Tash's (very late) Guide to Medical School Interviews!

Right. I've been meaning to sit down and write this for almost a year now but I am lazy and LOTS has happened in my life since I had my first med school interview, so it's taken me this long!

1st disclaimer! Everyone's experience is ENTIRELY subjective, and they aaaalll vary depending on the university, their interview style, and what the university is looking for.
2nd disclaimer! This guide is very much tailored to universities that AREN'T Oxbridge, as their style is very different (I'll write on that later).

All you need to know for now is that, as I've said before, I applied first time to Oxford, Newcastle, Leeds and Bristol, and got one offer from Bristol, where I currently study (it's the best course/uni/city in the entire world ever applyapplyapply - totally not biased or anything). But the important thing for this post is that I had three interviews, from Oxford, Newcastle and Bristol. Here we'll discuss the latter two, one which was successful and one which was not.

Okay let's go through them as case studies. I'll detail my entire subjective experience at each interview, and then we'll analyse.

Interview 1 (at some point in November 2012) NEWCASTLE.

So basically I was a bit of an idiot when I applied to medical school. There's no definitive guide on exactly what to look at for your interviews, or in how much detail, so I just kind of felt about in the dark and hoped for the best. I had no idea at the time how difficult even getting an offer was going to be, as my friend P, who I've written about before, had received 3 offers the year before me (but they were always going to - they were stupidly intelligent, outgoing, and interviewed EXTREMELY well). I'd heard from friends that had received an offer from Newcastle that they were big on asking about NHS reforms and the structure of the NHS at interview (which I'm pretty sure they still are) so I read up on that BIG time, and researched as much as I felt I needed to, and then I trawled the Newcastle website to make sure I knew about the course. Obviously on top of that I had thought about answers to the typical interview questions you always get asked; 'Why do you want to be a doctor', 'Why not another healthcare profession' 'Answer this ethical scenario' etc etc etc. 

So after all that it was time for the interview, I was travelling over to England from Spain (where I'd lived for 12 years previously) and meeting my uncle in Newcastle, who I was staying with before my interview in the morning. I was so nervous. INCREDIBLY nervous. Newcastle was my first interview, and as luck would have it, I'd been lucky enough to get an Oxford interview scheduled for later the same day and the next day, so I was doubly nervous as I had to take a 5 hour train journey to get down to Oxford as soon as my Newcastle interview finished. I had prepared more for the Oxford style of interview because of this; however I didn't help myself in the Newcastle interview anyway, as you'll see! My interviewers were incredibly friendly and really put me at ease - I think they were one male lecturer and one local GP. During the interview they asked me two questions that put the nail in the coffin for me; they were 'What do you like the most about the course here at Newcastle' and 'If you were a patient and you wanted to find out about how good your GP is, whether they really know their stuff, what would you do?'. The first one might surprise you, as it did me at the time, however my problem with that question was generally my own stupidity. Honestly I'm perfectly comfortable with admitting it: I was a bloody idiot, and I didn't research enough into EXACTLY what was involved in other medical courses and just the course in general. My answer was: 'You know what? I REALLY love the concept of the SSC that you do here at Newcastle, I think it's brilliant that you can customise the course based on your own personal interests'. Now the prepared among you will know that's a ridiculous answer, as that's nothing special at all - SSCs, or Student Selected Components, are a mandatory part of every medical course in the UK, and are not at all specific to Newcastle. I however, did not know that at all (due to a lack of research) and thought I was being really original. Even looking back on this is making me cringe, haha, they must have thought I was such an idiot! The second question floored me simply because I didn't know the answer at all, and still don't! I don't know whether it was because it wasn't something I'd come across in Spain (I had very very limited experience of the NHS) or whether I hadn't read far enough into the NHS reforms, but all I do know is that I sat there guessing like an idiot for 10 minutes whilst they sat there saying 'Nope' to everything I came up with. To be honest though, that's just the luck of the draw. Some questions will play to your talents, exactly like my experience with Bristol, and some questions will pull the rug from under you. It's how prepared you are at the end of the day that will make the difference - you can NEVER be too prepared.

ANYWAY now that's over with, let me tell you about the interview experience that has changed my life. :)

Interview 2 (28th February 2013 give or take a day) BRISTOL.

