Medicine Resit Applicants' Success Stories?

Congrats on getting offers!!

I am in a similar situation as you this year, with the grades A*AB (B in biology). I am hoping to reapply and resit and hope for the best!

Just wondering, did you have any ext. circumstances?

Thanks!

Just following up from my previous post I now have a conditional offer AAA for exeter and an unconditional offer from keele. It can be done!

Hey there I pretty much got the same grades as you with A*ABB and thus missed my offer :/ (damn chemistry!)

I can't believe there are actually places we can apply which is great!
Where are you thinking of applying to? I'm definitely thinking of Keele as I don't think I'll need to retake for them, I'm also thinking of Exeter, Plymouth and UEA.

I have some circumstances regarding ill health, I guess I'll just have to email all the unis that allow resits with mitigating circumstances and see if mine qualify! If so then I would really like to apply to Durham if I get a good enough ukcat

We can do this.

Hey there I pretty much got the same grades as you with A*ABB and thus missed my offer :/ (damn chemistry!)

I can't believe there are actually places we can apply which is great!
Where are you thinking of applying to? I'm definitely thinking of Keele as I don't think I'll need to retake for them, I'm also thinking of Exeter, Plymouth and UEA.

I have some circumstances regarding ill health, I guess I'll just have to email all the unis that allow resits with mitigating circumstances and see if mine qualify! If so then I would really like to apply to Durham if I get a good enough ukcat

We can do this.

Resitter from 2013 (with extenuating circumstances), now going into 2nd year, will post my story and advice on here later tonight.

I think you can also apply to Nottingham for the 6 year course if you fulfil the other requirements. I am also in a similar situation. Got A*AB (a). B in Biology. Gonna retake for Exeter, Lancaster and BSMS. Tho im not too sure about Lancaster. Another question, does plymouth accept resits? It says on the website the typical offer is to A*AA - AAA.

Good Luck.

Hi! I know how you feel, pretty gutted because now we are limited to which med school we can apply to

And same here, I am applying to Keele, and then I was thinking maybe Liverpool and Plymouth, leaving 2 choices for other courses.

Most unis accept mitigating circumstances so you should be fine, me on the other hand, flopped biology due to no particular reason, except that I found it hard and underestimated the power of coursework. (B in BIOL4, A in BIOL5 and C in my ISA )

May I ask what type of work experience you took?

Hey, yeah it's tough as our grades are basically equivalent to AAA :/ It's annoying that we're limited but tbh I'm just happy we have some options!

Good choices, I guess mine are just gonna be decided by UKCAT etc, I'm gonna do 4 med as this year I got some good clearing offers so hopefully I can do the same next year.

My circumstances are kind of borderline so I'm not sure if they'll be accepted by all unis, so I guess I'll just email them first!

That's so unlucky, coursework is so annoying :/ same with me and chemistry I guess, I got 3 high B's in the modules but my coursework was moderated down by 5 marks (would have got my A if it hadn't -_-)

Pretty average: 5days in one hospital, 3 in another and then volunteering at disabity youth group since early year 12!

Good luck to you are you gonna mainly just reuse your old PS?

1) have you considered remarks, since you mention you are close? ABB or AAB would look so much better than BBN.
2) you have to be prepared and confident. Figure out EXACTLY what your situation is and how it affected you and be confident.
3) email, don't call. Calling is for urgent situations, email gives you the chance to write everything down, get it looked at by someone who can actually make decisions and gives you written evidence.
4) reflection - well pretty much what caused you to miss your grades and how this has strengthened your determination.
In your situation I'd email saying something like the interrupted teaching meant that you were forced to self study large chunks of your chemistry course and left you with no structure in your study, which in turn added to your stress and tool time away from your other subjects, resulting in a serious under achievement - evidenced by your predicted grades (I'm assuming AAA or above) which you feel reflect your genuine potential.
I retook this year (had ABBC, I did 4 subjects and the c was actually chemistry!) and am about to begin studying medicine at Leeds this year, so it's possible

