A-levels VS Access to medicine

[Ulric]

Hi everyone and thanks for reading!
First off I'll just take a few words to introduce myself and my issue!
I'm french, and graduated a master of architecture last year (equivalent to 1.1 or 2.1 depending on the people from the admission services). Unfortunately when I applied to medical schools this year (King's, Newcastle and Manchester) I was appalled that almost no 5-years standard course considered the grades from my degree, but looked instead at the grades I had 6 years ago when I passed my french baccalauréat: namely very average marks. ^^
I managed to secure a few interviews to GEP courses, but the competition is fierce, and I may well have to apply again next year
So here is the point, if I want to stand a chance on a standard course application, I have to get better 'non-graduate' marks under my belt. And it seems like to do so, I have two options:
- Pass the english A-Levels.
- Do an access to medicine course.

What do you think would be my best choice, in term of outcome? I mean, I assume that an access to medicine course would mean harder work and much less spare-time, but does it tend to make the application easier than a good A-level? Is it quite the same?
Or on the contrary is a good A-level considered as better than a good performance on an access course?
What would you advise?

Thanks!

[sjk]

Hi everyone and thanks for reading!
First off I'll just take a few words to introduce myself and my issue!
I'm french, and graduated a master of architecture last year (equivalent to 1.1 or 2.1 depending on the people from the admission services). Unfortunately when I applied to medical schools this year (King's, Newcastle and Manchester) I was appalled that almost no 5-years standard course considered the grades from my degree, but looked instead at the grades I had 6 years ago when I passed my french baccalauréat: namely very average marks. ^^
I managed to secure a few interviews to GEP courses, but the competition is fierce, and I may well have to apply again next year
So here is the point, if I want to stand a chance on a standard course application, I have to get better 'non-graduate' marks under my belt. And it seems like to do so, I have two options:
- Pass the english A-Levels.
- Do an access to medicine course.

What do you think would be my best choice, in term of outcome? I mean, I assume that an access to medicine course would mean harder work and much less spare-time, but does it tend to make the application easier than a good A-level? Is it quite the same?
Or on the contrary is a good A-level considered as better than a good performance on an access course?
What would you advise?

Thanks!

Hi Ulric,

Firstly, lets address the types of courses you have applied to. Obviously there are numerous course types that allow you study medicine. 4 years (Graduate students), 5 years (Standard students) and 6 years (Usually pre-Med/Foundation courses and Intercalated degree's).

Depending on which course you apply for, you would have to meet the required entrance requirements. If you are applying for a standard 5 year course, then you would need to have the minimum qualifications for that course; usually the A-levels and GCSEs or international equivalents. If applying for a 5 year course, your degree wouldn't automatically overule these required quals.

If you are a Graduate student and wish to apply for medicine but you don't have the previous qualifications to study, the Graduate Entry Programme is what is designed for you (4 year programme). You rightly say, competition is fierce and a GAMSAT result of a high proportion would be required, this is in addition to at least a 2:1 result. In this case, a degree would supercede most previous qualifications, and the GAMSAT would be used in lieu of A-levels, GCSEs or international equivalents (although it is always best to check with the specific Med School).

So, if you weren't wanting to re-study your A-levels/GCSEs etc then you would need to sit the GAMSAT and apply onto the GEP course. If your wanting to apply for the 5 year standard course, then you will need to resit your A-levels etc.

Now we come onto the second point. Only you can decide which you would be better suited for. There are advantages and disadvantages of both. The A-levels would be good as it will maximise the amount of Med Schools you can apply to, however it does mean you will need to study 3 A-levels over two years, and unless you were going to college full-time, Chemistry is becoming harder and rarer to do on a part-time basis (although Chemistry on distance/online learning is now not possible due to recent curricula changes). College full time for two years will still be tough, but almost not as tough as an Access to Medicine course. The worsed part of A-levels would be the length and potential cost of studying.

Access to Medicine is a great new method that has been implemented in recent years, COWA probably the mostly recognised and recommended. It's (very) intense and requires a substantial amount of work for success, but it's rewarding. This is full time and runs for one year. Although they aren't universally accepted by Medical Schools, a considerable amount of schools now accept them (Particularly the COWA course, about 18 schools I think). The disadvantages are, it's full time, usually requires you arrange accommodation unless it is local to you, and the work load can be extremely pressured.

If I was in your shoes, I would personally recommend the Access course. It is geared towards people who have possibly attained a degree in the past but now wish to retrain for a career in the medical profession. It'll certainly reduce the timescales of applying to Med School (providing you are succesful on your application).

I hope this makes sense, hope I helped.

Simon

[giella]

If you did sciences in your Baccalaureate, your situation may be different. Contact COWA directly to get some more advice.

[Ulric]

Wow! Well, thanks for the very comprehensive answer!

You are pretty right on every point.
In fact, my choices are somewhat restricted since:
- Most 6-years courses do not accept graduates. (Although Manchester does)
- Most standard courses still consider my (bad) 'Baccalauréat' grades despite the fact I'm graduate, and advise me to consider their GEP course. (In fact most of them told me I would pass the academic cut off, but wouldn't be competitive against most of the other applicants anyway).
- Most GEP courses only consider science degrees.

With my current grades and degrees, I can almost only apply to GEP Courses accepting 'degrees from any subject', and if ever I get rejected from all my GEP choices I want to make sure I can have an alternative option than applying to the same universities again and again
And since standard courses are way less competitive, I thought taking a year to improve my grades and apply there sounded a better idea than trying desperately to force the way in a GEP

So, in a (big) nutshell, it seems blatant that the access to medicine course is the best way to go, because...
- I'm not sure I could afford spending two more years on my savings to have the A-levels.
- It's shorter, so it's still one year less before getting to work.
- COWA qualifications seem to be almost as globally accepted as A-levels, among the medical-schools.
- I assume that an access course gives a good sciences threshold knowledge, which can prove quite valuable once in med-school.

But according to most of the web sites, there seems to be at least as few places on any A2M course as on a GEP course!
So would it definitely be a good choice to make, to postpone the medical-application competition to get myself into an even fiercier process?

[Ulric]

If you did sciences in your Baccalaureate, your situation may be different. Contact COWA directly to get some more advice.

You think it is? Don't you think that, even with sciences in my Baccalaureate, grades from an access-to-medicine would overule them?

I think I should ask them directly to make sure anyway. Thank you for the piece of advice!

Because a problem we have here, is that most medical-schools are expecting 'A' grades, so when looking for an equivalent in the french rating system (ranging from 0 to 20), they consider that A is 'above 18'.
Whereas most of the french people (and it's even more true in higher education) consider that 14 is good and 16 is excellent. So the 'A' grade, for us, is somewhat unattainable.

[giella]

Mmm, the problem is, the Access Courses themselves have fairly strict policies about who they admit. They won't take people who have previously achieved poorly in A level sciences, either because that's not who the course is designed for, or because they know that medical schools would scratch the applicant anyway because of it. Like I said, it's worth contacting the admissions people and seeing what they think.