Quote:
Originally Posted by okora
However, first and foremost, make sure you work hard to fulfil the academic criteria, concentrate on getting your 2:1 or 1st degree...mucho important!
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Oh yeh, getting your grades is a pretty fundamental part of it too, forgot that
. Many med schools dont distinguish between a 1st and a 2:1, some (like Birmingham) do. Just make sure you stay above that 60% (i assume its 60% at all unis?) to get your 2:1 and you are sorted on the academic front.
If you were to get a 2:2 it can really hamper an application, but even then its not the end of the world, you can do an Msc or apply to Notts/St georges.
Get your work exp in hospitals where possible and try and get experience not just with doctors but with nurses, volunteers and maybe even lab staff as well. As you are tackling it so early you have a real chance to do this thoroughly and to display your commitment.
In your spare time as i said do sports and music if you can, and try and get positions of responsibility where possible (eg. i became treasurer of my unis snowsports society). Awards, certificates (first aid, DoE etc) all help the cause.
a couple of schools have a weird "unusual qualities" section in their assessment of admissions. Meaning that if you do something a bit different it can help you out. My friends suggested i join the fire-eating society but i settled for taking a British Sign Language level 1 course and writing articles occasionally for the uni paper and a football website
Dan Mitchell's FFC | Football FanCast (shameless plug i know!).
Whilst these things are certainly not unique i would imagine that not many applicants will do them, and in med school admissions anything you can do to make your application memorable is hugely beneficial.
Do your best with admissions tests (dont believe what they say about not revising for UKCAT, it does help to do a bit practice for it), then make sure you read med schools admissions policies as they contain vital info on what they look for in PS's and interviews.
This is all stuff i should have mentioned in the first post but it was a bit of a half-baked post cos i was watching Trainspotting at the same time lol.
P.S Hehe, thanks Okora. I put the sig up there cos i was getting so fed up with posting and reposting saying where i was applying and what grades i have. And now, to be a massive hypocrite, i'm going to ask you where you're applying to? (sorry!)