Can I just say before I begin this that this was a couple of months after the disaster that was Newcastle, and, in my opinion, I owe my offer at Bristol to a number of things. Firstly, I'd had two rejections after interview and one outright rejection at this point, so I was feeling pretty defeated and 'what have I got to lose' about this interview. Secondly, I had a friend finishing off a non-med undergrad degree in Bristol at the time, who wanted to apply for medicine and had been volunteering in the Bristol healthcare sector. She was invaluable. Thirdly, I had had the interesting life experience that was my Oxford interview. The amount I had to learn for the Oxford interview, and the amount I learnt from it, really helped me through my Bristol interview. Anyway, on to the experience itself. I think there were two questions at Bristol that this time helped me to clinch an offer, but again remember this is entirely my point of view. These were 'You sound like you know your stuff, can you explain to me the four principles of Medical Ethics', and 'What do you like about the course at Bristol'. As you can see there's a recurring trend here - what you say about the medical course itself can really make or break an interview - after all, you are going to be studying it for the next five or six years - they want to know you've really considered what you're going to be going into. Basically on the Medical Ethics front, I KNEW that I was going to be asked an ethics question at all of my interviews. This is something you have to expect, and I wanted to stand out, especially for Oxford, in a subject that interested me, which Ethics does. Therefore, I bought myself a Kindle book called something like 'A Short Introduction to Medical Ethics' or words to that effect, and read the entire thing. This acquainted me with the four principles of ethics and gave me a basic understanding of ethics as a whole. Unbeknownst to me (I've only learnt this in the past two months of studying here), Bristol is quite special in that we are one of the only UK medical schools that places a big focus on ethical learning right at the beginning of the course. So again, I was damn lucky! I was asked the usual ethical scenario at the interview and I began to consider it using the four principles. When I had finished, one of my interviewers, a male rheumatologist from the local hospital, asked me to go into more detail about them, which I did, and he seemed very impressed. Now with the question about the course, I had had two extra months to study the course structure at Bristol than I had at Newcastle or Oxford, and after my outright rejection from Leeds I threw myself into looking at the course structure in Bristol, as I had sucked at it with Newcastle, so that was a factor. Also, my undergrad friend at Bristol had a comprehensive knowledge of all the hospitals in Bristol (of which there are absolutely loads). So those were kind of the two things that helped me there - I talked a lot about the Academies system at Bristol, where they send you out of Bristol on placement to places like Bath and Swindon throughout the course and have teaching facilities and accommodation there, and about the opportunities within Bristol to learn. Now that I'm here though, I can honestly tell you there is more to this course than I ever imagined - I know I sound stupidly sycophantic when I talk about this course, but it really is brilliant so far, I love it here! At some point I'll post about all the pros and cons of the course, for anyone who's considering Bristol themselves. :)

Anyway, now that's done, let's have a look at the common themes here.

Rule number one: learn from my mistakes and PREPARE FOR YOUR INTERVIEWS IN DETAIL. Things to remember to research are the structure of the course (more than just the outline; really go into it!), the state of the NHS at the moment (ie recent reforms, any scandals in the last 50-100 years, general public opinion, future changes, things that are currently affecting it), aspects of medicine that interest you (try not to always go for the speciality-oriented ones, like the cardiovascular system or the like, as I've heard WAY too many stories about people who've researched a particular disease or body system and then been faced with an interviewer who's an expert in the field) and how your career will be structured in the future.

Ask ANYBODY you have at your disposal, family, friends, any contacts at all that have any connection with medicine, or maybe who don't have a medical connection but have an opinion, about their thoughts on various issues relating to the profession. It's always good to expand your own opinion so you have more to talk about at interview. Remember always that you are competing with people who have doctors as parents. You need to have that insider background knowledge; they will know what's going on in the NHS because it's their parent's job. If you are not in that lucky position, turn on the news and absorb it. Live your life as if you are going into medicine, and you need to know everything you can. If you are in the lucky position of having doctor parent/s, however, from what I have heard your task is to prove that you are going into medicine because it is YOUR decision, and that you have reasons for going into it rather than 'my parent's a doctor so I look up to them/want to make them proud/have always been around doctors/I've wanted to do it my whole life etc etc etc.

And last but not least, RELAX. Trust me, I know that's a mammoth task, read up to see how nervous I was at first, haha! I honestly think that the fact that I was less nervous at Bristol because I felt like I knew my stuff and had nothing to lose had a positive impact on my interview. Be confident, but not arrogant. Be sure in what you know, but don't give half-answers, or try to impress too much with big words. Treat the interview like a conversation - they are trying to help you, not hinder you.

I knew this was going to have to be a long post but I didn't realise it'd take me that long to get done, haha! As always PLEASE feel free to ask any questions you have at all, even if you think they aren't relevant or I won't know the answer, as I now have other friends on my course who applied to many other different universities, and they might!

