Graduate Entry Medicine 2011

[bshuker]

Hey,

Good thread! I'm also hoping for 2011 GEP. I'm currently second year Neuroscience and Psychology BSc (Dual Hons), definitely on track for 2:1, hoping to push to a 1st.

(my Psych course is very experimental based and contains significant biological psychology, Neuro course had significant overlap with Biochem and Biomedical science in first year, continues to overlap with Biology, which should be useful as not to be too specialised when considering the application, i.e. it meets all the checklist requirements for Imperial etc)

My A levels aren't so great, BBCDccc: Gen Studies, Music Tech, German, Maths; Physics, Law, Music. BUT, I'm hoping that a 1st in my undergraduate plus a hell of an application might win me over.

Lack of Chemistry is worrying me a bit, but I've reflected it in my current selections:

Warwick, King's, Imperial, not sure on a fourth yet.

As for work experience I've got a volunteer post at the local university hospital ready, just awaiting a CRB to be completed before I can start. It should be fairly substantial (at least 4 weeks) and they're offering me the opportunity to move around the different wards to get the best experience possible.

Other things I'm hoping that might support my application include:
BPS accredited Psychology degree which will lead to a membership of the society
Membership of:
British Neuroscience Association
Royal Microscopy Society
British Psychological Society
Physiology Society

Going to do an experimental research project/write up for Neuroscience in final year and experimental research project and subsequent dissertation for Psychology.

Also my extracurricular stuff:
Grade 7 (distinction) Guitar - member of the university big band
Saxophone (bought and taught self in order to join the university wind band after performing percussion with them) - member of university wind band
Rugby: on my school 1st XV, hometown U13-19s, sixth form rugby academy 1st XV, not a university player - (chronic knee injury couldn't cope with playing any longer...)
Active gym user, recreational weight lifting
regularly play squash


Sorry if my post is a bit long! Just excited to talk about this with peers.

Ben

[snoogles]

Haha Ben, you're clearly on track to writing an awesome personal statement.

I'm a French student, currently in a Biology masters (on track for a first, as far as I can tell). I already have a BA from Canada (also a first if the conversion tables on my uni's website are right).

I'm going to take the UKCAT. If I get a good score, will apply to Imperial and Oxford. Bad score, to Cambridge and Bristol. Those are for sure, but I'm not sure yet about the other two. How are the other London unis regarding the UKCAT? I'm aiming for Oxbridge mostly because of how science/reasearch-oriented they are.

For work experience, I have a year of volunteering at a hospital, and a day of shadowing a surgeon. Looking at what everyone else has done, I'm starting to think that I should find more... Hard to do in France though. All my previous experience was in Canada!

Is anyone interested in swapping personal statements for editing and ideas?

[GenericName]

You're going to apply to Cambridge and Bristol with a bad score???? That's an INCREDIBLY bad idea :S They both require excellent scores to get into. If you get anything below 625ish you want to be looking at low UKCAT weighted Universities or your application will suffer too badly as a result. Also, it depends on whether you want 4 or 5 year.... I wouldn't apply for any GEP courses with a score below 650 and you need 700+ for the better GEP schools. If you are applying for only 5 year schools and get a good score I would still throw in some lower ranked schools as a backup or you might find yourself on the bad end of an unusually tough year (as many people have found this year...)

Volunteering-wise, that's probably enough for most schools, certainly the year volunteering will look impressive, not really sure about the requirements for work experience...different med schools want different amounts and have different criteria to look at when considering how good that part of your application is.

Oh! The London Unis are VERY tough on UKCAT these days... for example, Barts had a cut-off of 665 this year for 5-year and Kings requires something more toward 700. Also consider that, if you are an international student, competition will be tougher so you may want to aim for slightly lower unis than home students with similar qualification.

[snoogles]

Maybe I misunderstood, but I was fairly sure that Bristol and Cambridge do NOT require the UKCAT for the 4 year program.
Cambridge requires the BMAT if you don't want to use your previous science courses to satisfy the science prerequisite (which is not my case).
Bristol requires no admissions test at all.

The UKCAT doesn't seem that scary, except for the abstract reasoning section... I am dreading it sooo much.

[snoogles]

Oh, and I'm thankfully not an international student. EU membership means that I'm treated the same as UK students!

[GenericName]

My bad I wasn't sure; when I sat it the UKCAT wasn't as bad as practice tests... but I guess it changes year to year. BMAT is pretty tough (definitely tougher than UKCAT) and you don't get the result before committing to your choices so you might get a terrible score and have a Cambridge app which can go nowhere but in the bin...annoying system.

I think if you don't do so well in the UKCAT maybe you'll want to consider places like UEA? It'll be less competitive than schools like Bristol and Southampton who don't consider entrance tests at all. I guess you'll have to wait and see how the UKCAT goes though.

EDIT: Really?? I didn't know that, very good news I think in terms of competition. I know a few international applicants who have struggled to get into 5 year courses with really quite nice UKCATs.

[bshuker]

Hey guys,

What's your opinion on getting in GEP after doing an MSc, it's just I was already planning on applying for GEP in September, then in January as a backup I was going to apply for some MSc courses aswell.

It's just that now I've been looking at MSc courses, I found one (Molecular Neuroscience at Bristol) that really caught my eye, and I'd still want to do GEP, it's just that I feel the 1 year spent doing that would really enhance my GEP experience, both academically at first and clinically in the long run.

I'm just cautious to whether GEP programmes would be as willing to take people who already have an MSc compared to just going straight into it with the BSc.

Any thoughts?, (or even if I should stick this in a different topic...)

Ben

[skittles87]

Count me in

[snoogles]

Ben, I sure can't see any downside to getting an MSc if you want it and aren't just trying to boost your application. If you're applying to med schools which are more academic and science-focused, I'm sure they'd appreciate your commitment to research.

[bshuker]

Yeah, I'm really interested in pursuing the MSc for my own interest. My concern would be NOT applying for GEP, and then not getting a place on the MSc, or applying for both and getting both.

How open to deferring places are the GEP programmes?