Being of ethnic background increase your chances at all?

[wannabemedic321]

I know this is generalising a lot, and I may seem to be exaggerating, but do Universities have some sort of quota for students from ethnic backgrounds such as pakistani, chinese, etc.

And I mean, being fluent in their own language along with English, etc. (In addition to being of ethnic background)

And what if you're parents have not been to university, etc?

I would appreciate your thoughts and views on this subject

[MonkeywithaMachete]

I would be appalled if any university had such a quota! Being of a certain ethnic background would make absolutely no difference. There is, however, a quota for international (overseas) and home students. Here at Barts, for example, there was a quota of about 15 or so international students, out of about 300 of us. Here's a good page with info on home/international students if you need it:

Home Student or Overseas Student?

Hope this helps!

Edit:

Sorry, forgot to address your other question...

As for whether or not your parents went to university, I'm not entirely sure on. I would think that it has a minimal effect on your application, if any at all. Out of the three variables you mentioned, the most important one would probably being fluent in another language. Being a doctor, to speak another language would be an advantage. But even that would be a relatively weak aspect of anyone's application.

[zhangyuzhi]

there is a quota for medical schools, where they can only give 8% of places to internationals. In some schools (especially graduate entry courses), this might vary a little bit. However, they do look for candidates who are as competitive as local/EU ones during the selection process, which means it's not necessarily easier for an international to get into med schools. Plus many international students are either living or studying in an English-speaking country prior to their application, and I have met people speaking perfect English. The cultural differences might exist, though.

regarding the education status of parents, I do not think it matters at all as we do not need to provide details in such regard for our applications.

[MonkeywithaMachete]

regarding the education status of parents, I do not think it matters at all as we do not need to provide details in such regard for our applications.

If I recall correctly, we did need to put down our parents' education level somewhere in the UCAS form.

[zhangyuzhi]

I am pretty sure I didn't.....I did UCAS twice, 2005 and 2009 (this cycle). I am using the electronic system..

[Khush23]

They ask you the occupation of your higher earning parent.

[Singh.Simran]

But i believe it says it is for monitoring purposes only.

There will be no nonmeritocratous discrimination anywhere in the system; it would have been whistleblown a hundred times over by now!

[Chwirkytheappleboy]

They ask you the occupation of your higher earning parent.

If you're a mature student though they ask for your own occupation. At the time of application my job title was "Junior Consultant" and it's now "Consultant". Interestingly enough, in my current industry, Consultant is the lowest grade, whereas in the Medical profession, Consultant is the highest. Any medical admissions tutor looking at my application probably initially thought "why is he applying for Medical School if he's a Consultant already?" before noticing that my job description says "IT Consultant"...

[minnako]

There is no official quota for ethnic diversity AFAIK. Whilst on a subconscious level there may be a chance people (such as interviewers) may be drawn to someone who reminds them more of themselves theoretically, there's nothing to suggest that people from any particular background are unlikely to get a place if they have the requirements (whether all backgrounds have the opportunities to do so is another matter)...

I honestly don't think that one would need such an advantage to get into medical school, nor would medical schools really need a quota, since the pool of applicants for medicine is actually quite diverse. As far as I can see, medical schools are very diverse.

Also, applicants who speak a language other than English at home cannot be given special preference because UCAS and universities don't ask if you speak any other languages. Some people write it in their PS, some don't, and you really can't assume that just because someone looks foreign that they are fluent in their native tongue. If memory serves me, UCAS is also really vague about ethnicity categories, so it's debateable how much they can actually assume even if they were looking at this (which I doubt).

Personally I think it would be interesting if, given how diverse patients can be, and the dearth of translators, if medical students were given extra MTAS points for learning a language the NHS may find useful. But I do not think they would be likely to give preference to those already speaking a language simply because they have no guarantee that their language would be useful to the NHS (say if it's an obscure dialect spoken by relatively few people) or that their vocabulary would be useful in a medical context. They would, in all likelihood still need training up.

Bearing in mind the fact that universities want someone who can cope with the workload of uni and the job, I should think all of the above would pale to insignificance (if it were even considered) compared to how well the candidates perform academically and at interview, so don't worry about all of the above and focus on that which is the most important and within your control.

[Singh.Simran]

Actually that's a point.. the research does seem to show that candidates for jobs do worse with the same stat but an "ethnic" name on the sheet..

Probably the same for medicine.