At George's or SOUTHAMPTON??

[Anitaisdabest]

I can't decide my fourth option to study medicine:

St George's OR Southampton

As a londoner i want to stay in london & go to St George's.
BUT Southampton don't interview

No interview means more competition at Southampton but my teacher says that i need a back-up university. Also i don't think i'm really good at interviews!

If i was given the choice between the 2 i wud go wid St George's. But I rather get into at least 1 medical school.

HELP

[sayaaahh]

Have you been to an open day for either place?

You could maybe then think about their different styles of teaching, structure of course, the "vibe" of the place and the students and all the other things that will be VERY important to your enjoyment of a long hard course.

If you think you are not very good at interview then organise a load of mock interviews! (Make sure you can talk enthusiastically about varied work experience and you'll be half way there.)

HTH

[kiya]

No interview means more competition at Southampton but my teacher says that i need a back-up university. Also i don't think i'm really good at interviews!

Southampton is far more of a lottery than any uni that interviews. The competition is worse and I don't think it could in any way be used as a backup option (this is my personal view of course).

But sayaaahh is right - you have to look at both to see which one you would prefer to go to.

All I will say is that interview performance can be improved. Work on that if it's the weakest part of your application, because if you can get to interview that's a lot of the work done already.

[Gizmo says -]

sgul if you need to stay in london, theres no question.

[Anitaisdabest]

sgul if you need to stay in london, theres no question.

I do want to stay in London. But I rather go out of london to study medicine rather than getting no medical places at all.

erm...

[simisims]

well wait until you get your results in August.
Go to the open days of all all the places you are considering to apply to.
Make sure you have an appropiate amount of work experience.
Gizmo is right cos if you have to stay in London for whatever reason then its the only place you may be able to actually fulfil your potential as a medical student. It would be awful if as a result you dropped out cos couldnt take living out of London.

Plenty of people, you only have to look at the reapplicants thread dont get into medical school first time round for various reasons.

[Krishna]

im from the reapplicants thread and i strongly advise u to apply to st georges.. the notion of southampton as a "backup" choice is ridic i think! no matter how strong u may think ur application is.. it is a big risk to go with soton.. cos the competition ther is so fierce.. its lik 16-20 applicants / place .. the fact that southampton dont interview.. doesnt make things better for u.. in fact it makes things worse bcos its harder for them to choose candidates frm paper applications only.. they're gonna be plenty of ppl applyin with 7A* and 4A etc so ther no way u can guarantee ur app gonna be strong enough in all the facets(the gcse thing was jst an example.. not sayin thats what it WILL be)
st georges on the other hand.. guarantee an interviwe to all students who meet certain academic requirements, which i think u fit.. meanin if cambridge rejects u after interview and ur bmat/ukcat aint gud enough for imp/barts respectivly.. then u kno u will get at least one interview in ur uni choices.. i really think st g's is the better chocie for u.

[simisims]

Krishna raises some very valid points.
You want to stay in London anyway and you wouldnt have to face an anxious wait of what is happening with your application until April cos you will either get rejected or interviewed at around a reasonable time during the applications process.

[Dick Cheney]

Krishna++

Appalling structure, spelling, capitalisation and punctuation though.

[Krishna]

Grammar bully, as if its relevant when im just trying to give someone a little help over their uni choices.