To any of you who still have interviews left to go, congratulations on getting an interview, and the VERY best of luck to you! If you are coming to Bristol in the next couple of months, as I did a year ago, please message me as I'd love to help you out!

Speak soon!

SO much to tell you!

Whoa. It's been a LONG time since I've blogged, haha! As you know I started medical school here in Bristol back in September - and I've already learnt SO much that I can't wait to share with you! I'll start writing regularly again in the next couple of days as I know you'll all be getting/preparing for interviews. A quick update first, however! Starting this course has made me realise I made completely the right choice - medical school is so rewarding and it feels incredible that this dream that I had for years is becoming a reality, and that I'm living it every day! If you've submitted your UCAS application and you're feeling anxious about offers and interviews, tune in for a post in the next couple of days about my experience, and why you don't need to worry! :)

Right, it's stupidly late here so I'll write again tomorrow, and as always, please please feel free to ask me any questions you might have!

Speak soon!

UCAS - how do you write a personal statement?

It's that time of year again - at my old school students started back this week and even though I'm missing that back-to-school feeling (which is really weird, I leave in a week eeeek!) I remember only too well how I felt last year at this point in the UCAS application process for medicine. It's likely that you might be lucky and come from a big school in the UK, where quite a few students are applying for medicine, so that you have people going through the same thing to empathize with you. I was the only person in my VI form applying to study UK medicine, and it sucked. If you do have classmates going through the same thing, get talking! Sharing experiences and ideas can only help the both of you throughout the application process.

Anyway, if you haven't started or finished already, this is the time for you to begin your personal statement! What is that, you ask? A collection of paragraphs comprising 4000 characters or less in which you attempt to convince admissions tutors who have been reading thousands of personal statements trying to do the same thing as you that you are the candidate they should consider for a place or interview, even though they've never met you, or seen your face. Sounds fun, right?

The toughest part is definitely getting started. A helpful tool to set you off is to have a mooch around the website of your top choice university and see whether they have any guidance on personal statement structure, as each uni differs slightly in what they expect in a personal statement. Oxford is a good example - I used their medicine statement template to help me get started on mine. I'll post segments of mine here in a minute (bearing in mind that this blog gets a lot of views, and universities know it exists, and plagiarism could void your application ;) ). What I did to start off was to make lists. First, I made a list of reasons why I want to do medicine. This is very important, as from the offset you should be asking yourself this! If the only answer that you can come up with is 'for the money' or 'because my parent/s are doctors' or 'I want to help people' then you are going for the wrooooooonnggggg degree. I'll explain more about that later when I write about interview questions! Really think hard about the base reasons why you want to do this. If you come to the point where you honestly can't think of any, and you're not even sure if you really want this at all, then you should reconsider your application. I'm saying this to spare you a lot of difficulty and heartache later, haha!

The next list you make should be one of your achievements. If you got particularly good grades in a set of exams, or received an award for your exam grades, put this down, and think about any other exams you might have taken in extra-curriculars such as singing or music. Have you achieved anything noteworthy in sport or drama, or any other hobby? Have you done any part-time work? Stick it aaaaaaall down. Everything. :)

Then after that, make a list of things you'd like to achieve in your career, and things that you have done to research into a career in medicine (not only, but primarily, your work experience). Then make a list of things you LEARNED during said work experience, and by that I don't mean just the procedures you saw. You need to describe how these procedures affected the patient, and what you learnt about medical practice.

Done that? GOOD. ;)

Okay, now I'm going to go into personal statement structure. You must bear in mind when reading this that originality is THE most valuable thing you can have on a UCAS application, so these tips are ONLY a guide - please run with them and make them your own!

Which medical school to choose?

Okay. Before I go into this, I would just like to stress that getting into medical school in the UK first time is an achievement. No matter whether friends that have applied before you have got in to 4 places, 1 or none at all, do NOT begin choosing your unis on the assumption that you will definitely get in anywhere, and do NOT apply to places based on a friend's recommendation (unless they're talking about interviews...I'll explain later).

The most important thing I found about choosing my four medical schools was that, in the end, they HAD to be places that were right for ME. I had to do the research myself. My friend P who had applied before me chose UCL as their top choice, and naturally due to its credentials I thought I might put it down as one of my choices. If it weren't for a visit to the UCL Open Day and a week's work experience in London, I would have put it down as a choice and regretted it. So before we start, bear in mind that you should try and visit as many open days as you can, and if not at least try and visit the city/town first.

