Retakes/second chances

[kylelowe1990]

Hi all.
So has anyone been successful in retaking GCSEs and or Alevels/ doing access to medicine and been accepted to med schools?!

[richtea5]

Hi I've applied for 2013 entry so haven't got any direct experience in this but honestly GCSEs aren't especially important so not really going to affect your overall application (provided you apply smart). A-levels resit are a bit trickier I believe but there are places that will accept resits (albeit very few places unless you have extenuating circumstances meaning you were unable to achieve the grades) so if you miss the grades probably a better option is to apply to some clinical sciences (bradford) or biomedical sciences (newcastle, leicester) or which will give you the chance to transfer (this is my back up) or after this go for the graduate entry route and apply for the 4 year course which is more competitive. Than finally you said 'access to medicine' this is really for people who do not have the correct A-levels (so people not doing Chemistry or sciences at all), I know people do enter through this route but it's more of an option for people who have changed there minds and decided to do medicine 'late' having already done there AS years in arts/humanities. So access to medicine isn't really an option for most people because; 1. of the selection criteria 2. I believe it's more difficult in terms of few enter through this route and it must be quite difficult to justify the change.
Also there is a second type of 'access' for people from for people who arefor example first generation to go to university in there family and have low income (the requirements for this type of access vary from university to university so I guess check the details) but they sometimes guarantee an interview and offer lower grades etc.
Good luck hope this is helpful

[kylelowe1990]

Hey there. I personally haven't done A levels,although I have done a BTEC in sports,which was at level 3.I'm redoing my GCSEs as I got Cs across the board, but since I haven't actually done an A level I wonder if they will look at it as if They are not resists. where are you applying,and what do you have under your belt?if you don't mind me asking that is!