less competitive unis

[medical man]

Hello i just got my last rejection and i have decided to apply for 2008.

I think the mistake i made is that i applied to 3 very competitive unis and 1 quite competitive (ucl, imperial, oxford and leicester)

I only got an interview at leicester.


I appreciate that no medical school is easy to get into, but some are easier than others (my friend with similar results got in to queen mary 2 days after interview and he didnt even care if he got in- he had offers elsewhere)

Also apart from southhampton which unis dont interview.
Also, which unis dont need ukcat?


Also i got 5a* at gcse. Are there any unis that specify this amount of a stars or more? (thus possibly reducing the number of applicants).

Thank you because i am determined to get into medical school despite my stupid choice of unis this year (i couldnt have really applied to more competitive unis).

Thank you

[Miss Monkey]

As you say, all medical schools are very competitive. However whilst none are easy, I would say it is possible to apply strategically places which are most likely to take you based on your strengths. UCL, Oxford and Imperial seem (I don't know for sure because I didn't apply) to rate academia (and of course other things) very highly. If this isn't your strongest point, maybe apply to places that focus less on this.

Sorry I can't give more specific help, but that's because I am not you and I don't know your personal strengths!

[medical man]

i didnt have that much work experience (only a week at a hospital) although i did write a lot about what i learned from it (and didnt say i only did a week)

If i do tons of work experience as well as a variety of work experience then which unis would you recommend?

[Gizmo says -]

only oxford of your ucl imp, ox group rate academia (that medic man has done) 'ighly. UCL and imperial dont, and are two of the easier ones to get into on average.

even that pattern is prone to change year in year out.
Monkey says u shuld choose to match your strenfs and thats wat u shuld do, or more specifically, choose (or decide on if you aint already) your 'wants' and match up to that.
its not easy to get into any medical skool, but its a lot easier if the place u pick matches your wants needs and desires. Working towards the application gets so much easier when its somefing you want ten times more than jus for simply studying at.

[JP_62818]

I don't actually know many of the stats or so on about competitiveness of various unis, sorry to say, thought I expect you may be able to find applicants/place ratios somewhere on this forum?

In terms of a couple of specific Qs you asked, the only other uni I can think of which doesn't interview (I THINK!) is Edinburgh (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!). As for the A*s thing, there's a chance Birmingham ask for 6A*. I think there's a bit of debate over that, there's 7million posts on it on the B'ham forum here, but just so you know there's a possibility of that. Afraid I don't know about the UKCAT.

I think Miss Monkey's right about different unis preferring different things, that's probably a more important factor than straight out competitiveness. Think about what you want them to see in your application. If, as Miss Monkey said, the issue was that these 3 unis highly prioritise academia, then maybe your application was trying to prioritise something different and that was the problem? I'm just making a suggestion. Sorry, I don't know your application, I can only speculate.
I remember at BSMS interview last year the admissions guy speaking was saying that while all med schools agree that both academics and personality is needed, there is a clash between those which look at the highest academic scores out of those which pass the minimum "personality" requirements, and those which look for some personality "sparkle" out of those who pass the minimum academic requirements. He counted BSMS as one of the latter. I'm not necessarily suggesting you apply to them (I should mention they're pretty competitive too, due to the small yearly intake), just illustrating that maybe some unis think like that.

Hope some of that incoherent stuff I've just typed makes some sense and/or is of some help!

Jamie

[Gizmo says -]

listen to the monkey, macca

[halcyondream]

UCL and imperial dont, and are two of the easier ones to get into on average.

How do you know?

[Spencer Wells]

Alot of people are put off applying as they're expensive and such. Overall, about 15% of applicants to each end up with places (so about 25% end up with offers), which isn't too bad a statistic for a medical school.

[medical man]

yeah but statistics arent everything, its about the quality of applicants.

Out of people at my school that applied to imperial one had all a* at gcse and the other had 9 (the one with 12 a* getting in and the other has an interview today) so surely lower medical schools will be less popular with strong candidates. They may have the same ratio of places to applicants, or even a worse ratio but if the quality of applicants is worse, then that should be easier to get into

[Gizmo says -]

not in the slightest, medici man -ucl and imp ask for minimum gcses only.

How do you know?

Spence has it.
the key to crackin them (UCL and Imp) is tailoring your application towards them wif careful research, although arguably many of their applicants get this done for them thru background and skool, so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that lots of stoodents from skools that load you wif reams of A*s apply there.