Now that's over, let me tell you that I didn't visit any of the places I applied to before I applied there, because I'm an idiot.

I also went in with expectations that I would get into a couple of places, as P had got into 3 out of 4 when they applied (which let me tell you is, firstly, extremely rare, and secondly absolutely bloody brilliant), and ended up getting into one, which was originally my last choice.

So don't do what I did, haha, and you'll spare yourself a whole lot of difficulty later! ;)

Right, let's get down to it. Here are some different factors to consider:
Type of course: Thing number one to think about: What type of course suits you? There are three main types in British medicine:

- TRADITIONAL: A traditional course is usually offered at the older medical schools, such as Oxbridge. It involves a teaching method based mainly around lectures and tutorials/seminars.

- PBL: This stands for problem-based learning, and is offered (last time I checked) at universities like Manchester and Plymouth. PBL is no longer used on its own as a teaching method, however there are unis such as the ones I just mentioned that use PBL as a main learning tool alongside others. It involves the presentation of a medical scenario to small groups of students, so that they can learn through adapting their knowledge to the problem and coming up with a solution.

-INTEGRATED: The majority of UK medical schools offer courses of this type, which combine a multitude of teaching methods including elements of traditional and PBL courses.

It's difficult, obviously, to know which of these will suit you, as you've spent your whole learning career in a school-structured environment, but the main thing to remember is that all of these involve a great deal of learning in your own time. I would say, however, that I decided PBL wasn't for me because I know that I learn better from taking notes in class, lecture-style, than I do being given a problem and learning from that.

Achieved Grades: Okay, now if this hasn't helped very much perhaps you should start thinking about basing your choice on your achieved grades. By this point in your application cycle you will have your AS grades, or you might have taken a gap year and have your A-Level grades ready. However, please please please take note of the fact that having high grades does NOT mean you have to apply to Oxbridge. It REALLY doesn't. A lot of people with all As at AS-Level feel pressured to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, but you must remember that you ONLY have four choices, and you must be entirely happy with all of those choices, or you might find yourself in a situation where you only have offers from the choices you aren't happy with. Oxbridge is always a risk, as they are SO selective, and everyone that is applying will be just as good or better than you. However, if that IS the route you want to go down, good for you, and I'll be recounting my Oxford interview in detail later for those who are considering the big guns!

UKCAT: Another factor to consider is your UKCAT score. If this is low, perhaps consider applying to schools that don't consider the UKCAT such as UCL, Bristol, Cambridge, Liverpool or Birmingham (bearing in mind that UCL and Cambridge will require you to take the notoriously difficult BMAT test). Also bear in mind that the universities that do not consider UKCAT or BMAT scores tend to be the most applied to - for example at Bristol the applicant to place ratio is 16:1. If this is average (which is usually around 660, but gets higher every year) then you need to do some research regarding the different UKCAT cutoff marks universities use. Some use a UKCAT threshold to decide who they invite to interview, and some use the UKCAT score as a factor amongst many factors in the application process. For example, Newcastle's cutoff is notoriously high (when I was applying for 2013 entry, it was 680 to get an interview) so if you have a high score, you have the option of applying somewhere like this and having a good chance of getting an interview.


I'll update this again soon with more tips, I haven't had much time to blog recently as I've been packing up my room ready to move to Bristol! Feel FREE to message me or comment on the posts for any advice, I'll try and reply as soon as possible, and I'm planning on starting videos to accompany the blog once I get to uni - watch this space! Speak soon!

Time to change the blog description!

At 9:07 this morning I found out that I made my grades, getting A*AAB, and I've been accepted into the Bristol Medical School! Today has been so surreal, I'm so happy! I'll get back to posting soon, just thought I'd update the blog! :D

Speak later! 

The MYTH of league tables for medicine!

Okay just a quick disclaimer that this is my own subjective opinion.
Right, the first number ONE thing you need to know before even thinking about choosing a medical school is:

DO. NOT. COMPLETELY BASE YOUR CHOICE. ON ANY LEAGUE TABLE. 

You MUST remember that, for other subjects, league tables are useful because they show how 'good' a course is in that subject is at a particular university, because this can vary and influence your employment prospects from university to university, but for medicine this is different as ALL MEDICAL COURSES IN THE UK ARE REGULATED BY THE GMC. Only a few universities in the UK offer medicine because only a few universities are good enough to be able to offer it to the expected standard. Therefore, there is no 'bad' medicine course. If you look closely at popular league tables such as The Guardian's, the criteria include '% Satisfied with course', '% Satisfied with teaching', '% Satisfied with feedback', 'Career after 6 months'. Let's break this down, so that I can show you why, except in a few extreme cases, league tables are less than useful when applying to medical school.

