[wannabe_pilot]

hi,

I want to do medicine at UCL, Birmingham, Manchester, Dundee or Nottingham, top unis etc...

are these A-levels good enough?

Biology
Chemistry
English Lit
Psycology

if not any better recommendations?

P.S I HATE Physics and will NEVER pick it, i am okay at maths, dnt really like or hate it ... BUT heard that it is MEGA hard at A-level?

any comments appreciated

[teaandcoffee]

To do medicine at a top uni such as Nottingham requires a decent UKCAT score as well, just incase you didn't know that.

Also for Birmingham, do you have their GCSE requirements of 7/8 A*'s (cant remember exactly).

I think you should do Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Eng Lit. That would be a nice, diverse range of subjects. But psychology would be good also I guess.

Good luck making your decision.

[Jonnislats]

I don't do medicine however I did want too when I chose my A Levels (am in U6th at the moment). I'd swap Psychology for Maths if I were you as most Uni's require 3 sciences/maths, and Psychology wouldn't count. However, think of a couple of Uni's that you would like to go to and look on their websites and on the UCAS website and see what they say

[ellakrystina]

http://russellgroup.org/Informed%20Choices%20final.pdf

'If you do Chemistry, Biology and one from Mathetics and Physics then you will keep all medical schools open to you'

[Unbiased Opinion]

YOU DO NOT NEED MATHS FOR MEDICINE. IT GIVES YOU NO ADVANTAGE.


The only university that requires it is Magdalene College at Cambridge. Some Cambridge colleges require three out of: Bio, Chem, Maths, Physics. Other than that, no advantage.

Take those A Levels, they sound perfect.

Also, there is no top uni for Medicine. All unis are GMC approved and they are given equal weighting.

Do NOT take maths A Level because you think it's required for Medicine because it really isn't. Take subjects you'll get high grades in (although you need Chem and another science- Bio in your case)!

[wannabe_pilot]

(Original post by Unbiased Opinion)
YOU DO NOT NEED MATHS FOR MEDICINE. IT GIVES YOU NO ADVANTAGE.


The only university that requires it is Magdalene College at Cambridge. Some Cambridge colleges require three out of: Bio, Chem, Maths, Physics. Other than that, no advantage.

Take those A Levels, they sound perfect.

Also, there is no top uni for Medicine. All unis are GMC approved and they are given equal weighting.

Do NOT take maths A Level because you think it's required for Medicine because it really isn't. Take subjects you'll get high grades in (although you need Chem and another science- Bio in your case)!

WOW!!! thank you point taken

and thanks for the help everyone!!!

[wer343lit]

Your subject choices are fine for every medical school except Cambridge.

As long as those are the subjects you enjoy and are good at, then they're a good set of choices.

[JustLau]

(Original post by wannabe_pilot)
WOW!!! thank you point taken

and thanks for the help everyone!!!

This isn't completely true.

As ellakrystina pointed out, the Russell Group just released a helpful leaflet, and she posted a link too. It would be wise to pay attention, because out of those 5 unis, only Dundee isn't a member. However, I would say there is a good chance you'll change your mind before then anyway. At 16 I wanted to study maths/chemistry at Oxford, Durham or St Andrews. Now (at 20) I'm planning on nursing, somewhere not too far from home.

But back to my point. The sad fact is, that whether the unis explicitly say so or not, an A in maths is worth more than an A in psychology. I refer you to the following 'blacklist':

http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=604

Though I realise this is non-specific, you need to remember that medicine is one of the most competitive courses out there, and perfect grades are not enough, you are competing with the best. The schools you have picked are very popular and you need every edge you can get. Psychology is considered 'arts' because it is not as scientific as the other sciences. I would highly recommend maths, and if not, something like history.

[wer343lit]

(Original post by JustLau)
This isn't completely true.

As ellakrystina pointed out, the Russell Group just released a helpful leaflet, and she posted a link too. It would be wise to pay attention, because out of those 5 unis, only Dundee isn't a member. However, I would say there is a good chance you'll change your mind before then anyway. At 16 I wanted to study maths/chemistry at Oxford, Durham or St Andrews. Now (at 20) I'm planning on nursing, somewhere not too far from home.

But back to my point. The sad fact is, that whether the unis explicitly say so or not, an A in maths is worth more than an A in psychology. I refer you to the following 'blacklist':

http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=604

Though I realise this is non-specific, you need to remember that medicine is one of the most competitive courses out there, and perfect grades are not enough, you are competing with the best. The schools you have picked are very popular and you need every edge you can get. Psychology is considered 'arts' because it is not as scientific as the other sciences. I would highly recommend maths, and if not, something like history.

I think medical schools would discriminate on more important factors than what subject additional A Levels are.

[Fission_Mailed]

Med schools don't give two ****s about your additional subject choices as long as you do the ones that they explicitly say that they want.

[Unbiased Opinion]

(Original post by wannabe_pilot)
WOW!!! thank you point taken

and thanks for the help everyone!!!

I just don't want you taking a subject you won't enjoy. A Levels are hard enough as it is without dragging yourself to lessons of a subject you dislike.

Although as someone else pointed out, if you're considering Chem as an alternative to Med, maybe Maths would be useful. That said, my friend didn't do A Level Maths and she's a third year Chemistry student at Newcastle now, so there are alternatives.

[sapphiregold]

(Original post by wannabe_pilot)
hi,

I want to do medicine at UCL, Birmingham, Manchester, Dundee or Nottingham, top unis etc...

are these A-levels good enough?

Biology
Chemistry
English Lit
Psycology

if not any better recommendations?

P.S I HATE Physics and will NEVER pick it, i am okay at maths, dnt really like or hate it ... BUT heard that it is MEGA hard at A-level?

any comments appreciated

hey just wondering what did you decide to do because i thinking of doing medicine and funnyly enough i was picking exactly these A levels
could you tell me how you found the subjects and if you changed any of these

[Raw Shark]

The most important thing is to get all A's in your AS levels. I learnt this the hard way cause I did 5 AS levels and got AAAAB (with the B in Eng Lit) and was rejected without interview from B'ham, whereas applicants with AAAA got interviewed. I did get 9A*'s at GCSE so I think they didn't interview me purely on the basis of that B.

With that in mind, I'd advise against taking essay subjects as they're usually harder to get high marks in, requiring more work and due to the subjective nature of the marking. Obviously if you're willing to put the time and effort in then go for it, but for a medicine applicant bio and chem should really be prioritised.

I found Eng Lit quite tedious at AS, didn't put the work in and consequently got a low mark. I didn't do psychology but I've heard that you have to learn a lot of case studies which wasn't to everyone's taste, so I'd recommend having a look at the course to see if it suits you.

Despite what the earlier poster said about maths, I would advocate taking single Maths as a third/fourth subject: you only have to do three modules, one of which you might have already covered the majority of (if you're in top set at GCSE). Further Maths is a bit of a mare, and I would steer clear of that unless you're a maths keeno. Even though it's not essential unis look favourably on Maths AS, especially compared to Pschology, and single Maths can be an easy A for a reasonably bright student.

[aWildPidgey]

Sigh... Another one saying that they wanna do medicine. In my opinion, so many people wanna do it because it's 'the best degree', and not because they actually want to help people.