Story of a successful resitter (with some extenuating circumstances), for those interested. I know when I was in this situation I really wanted to what had happened to other sand get advice etc, so hope this is helpful.
In the summer of 2012 on results day I got back my A level results of ABBC, (maths, biology, physics and chemistry). I therefore missed my offer of AAAC at King's College London. Obviously there are a few days/weeks of despair, dilemmas and uncertainty, but in the end I decided that I wanted to reapply to medicine, not take a clearing course, go abroad or do grad med (which are all options and you should give then consideration).
Now, I had some circumstances at the time, which I hadn't declared to my school (parent suffering depression, difficult family situation - nothing that dramatic but anything that may have affected you at all is worth mentioning, could open up more med schools for you and make tutors looks upon your application more favourably.)
So I, along with my parents (if your parents are supportive if strongly advise you to take them when talking to teachers, schools tend to be more receptive/helpful and more likely to take you seriously if you come with parents) went to my head of year to bring these up. They obviously said that we should have mentioned them earlier, but agreed to mention them in the reference and write me a supporting letter to send to unis.
Now here's the important bit for any anyone with any extenuating circumstances - I then emailed every single medical school to ask whether they'd consider me. I created a list of my results, listing my GCSE's, my AS results, all the good A level modules etc I had achieved, my UKCAT score etc - pretty much anything that made me look good. I also attached the letter from my school explaining my circumstances. I wrote an email about how keen I was to study there, outlined my circumstances and sent it to every medical school. I had varying responses. A couple, such as UEA, Exeter said that they'd consider every resit applicant anyway - that info is likely available on their websites so you need to look into that. Some, like Manchester, consider resitter with ABB and above. Some, such as a Queens university Belfast said that they would have considered me if I'd applied to them lady year (so make sure you mention in your email if you did apply last year). Some gave me a straight no. Some, such as Aberdeen and St George's said they'd look at my circumstances after I applied only.
HOWEVER, a couple, said that they had looked I went information and would consider me personally based on what I'd submitted. These were Leeds and Sheffield (I think there were a few more but I remember those two as I applied). Anyway, I'd strongly advise you to do this. My documents were attached to my application so it would be considered alongside those and obviously I got extra universities to apply to, giving me some choice to apply to those with more favourable selection criteria for me.
Anyway, I'm now at Leeds, having just completed first year once you apply, don't obsess over your application, focus on the work for your A levels and make sure you absolutely nail it. Come up with something productive to do in your gap year. Write about your reaffirmed commitment to Medicine on your PS.
Feel free to message me if you have any more questions, hope I was helpful!

Hi,

Congratz on getting in. I am also resitting Biology as i got a B and I need an A. Does Leeds also accept resits?

HI

I was just wondering what did u mean by u got extra unis to apply to. Like you could apply to more than 4? I do have some mitigating circumstances tho i didnot tell my school that at the time. any help would be much appreciated. thanks.

I meant extra uni's as in those that do not usually consider resitters. You can only apply to 4 but might have more to choose from, so you can select those where you'd stand the best chance. I didn't either, but I discussed it after results day with school and they subsequently mentioned it on my reference.

Hi! Congrats on getting in to Leeds!

May I ask how bad was your parent's depression? My mum also had depression for a while during my A2 period but I don't think it will be considered as mitigating circumstances because it wasn't too serious. If it's something private and you'd rather not answer then I totally understand!

Also, can I ask aside from Leeds, which other med school have you applied to and was it successful/unsuccessful?

It's a little hard to quantify how bad it is, was classed as mild to moderate I think but the important thing is showing how it's affected you - did you have to take over as a carer for siblings? Were you not getting proper sleep and eating properly? Did it put a lot of stress and anxiety causing you to be unable to focus? Etc etc. Could he worth speaking to your GP, explaining how you were affected and asking for a supporting note.
I applied to Sheffield and Exeter where I was rejected straight away and UEA where I was interviewed.

Hi thanks for your reply I think I will apply for resit unis because although my mum had a slight depression, it only caused anxiety and neglect, which shouldn't really have affected my grades.
Thank you for sharing your story, I'm sure it will be a lot of help to others as well!


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Anxiety and neglect will certainly be accepted as mitigating. Did you ever see a GP for it?
And do you have 4 unis you can apply to right now?
It's okay, I hope so

No I never went to see a GP about it as I would get over it quickly since I understood my mum's difficulties, but my mum did go to see a GP for it. She's all better now though

I am going to apply to Keele, Liverpool and Plymouth for medicine, leaving the other two for other courses.