Under The Guardian's '% Satisfied with course' column for Medicine in 2014, out of 31 universities, only 4 fall below 80% (Manchester, Liverpool, Kings' College and St George's), one of which is in the 'top 20'

Under The Guardian's '% Satisfied with teaching' column for Medicine in 2014, the lowest figure out of 31 universities is 79% (Kings' College), and 21 out of the 31 universities scored 90% or over, including some in the 'bottom 5'.

As you can see, these criteria show that there is very little to choose between the universities in terms of student satisfaction.

However, '% Satisfied with feedback' is an interesting column, as out of 31 universities, the highest score is only 85% (joint Oxford and Keele), but all universities in the table (except Kings' College with an interestingly low 18%) have a score above 40%.

It is worth remembering that Oxford and Keele are two of the smallest medical schools in terms of students in the UK, so if I were to make a hypothesis concerning their high scores I'd say that due to the low student numbers (and the tutorial system at Oxford), faculty members can devote more time to feedback and discussion. That might not be the case at all, it's only my theory.

I hope that, so far, the data I've shown you has displayed the futility of league tables in most cases, and if not, let's take another look at Kings' College. In the three categories I have just mentioned (which I would consider the most important), Kings' College scores disastrously low, below any of their peers. However, Kings' is not at the bottom of the league table. The two universities below it score higher, much higher, in all three categories. The things that have boosted Kings' are its score in the remaining categories: 'Student to staff ratio', 'Spend per student' and 'Average entry tariff'. This means that Kings' (along with other universities that have lower student satisfaction scores), are pushed higher in the table depending on the amount of students they take in vs staff they employ (this ratio does not necessarily reflect class sizes, which is why it is not necessarily helpful), the amount of money spent on each student (it is not specified as to what this money goes towards) and the average UCAS score each university expects of the students they take in (which, of course, does NOT reflect the quality of the teaching).

In short, league tables are to be used WITH CAUTION. To make better, informed choices, speak to current students, visit an open day, read some of my articles on different medical schools, use the Student Room... there are HUNDREDS of other resources open to you.

Hope this helps!

The BMAT: Kill it, kill it with fire.

Okay so as I'm sure you can tell from the angsty title the BMAT is the exam that crushes the hopes and dreams of med hopefuls across Britain every year. Not to put you off or anything. ;)

The BMAT is a preparatory science, maths and logic exam taken by applicants to Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, LKC and BSMS (graduate) medical schools. It is notoriously difficult.

My own experience of the test was an unshakeably average one. The test is split into 3 sections: Aptitude & Skills, Scientific Knowledge and Applications, and Writing Task. Urgh, just thinking back to sitting the BMAT is making me feel nervous haha! Right. Let's start with some basic tips, based on experience. I don't know what point at your application cycle you are in, but here are some of the most important things to bear in mind when preparing for the BMAT: 

1. START EARLY. I clicked every formatting button just then to make sure that really sinks in. ;) Honestly, when a friend of mine in the year above me came out of her BMAT the year before I applied, the first thing she said to me was "START STUDYING NOW!". And I honestly wish I had, haha.

The problem is that if you don't start early, you find you don't have time when you're finishing your ASes and getting ready for your UKCAT, and then when the UKCAT's over suddenly you're into your A2 courses and you might have resits and suddenly it's really hard to keep up with studying for the BMAT, and there is a hell of a lot of content to cover. That's exactly what happened to me. The BMAT is designed for an above-average student who's getting all A's to get an average mark. I got an average mark, somewhat lower than average in some sections. But there are a couple of reasons for that, so I'll keep going with the list.

2. If there's anything in the test that you're not studying for A2, focus on that. The BMAT Writing Task and Aptitude and Skills can't exactly be traditionally 'revised' for, but revision, not just question practice, is ESSENTIAL for the Science section. The Science section includes 'GCSE-level' (bollocks) questions on Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Physics. Now, I was fine with the first three, as I did those along with English Literature as my four A2s. Physics however, was another story, especially since I found out from popular medicine forums that the Physics content is particularly difficult, and usually higher than A-Level standard. This intimidated me and I didn't go into it in anywhere near enough detail. I kind of just put it off, thinking 'Oh, it'll be fine! I did it for GCSE!', until I realised that I'd done a year of AS and I didn't remember GCSE at all, haha!

