I was an international student, so I didn't go through the whole interview process.
Well as long as 'top notch' students (like yourself
) keep applying I suppose the unis can afford to be demanding!
It is a competitive program to get into, to some degree a competitive profession, and one with very high standards (you are dealing with lives after all).
I really enjoyed my time there. I am not really familiar with other UK universities, so it is hard to do a comparison. They recently built a new teaching facility, for years 1-4 (final year you don't have lectures you're on rotations in the hospital). It is very nice, but they only built two main lecture halls, with a smaller seminar-type room that the GEPs tend to use (seats about 70-80 I believe, possibly more). This means lecture halls tend to be shared between years eg years 1 and 2 in lecture hall 1 and years 3 and 4 in lecture hall 2. Sometimes this means gaps of 1-2 hours in the schedule, which can be minorly annoying since the school is out in the middle of no where, and buses run about 1x/hour. Other than the cafeteria no shops on campus or within easy walking distance. There is a "quiet" study area, the library, and a group/non-quiet study area, plus empty classrooms and such. There is a classroom full of computers, but if it is booked for a class then there is limited 'public' computer use (I had my own laptop so this didn't really bother me).
The teaching style is largely systems based, which I liked. Well once you get into clinical years I suppose it is species-based (cat and dog in 2nd semester 3rd year, farm animal first semester 4th year, equine and exotics 2nd semester 4th year) THEN systems based within that. That style generally made sense to me, and allowed for drawing comparisons between species, at least to some degree. Staff GENERALLY are pretty friendly and approachable/want to help. There is a student counseling service on site as well as student support staff and 'peer helper' students. I generally found everyone quite friendly, and there are lots of clubs, teams, social stuff to get involved with.
I'm actually not sure what to say about it and I don't want to take over your thread, so perhaps I should just stop and say look at the 'applying to Edinburgh/Edi uni questions' thread (don't remember the exact title) as most stuff is probably covered in there.