Getting to Medical or Law school

[bobnl]

Friends,
I am new to UK school system. I have been reading/asking questions about Secondary schools in the UK.
Somehow I have a feeling that, if a kid wants to get into Medical or law school, he/she should go to Grammar school or Independent school. In my view, kids from comprehensive state school have very little chances of becoming a lawyer or doctor.
Is that true?
Can you please share your experience?

Thank you

[BubblesBuddy]

Law is a difficult area to compare with medical school. There are a vast number of law degrees but only a minority of students get training contracts to be a solicitor and there are only about 450 pupillages available to become a barrister each year. The opportunity to work as a Dr are 100% if you qualify academically. We have a shortage of doctors.

Obtaining a training position to practice law is way below this. So if a student is undecided as to their future prospects, the ability to get a job may need to be factored in. Any old degree in law doesn’t get you very far in many cases. However, being a lawyer is very different to medicine!

[MNscum]

Totally depends on the school. Dd goes to the local comp which is one of the best comps in the country and has better oxbridge stats than the local grammar. Certainly a lot of kids go to study medicine as well.

[Xenia]

Exactly and many a private school child can't be bothered to get relevant work experience as they'd rather laze around all summer. In my 1978 diary I was reading the other night my parents suggested it and I have loads of entries against it - although in my case it was because at 16 I was very shy and worried about going somewhere with where I knew no one each day. I think I made such a big fuss about it they dropped it and the next summer I took myself off happily to work in the country at a children's summer camp thing in the UK although I did eventually manage 2 weeks of work experience in a law firm in my first university summer holiday. This is all a long time ago though so not very relevant.

[BubblesBuddy]

If many bright children are clustered in grammar and independent schools, it’s inevitable they will be a high proportion of successful applicants. There is also the work experience to think of as well. The motivated do this and some children don’t realise it matters and think exams and an interest are enough. A bright state school child I know (goes to a non high achieving comp) decided work experience was too much effort and would prevent her being in a sports team and shopping. There are hurdles to be jumped if you really want to be a medic. Dedicated children and parents get organised and do what needs to be done.

[Clavinova]

The BMC published a retrospective analysis of UK medical schools application data in 2016 - taken from all 32,964 UK domiciled applicants 2009-2012:
bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-016-0536-1

For England only, accepted offers for medical students from school type:

Independent schools 29%
Grammar schools 22.2%
Comprehensive Schools 46%
Unknown 2.9%

[titchy]

Ok fine. Move to Dewsbury, send your kids to a comprehensive there, and watch them all grow up to be doctors in this wonderful classless utopia that we call Britain.

Yes of course because the only schooling choices are a Requires Improvement in an area full of social deprivation, or private.

[whataboutbob]

The OPs kids are in primary school. Will they have any say over their future profession, or is it all down to the OPs aspirations?

[HaroldsSoCalledBluetits]

Ok fine. Move to Dewsbury, send your kids to a comprehensive there, and watch them all grow up to be doctors in this wonderful classless utopia that we call Britain.

[titchy]

So 40% at a non selective state school. Remind me what 100%-40% is again?

Remind me of the different state school types? Non-selective and....?

Currently less than 20% of medic students come from private schools.

Those on that who's who list will have gone to med school 20-40 year ago. Things have changed massively since then.

[PettsWoodParadise]

Harolds as pointed out the 60% is a subset, not a whole, it refers to senior doctors and only those who appear in some directory or other and not those entering the profession now and is not reflective of how the current system operates, a lot has changed in the decades they will have been through the system too.

[Xenia]

Except it's not quite as simple as that. If average IQ if 100 and you need to be abotu 120 for grammar school and good university and these difficult to pass exams for jobs like medicine, then a comp and a non selective private school will have a good few at 100 and a good few under 100 and only the top sets at 120. The grammars and selective privates will all be at 120. So you would have to compare an area with grammars v an area only with comprehensives with similar population numbers to do a fair comparison.

Hoever I agree with you on an individual child basis assuming they are fairly bright on the whole they tend to do better in selective schools.


On the subset of senior doctors isn't that the subset we would all want our children in though leading in their field and being on £200k+ or something as we would want them as lawyers rather than scratching around on a pittance doing legal aid work?

[HaroldsSoCalledBluetits]

So 40% at a non selective state school. Remind me what 100%-40% is again?

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@bobnl - ds1 read Law at Reading. He did have three years at a selective state grammar school, but did all his exams at a comprehensive school in Scotland - the exams are slightly different to the ones in England, but are roughly equivalent.