3. Practice, practice, practice. Now this might seem a little obvious, but I can't stress the importance of practice. Practice in the bath, practice at school, practice in the car, practice until you're dreaming about practicing haha. Buy a BMAT question practice book, and practice them with your friends, as they might have an alternative perspective on some of the questions that could help you learn. Also, the essay-writing component of the test is the part that catches some students with less-than-stellar writing skills out, so practicing typical essay questions is essential.

4. Don't panic but kind of panic but don't panic. What I mean by this is that you NEED to take the test seriously. I didn't. And by that I don't mean that I didn't study hard, because I did. What I mean is that if you're taking the BMAT you are applying to some of the best universities in the world. They take your BMAT grade VERY seriously. If your interview goes badly, they will turn to your BMAT score to decide whether to let you in. If your interview goes well but your BMAT score is less than stellar, that may jeopardise your chances of a place. It is incredibly important. HOWEVER, it's also important that, as indicated in the heading, you don't panic. You must approach the test calmly, as it's one of those exams where if you let nervousness cloud your judgement, you might miss out on those crucial marks. 

Thoughts before my results come out.

I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to my erratic blogging style - the second I say I'll post more something happens that makes me forget (in this case, my new laptop, summer work and festivals). I'll try to post more often now, as I've got a full week before results now where I've got nothing to do but bite my nails and wait to see if I've made my offer.

My offer is AAA from the University of Bristol, and if I'm quite honest I've never been this scared in my life. I took four A-Levels (English Lit, Maths, Biology, Chemistry) and two AS-Levels (English Language and Spanish) and I know that I screwed up my Maths, so I'm relying on my English, Chem and Bio grades, the first of which I get in less than a week. I'll keep blogging if I don't make my offer, as it means I'll have a whole new year of application experience to go through - by which time I'll be a seasoned expert, haha - but if I do make it, which I obviously sincerely hope I do, look forward to a celebratory post along the lines of 'ASDFFGVJKRSTHNDF!!!1!1!!!' in the next few weeks. 

This last week I met up with a friend of mine who I think I've mentioned before, who studies Medicine at UCL in London. The updates I usually get from them are super excited and motivate me even more to get my place, but this time what they had to say was a little different. I suppose I want to share it because it shocked me, and I feel like it's a side of the story that isn't often spoken about when you're applying.

My friend, P, messaged me a couple of months ago to tell me that they'd failed their final exams and were having to resit. They'd failed by 0.2%. Now to me this was a huge shock, because P has always been stupidly academic and achieved far better marks than me at AS-Level, so to hear of them failing anything that I'm (hopefully) about to do myself makes me a little apprehensive. However, I knew that they'd pull through their resits and come out ready to embark on year 2, and in time I was proved right. Last week, P told me that their best medic friend in their year had failed their resits, again by a small margin, and had been thrown out of the Medical School. No appeal, no chance of switching to a different course. Some of you might be thinking that she wasn't good enough for the course, or that she hadn't done enough to secure her place. I thought the same until P reminded me that UCL fail a set number of students every year, ie you could achieve an extremely high raw score and still fail if a set percentage of students have scored higher than you. UCL (unofficially, they'll never admit it in any promotional material) have one of the highest student culling rates of any British medical school, and now P's poor friend is left with a year of medical school under their belt and nowhere else to go, because what medical school will accept a student who has 'proven' that they can't complete a medical course? This is not, however, a complaint, as awful as the story is. This, to me, was a stark reminder of the competitiveness of British medicine and of just how hard you have to work at the course. UCL cannot be blamed for setting aside so many intelligent young minds, as they have so many of them, and as they are one of the top medical schools in the country, they want only the best. I can only be grateful that I made my choices in the way that I did and that P told me about their friend in order to motivate me not to make the same mistakes. 

I think I might start on that post concerning choosing a medical school now, as it's fresh in my mind - wish me luck for results and here's fingers crossed I'll be posting to you next week with a confirmed place at uni!

See you later!

Whether to use your fifth UCAS choice - gap yah or no gap yah?

Four choices, unfortunately for all of us UK applicants, is all we get in terms of applying for Medicine, if we're applying through UCAS. In my opinion it makes the process that bit more challenging, but I can understand why it's in place, as the sheer amount of medical applicants in the UK is overwhelming. However, it means that we need to choose very wisely when picking universities.

