I'm not refuting that you're limiting your options with AS/A2 Chemistry, & of course I would strongly recommend most med school prospects to take it. Personally I didn't take it because I ****ing hate Chemistry lol.
I don't know if anything's changed since I finished my A-levels (June 2015, same year
I got my offer for Medicine obviously). But let me address the points you just made:
- I had 1 week's worth of work experience
- I had a very low UKCAT score, only just above the cut-off limit
- My GCSE grades were mediocre by med school standards (but again, the unis I applied to said they did not take into account GCSE grades into the application, just that you need minimum B in English or some ****)
And you didn't understand what I meant when I said if unis prioritise your interview. No sh*t they look at how well you did in it. What I meant is that for some universities, they look at UKCAT score & it has to be above the cut-off score..
then they look at your personal statement
then they interview you. So the ultimate decision is based on your interview performance, you just need a UKCAT score above the cutoff limit to have your application properly considered.
Whereas some unis
will only look at applicants with really high UKCAT scores, then they'll interview those applicants, and then they'll select the ones they want based on the interview performance. So here you need a high UKCAT score to even be considered in the first place. Make sense?