Based on his standard and higher grade results (the exams he took at age 16 and 17,so roughly equivalent to GCSEs and AS levels) he was offered an unconditional place.

Plenty of people go through the state system and go on to read Law and Medicine at top universities - please don’t worry.

[Notaguru66]

It really is bollocks.

The same (Sutton Trust) report that gives the 61 per cent of Doctors figure says

"In 2013, the General Medical Council published a series of findings regarding the socio-economic and educational backgrounds of all doctors in postgraduate training in the UK. Of those that had completed their secondary and tertiary education in the UK, it found that nearly 40% had attended a non-selective state school ..."

The 61 per cent figure relates to a subset of senior doctors (I think who appear in Who's Who) and not all those entering training.

[HaroldsSoCalledBluetits]

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/feb/24/privately-educated-elite-continues-to-take-top-jobs-finds-survey

[HaroldsSoCalledBluetits]

It really isn't bollocks.

www.businessinsider.com/most-uk-journalists-doctors-barristers-private-schools-2017-7?r=UK&IR=T

[Xenia]

Also the supposed Oxford, Camb and other division at the law day is not the same as division by private school of course. Plenty of children get into oxbridge from Comps and as Oxbridge is harder to get into those careers which want the people with the best exam results are rightly elitist and that is a really good thing - the cream of the comps as well as the grammars surely? You don't want someone who never learned bits of the science course to be cutting you open in the operating theatre.

However yes in my view it can help to go to one of the better schools where most pupils go on to higher paid jobs as teenagers tend to be influenced by their friends as they get older and if all friends are ambitious it rubs off. I even notice it at univesrity - the influence of peers over parents.

[UserInfinityplus1]

Not true at all. I went to a comprehensive school albeit a very good one and about half of my cohort went on to become professionals in medicine, law, dentistry, chartered accountants and academics.

[titchy]

And there is only one higher education institution in the UK which has more privately educated kids than state educated. ALL the rest are majority state. Including Oxbridge.

[titchy]

Oh yeah and 61% of medical students were privately educated.

Sorry that's bollocks. Source?

[PettsWoodParadise]

I work in a top tier law firm in a support capacity. Many firms are making major efforts to give advantages to those who had parents who didn't go to university, to students who didn't go to the top ten list of law schools that they used to solely pick from etc. But many firms still have a way to go. Some of the old guard who mostly came from the top few law schools do find the shift hard to deal with but are often pleasantly surprised by the talent pool and have generally warmed to the idea, but it still goes that it will take a while for the balance to change so references to a lot being from Oxbridge will hold true but for the older lawyers.

Having a law degree isn't a silver bullet Many firms now like students who've studied another subject and then covert to law, tech is a top skill at the moment with AI etc. Top corporate law (earnings in hundreds of thousands of pounds to millions) and high street law (small tens of thousands of pounds) are a world apart.

For medical, a lot of girls at DD's grammar go on to medical school but one of the pre-requisites is demonstrating an understanding of the rigours of the course and industry, substantial work experience etc, sometimes these opportunities to do so come most easily to those who have family who practice medicine.

OP if you are now only looking at secondary schools how do you know your DC wants to follow either of these career paths? Find a good school that is the right fit for them and support them in their interests and you can't go far wrong.

[SunburstsOrMarbleHalls]

I totally misunderstood your previous post Harolds

In fact DD and her friends have opted for corporate law and the only law students that have applied for the bar exam are from quite wealthy families.

Also many of the top law firms (magic and silver circle) are at Oxbridge and other "top tier" unis throughout the year sponsoring all kinds of social events and workshops so they can recruit future lawyers.

The worst story DD has told me that made me feel sick to my stomach is a top law firm who had a workshop at their London office and an associate said we have an Oxford area, a Cambridge area and then there is a r**d area for the others. Stories like this prove that elitism is disgustingly still openly practiced today.

[HaroldsSoCalledBluetits]

Oh I know you do 😁. Your daughter's experience reflects the statistics. I was more addressing the two pages' worth of people giving their personal family circumstances as evidence of the opposite being true. A private education cements privilege - of course it does. No one would bother paying for one if it didn't and it's misleading the OP to pretend that Kelly from Dagenham Comp has the same chance of becoming a QC or a consultant heart surgeon as Francesca from Cheltenham Ladies College.

[SunburstsOrMarbleHalls]

HaroldsSoCalledBluetits I absolutely agree with you. My daughter didn't go to comprehensive school and as I said there are a higher number of privately educated students in her university.

[HaroldsSoCalledBluetits]

Oh yeah and 61% of medical students were privately educated.