I think the first thing to consider is whether you are going to use your fifth choice. In past years, medical applicants would put down a related subject such as biomedical science as a fifth choice, that gave them the option to transfer course to medicine after a year at the university, in case they didn't get into their medicine choices. However this is something most unis are very sceptical of now, so in the course description of related courses like biomedical science it may say that the uni will automatically reject a medicine-oriented personal statement. I'm not sure how many unis this applies to, so do your research if you do want to go down this route. Another option for the fifth choice is to use it for another subject entirely, that you would like to go into as a full degree if you don't get into medicine, for example biology or chemistry. The thing with this option is the conflict with the personal statement. To have a chance of getting into medicine you must have a very focused statement that shows you are committed to the course, but with a statement so focused on medicine you are unlikely to get into a course like biology unless it is undersubscribed. Of course, I can't comment on individual unis and have not done this myself, so do your research and perhaps speak to people you know or online that have done this. If you're really set on going down this route then you need to explore both subjects subtly in your personal statement, however it's not something I would suggest - if you're thinking of taking another subject if you don't get into medicine, perhaps have a rethink about if medicine's really for you - the job involves a lot of setbacks and hard work that you really need to be committed to deal with, and the job's not something you can abandon at the first hurdle, which is why most applicants to medicine apply again the next year if they don't get in first time rather than abandoning the idea entirely. On the other hand, you might decide you want to do medicine but don't want to do a gap year and reapply again, and in that case using the fifth choice for something like genetics is advisable if you are going to commit to studying the subject throughout the next three years and THEN apply for post-graduate medicine. This option scares me a bit though - postgraduate medicine is more difficult to get into than regular medicine as there are far far fewer places, and you also have to bear in mind that the government won't fund most postgrad medicine courses.

The other fifth choice option is the one I chose, which is to not use the fifth choice at all. The OCD among us, like my mum, will have trouble adapting to this idea (trust me) as they think that you're wasting a choice, but you're really not, as if medicine is truly what you want to do, why would you want to put down another course that you're not going to take on? However this does mean that if you don't get into medicine and are committed to the idea, you have no choice but to take a gap year and apply again the next year. The idea can be quite a daunting one, but considering that only around 37% (I think that's the statistic) of applicants get in first time, it's an option that SO many people take. I know three people that have had to take a gap year, and every single one of them say that it was the best thing that could have happened. One went to work in a boarding school for a year, the other bartended in London and modelled for Hollister, and the other spent a year training as a lifeguard and first aider with the Spanish Red Cross - and every single one of them came back with a positive experience, ready to reapply. A gap year can be such a positive thing, that quite a lot of people take out of choice, so don't be disappointed if you don't get in and all of your friends are going to uni, because your gap year is what YOU make it.

Anyway - over this past week I've discovered that I am absolutely rubbish at article-writing, I go off on a tangent and ramble for too long, so the subjects I said I'd talk about are likely to be broken down into smaller parts depending on the detail I go into, sorry! This is quite a cathartic experience to be honest, it's nice to purge all of the emotions you've accumulated from the experience as a whole, and put them into giving whoever reads this the information I wish I'd have been given - you just wait until I get onto my Oxford interview, that's going to be an interesting one haha!

Bye for now!

The UKCAT - what to expect and general tips and tricks.

The UKCAT is a medical admissions test compulsory for application to most UK medical schools as a means to differentiate between applicants.

Overall, the UKCAT was one of the most positive aspects of my application experience, so I guess it's a little ironic that the uni I eventually got an offer from, Bristol, doesn't consider it!  For me the test was the first introduction I got into the world of medical admissions, and I'm so glad it was the first thing I did.

Registration usually begins at the beginning of May, and if I were you I'd book it and sit it quickly. I was advised to sit it in one of the first sessions at the beginning of July by a friend who'd applied the year before, and I am SO glad that I did. This is because towards the end of summer you'll have so many other things to worry about, like the personal statement and the BMAT (if you're doing it) and interview prep in general, that it's best to get it over and done with and out of the way. Also, you get your score STRAIGHT away after you've finished the test, so it means that if you do it early in summer, you have more time to consider which unis you're going to apply to strategically based on your score. Some unis have high UKCAT cutoffs for interview, and some don't really use the UKCAT until later stages in the process, or at all, so your UKCAT score can be a huge factor in deciding on those crucial four choices.

