessary to have those top grades - as in drop down to a few As from As and your chances are over? You used to be able to get into medical school with Bs and Cs at A-level (and certainly did NOT need a string of As (given that A didn't exist) at O-level OR, subsequently, GCSE - I know from the offer my dsis got, and from the grades of contemporaries who got into medical school... So, if medical schools REALLY wanted to recruit students from more diverse backgrounds, why are they, as some are saying here, holding them back for "not getting good enough grades?" Surely it's more a question of grades that are not as good as other more privileged students', not grades that show you are not cut out for medicine? Which thus puts medical schools out of kilter with the efforts made by universities in other disciplines. But then of course, it is a self-perpetuating system - the privately educated all believe so strongly that their education is superior to that of their state educated peers, that they secretly (or not so secretly) believe their state educated peers have no chance of "catching up" and being capable of hacking a degree in medicine. These are the people deciding who to recruit as the medics of the future.

To add. My understanding is that work experience is primarily to allow the would be medic to confirm that they do in fact want to be a doctor. DD ended up enjoying her summer more than expected, especially the people element. However we recently met another girl who HATED similar work in a local hospital, and has switched ambitions to bio-medicine. She likes the science but not the patients.

I may be wrong but assume medical schools will look more favourably on a pupil who shows and ability to get on with things and an understanding of the less glamorous aspects of medicine. Helping an elderly neighbour, volunteering with a local disabled group (disabled teenagers often love being in the company of able bodied peers), care homes. There has to be a lot of opportunity in any community however disadvantaged.