Single parent - no qualifications!!

[469er]

Dawnybee, good luck whatever you decide, but I would just urge you to think again about Access to Medicine. Thinkerbelle is spot on - you can do any GCSEs you need concurrently. Without knowing your location it's hard to offer specific advice, but the colleges that offer Access often have nurseries on-site too - I am in the position of having an 18-month old at my college nursery while I do a 1-yr Access course. He was just 1 when I started. We are both coping and happy! (I also have 2 more at school.)

Anyone committing to an undergrad degree with the intention of applying to grad medicine in 3 years' time is playing with fire, IMHO. After 2009, the cap on tuition fees for medics with a previous degree will become obsolete and there is a real danger of having to pay fees more comparable with international fee levels. Multiply this by 4 or 5 years, and something which is do-able but tough this year or next will, for many, become totally beyond consideration.

Sorry to be a doom monger, but it's as well to make decisions with as much info as possible. Good luck.

[dawnybee]

I want to say a huge thankyou to TMG - until I followed your advice on looking at the access forum I didnt know that a college near me does the access course, I didnt like the idea of three yrs GCSE and alevel also thankyou for the advice 469er, Thinkerbell and TMG - it is a tough decision but one that is slowly becoming a like water, I feel like I have been wading in mud for a while. THANKS everyone.

[Gabby]

Hello Dawnybee - I hardly ever get the chance to come on the forum these days, too busy studying ha ha. But I just wanted to try and encourage you to consider all of the options that are open to you, but then RELAX...you are still very young and therefore there is time for you to find a way in. I say this because I'm here now - having secured a graduate place at the ridiculously old age of 46. If I had been able to go on an access course rather than doing a degree first, I would have absolutely jumped at the chance - but they didn't exist when I first tried to get into Med.
From what I've heard from people who have done Access to med, the year absolutely races by - and then as a non-grad you would also still be eligible for loans for tuition fees etc.

All you can do is what you are doing, which is weighing it all up - this place helped me enormously when I was trying to get in - so I hope it helps you, too.
Feel free to PM me if you want more advice,

Good luck, gabby xxx