Help about applying

[Nimi1189]

Hey im a student currently studying high school in Canada. Im in grade 11 and im looking to apply for 2011. Im a bit confused tho, I want to know when I can apply to the universities and what I need o have exactly in terms of courses completed.
Thanks

[nikusm]

Admission Tests [very important]: BMAT- for Oxbridge, Imperial and UCL; UKCAT- for all but 7 med schools.
Equivalent entry requirement: a chemistry equivalent test in your country is compulsory; besides this you must sit a maths/biology/physics equivalent; expect high demands in this respect from UK med schools
If your schools offers IB, they would like scores of 6 and 7 in relevant subjects.
ECs&WorkExp bla bla&Personal Statement[reason-for-choosing-med&my-WorkExp-thought-me-blabla kind of essay]
Also, email the uni's to find out whether they accept your qualifications.
All applications are centralized by UCAS (i.e. the UK Collegeboard) and sent by them to the uni's. Also UCAS updates you on your application status.

[Laura_K]

Hi Nimi.
I'm a Gr 12 student in BC and I just applied two weeks ago. You can generally apply from September to October 15 (2010 for you) through UCAS. You'll have to be careful as several medical schools won't accept Canadian High School qualifications, only IB (though if you are IB, you're golden).
Most schools require at least six Gr 12 courses, including Chemistry and Biology, usually with 85% or more (though this varies). You'd probably do well taking physics, too.
The best thing to do is visit the UCAS website, and search for medicine through the course search. It will take you to a list of universities offering medicine courses and you can explore their websites. It will sometimes take some searching and occasionally emailing to find out if they'll accept your qualifications (and email to double check, too).
As mentioned above, you'll almost certainly have to take an entrance exam, and you must write a personal statement. You'll also need a reference, who you should ask early. Details for the Personal Statement and Reference can be found on the UCAS website.
Whatever you do, don't leave anything til the last minute. Try to get a shortlist of schools that will accept your qualifications soon. Then you can further narrow it down by location, accommodation, and school rankings (easily googled). It's best to leave yourself to leave yourself several options before you write the UKCAT so you can adjust your choices if you do better or worse than you expected.
Hope this helps.
PS. apparently St. Andrews doesn't interview Canadian applicants, so if you're worried about an interview, you might want to consider that one (wish I heard that before I applied).

[flarestar]

Lol St andrews also have a harsh criteria

Yeah laura's pretty much right. Apply in grade 12 (get you're application done by the end of september not the day before the deadline). However do you're UKCAT in the summer before grade 12, registration for the UKCAT is open from april the year you apply but uCAS only opens september to get all the previous years who are using clearing out the way.

Do your research now (ring the unis) and find out which uni's except your qualifications and start looking around for funding now to since medical schools charge an arm and a leg for international students.

Laura's right about the chem and bio and yes physics helps or math (which is for some reason considered a science). English is good to have to as they expect you to have taken an essay writing a-level (even though they don't mention it) and so english is the best way to go.

Make sure whoever does your refernce knows you really well, can write really well about you and puts some personality into the refernce. Also get them and an english teacher to check through you're personal statement. Start writing your personal statement from April and draft and re-draft because you're only allowed 4000 characters (including spaces) or 37 lines whichever you do first. (write it in mic word, font 12, times new roman)

[nikusm]

If you write your reference and just get your teacher to sign it, nothing happens right?
I mean, they can't check or anything, can they?

[zhangyuzhi]

If you write your reference and just get your teacher to sign it, nothing happens right?
I mean, they can't check or anything, can they?

technically yes. but I won't take the risk as my referee works in the field and just in case they tried to contact her........

[nikusm]

What's a referee? [heard about it, never bothered to...]

[zhangyuzhi]

What's a referee? [heard about it, never bothered to...]

the person writing your reference

[nikusm]

oh yeah...reference => referee
Who was your referee, zhang?

[Laura_K]

If you write your reference and just get your teacher to sign it, nothing happens right?
I mean, they can't check or anything, can they?

Besides the fact that that's dishonest, they can check. On UCAS, the reference is entered along with all your referee's contact information. And if they find out you wrote your own reference, something does happen-your application is disqualified. So basically-don't write your own reference. Get someone who knows you quite well and likes you to write it.