In terms of test preparation, I was talking to a girl in the year below me applying for medicine, and she was considering paying out to take the Kaplan UKCAT course, which costs around 265 pounds. Now, I'm not disputing that people have taken these auxiliary help courses and done really well. But just as many people, if not more, have NOT taken these help courses, and done JUST as well, if not better. Please, please, please don't feel as if you are missing out by not taking one of these UKCAT help courses. I did not take one, and none of my friends who also applied for medicine took one, yet I received a very high mark which got me past Newcastle University's notoriously high UKCAT threshold for interview. However, if you have the money and feel like you need extra help, the Kaplan courses are something used by many prospective students every year to try and boost their eventual score. HOWEVER, although I personally don't think the Kaplan tests are worth it, that is not to say that you shouldn't prepare at all. There is a FANTASTIC book of something like 500 UKCAT questions on Amazon that I bought after a recommendation from my friend who had applied previously, and it is a book that the majority of UKCAT candidates own to practice from. Honestly, I think that this book is all the practice you will need, I went over almost every exercise in the book and was really well-prepared for the test. It lets you practice to a really high standard, especially in the quantitative unit, which I found the hardest! I'll try and stick in a link somewhere later.

I guess the important thing to try and remember is that universities made these tests to be passable on their own, and as they are very similar to the CAT tests you take when you are younger, it's based on cognitive ability so there is very little you can actually do in terms of studying, apart from practicing the questions. When I tell people that they should sit the test nice and early they're always a bit hesitant, saying that they'd rather have the extra time for studying, but honestly I don't think it's necessary, as if you've done a couple of months of studying with the book/the Kaplan course, there's not much more you can do!

The test itself can be quite a daunting prospect if you don't know what to expect, so here's a vague idea of what happens (obviously this might vary in different test centres). Firstly, make sure you've visited the building the day before or something to familiarise yourself with your surroundings, as going into a foreign building on the day of the test can add to your nerves. On the day of the test you need to bring ID, and they'll make you put all your belongings in a locker (at my test centre, the keys had spoons on them, I'm guessing to stop people nicking them...weird). They'll then make you sign something and wait for a minute depending on how many test booths are free, and then you'll go in to sit the test. The test is sat in a room with about 15 other people, in booths on the walls, with wood partitions between each booth. The room is watched by someone on CCTV as a kind of invigilator, so you do feel like you're in an exam setting. For the actual exam, you get big headphones to cancel the noise of other people taking the test, you must use the onscreen calculator, and you'll receive a laminated grid and a marker pen to use for planning answers to the questions, which I wasn't expecting! The test seems over before it begins, and when I sat my test they were trialling the new situational judgement test, so I had to take a trial of that which had no impact on my score, but as I didn't know this was happening beforehand it was a bit of a shock as I thought it was part of the test I hadn't prepared for, haha! Obviously this section of the test is now a legitimate, tested section of the exam. After the test you'll leave the room and they'll print out your results for you, and hopefully they'll be a high score!

Anyway, I think that's enough for now, if you have any other questions about the UKCAT feel free to comment and I'll respond, or maybe I'll edit this post at a later date.

Bye for now, and good luck!

Blogging is hard.

Wow, well I'm obviously really good at this blogging thing haha, it's almost a year since I last posted! To be honest though, it just shows you how ridiculously rigorous the process is for getting into Medicine at UK universities - my application process is over now, and I wrote my last post when it was beginning! I like to write as more of a delayed cathartic process; I can't write when I'm in the middle of things or stressed out, I only write when it's all/partially over, and I can relax a little!

However, jeeeeez is there a lot to write about now! I remember getting a little frustrated when I started this blog because I couldn't often think of things to write about apart from preparing for the various admissions tests I was going to undertake, and to be honest on that score there was nothing to write apart from about how daunting it all was, haha.

So I guess what I'll do is I'll split up all the different portions of my admissions process so far (everything pre-offer) and stick them in bite-size articles, maybe that way they'll be a bit more interesting and useful to people maybe going through the same thing!

So here's what you've got to look forward to, if it floats your boat:

• UKCAT - what to expect and general tips and tricks
• BMAT - what to expect and my opinion on the test as a whole
• UCAS application and personal statement - help and my own experience
• Which universities to choose - this is more important than anything, wish someone would have told me what I know now
• Pre-interview feeling/rejection before interview - my experience
• Oxford medicine interviews - my experience 
• General medicine interviews - my experience
• General medicine interviews - tips and tricks
• Rejections after interview - my experience and helpful tips
• OFFER - what happens next
• Is medicine for you - consideration of my application as a whole

At the minute, that's my past year in a nutshell, so I'll be writing these over the next few weeks as productive procrastination as I finish my A2 exams, with a couple of angsty exam articles put in for good measure ;)

As I'm sure you can gauge from the list, I suffered quite a few setbacks throughout my application, but I'm delighted to be able to say that I did receive a conditional offer to study medicine at the University of Bristol, which I'll be starting in September, grades allowing!

Until next time!