Aberdeen Medical School Applicants 2012

Aberdeen place a lot of emphasis on your PS and interview, both of which would need to be excellent Dundee maybe?

no way could i do Dundee D: my UKCAT isn't high enough!
how hard was the interview and what type of questions do they pose to you?

When I applied to university I didn't really have a clear idea where I wanted to go. Having visited all the unis which offer medicine, I began to notice the difference between the larger, more 'elite' institutions (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and the smaller ones (Dundee and Aberdeen). The latter unis seemed to try a lot harder to encourage me to study there, it felt that way to me anyway

The interview experience only concreted this. At Glasgow I felt extremely intimidated by the staff and the whole environment, whereas Aberdeen were welcoming and friendly even when asking difficult questions In the end the friendliness of the staff and the fact that Aberdeen felt more homely was the reason I turned down my Glasgow offer to study in Aberdeen.

If you look at the University of Aberdeen as a whole, it isn't as big or shiny as Edinburgh or Glasgow. The city is nowhere near as cosmopolitan. But the quality of teaching and the medical school's reputation within the profession are both excellent. I do not regret choosing Aberdeen at all and would strongly recommend it to all of you I have listed below a few observations about the course in the past year.

Pros

Students are taught in systems. We do anatomy and physiology of each system (e.g cardiovascular, respiratory)and then pathology, clinical treatment and pharmacology.

Clinical skills from the first year. Starting from the basics of history taking and examination, all the time interacting with volunteer patients and then real patients on weekly ward sessions.

Staff and students are all fantastically friendly. We are a slightly smaller medical school with (come 2011) a 160 intake each year. As such you get to know most people quite quickly and develop your own group of mates.

Though the medical school is a trek away, once you get there you have 1000+ beds directly across the road. The ARI+Royal Aberdeen Childrens'+Aberdeen Maternity hospital site at Foresterhill offer every specialty and clinical procedure under the sun.

Nearly all your tutorials involve clinicians teaching you or supervising you. This makes the whole thing more real and gives you the chance to find out directly how they use the knowledge.

The MedSoc organize great social events such as beerienteering which are always well attended and rather epic fun.

Cons

Anatomy. Prosection is fine, it's just the sessions generally which are difficult to follow. The learning outcomes could be a lot clearer.

Community course. Possibly the single largest waste of your time. Ever. Though the subject matter is interesting (as Rabbitt said) the method of assessment is such that it is pretty much impossible to fail. Not much incentive to really learn anything.

First year can seem rather disjointed at times. Course is still very new and is being tweaked every year. They add in seemingly random seminars and lectures which, though interesting, don't really flow well into the course.

The medical school is at least 30 minutes walk away from every uni or private halls in the city.

Oh yeah, forgot they use a cut off

The interview was pretty relaxed, more of a chat than a scary interview. They asked about my work experience, my extra curriculars and why I chose Aberdeen. Standard stuff really

They even provide a guide for applicants:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/medicine/prospective/planning/advice/interview/

it sounds really friendly!
oh one more question what is the student to professor relationship like?

it sounds really friendly!
oh one more question what is the student to professor relationship like?

Community course was not a waste of time!! I quite enjoyed it, even if it was just as a chance to get out of lectures and out of the city for a morning. I guess it depends which GP practice you get given, but I found the course content pretty fun (ok, not challenging, rather common sense, but still interesting). Oh, and the exam has definitely been failed before

Community course was not a waste of time!! I quite enjoyed it, even if it was just as a chance to get out of lectures and out of the city for a morning. I guess it depends which GP practice you get given, but I found the course content pretty fun (ok, not challenging, rather common sense, but still interesting). Oh, and the exam has definitely been failed before

It works if other people in the group are up for discussion - but unfortunately in my group this wasn't really the case, the content was interesting though and made me think more about politics (I was pretty left wing anyway but made me actually think about why), it was good to discuss with friends out of class or when revising

I was **** scared I had failed the exam, it just seems nothing like the course!

When I applied to university I didn't really have a clear idea where I wanted to go. Having visited all the unis which offer medicine, I began to notice the difference between the larger, more 'elite' institutions (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and the smaller ones (Dundee and Aberdeen). The latter unis seemed to try a lot harder to encourage me to study there, it felt that way to me anyway

The interview experience only concreted this. At Glasgow I felt extremely intimidated by the staff and the whole environment, whereas Aberdeen were welcoming and friendly even when asking difficult questions In the end the friendliness of the staff and the fact that Aberdeen felt more homely was the reason I turned down my Glasgow offer to study in Aberdeen.

If you look at the University of Aberdeen as a whole, it isn't as big or shiny as Edinburgh or Glasgow. The city is nowhere near as cosmopolitan. But the quality of teaching and the medical school's reputation within the profession are both excellent. I do not regret choosing Aberdeen at all and would strongly recommend it to all of you I have listed below a few observations about the course in the past year.

Pros

Students are taught in systems. We do anatomy and physiology of each system (e.g cardiovascular, respiratory)and then pathology, clinical treatment and pharmacology.

Clinical skills from the first year. Starting from the basics of history taking and examination, all the time interacting with volunteer patients and then real patients on weekly ward sessions.

Staff and students are all fantastically friendly. We are a slightly smaller medical school with (come 2011) a 160 intake each year. As such you get to know most people quite quickly and develop your own group of mates.

Though the medical school is a trek away, once you get there you have 1000+ beds directly across the road. The ARI+Royal Aberdeen Childrens'+Aberdeen Maternity hospital site at Foresterhill offer every specialty and clinical procedure under the sun.

Nearly all your tutorials involve clinicians teaching you or supervising you. This makes the whole thing more real and gives you the chance to find out directly how they use the knowledge.

The MedSoc organize great social events such as beerienteering which are always well attended and rather epic fun.

Cons

Anatomy. Prosection is fine, it's just the sessions generally which are difficult to follow. The learning outcomes could be a lot clearer.

Community course. Possibly the single largest waste of your time. Ever. Though the subject matter is interesting (as Rabbitt said) the method of assessment is such that it is pretty much impossible to fail. Not much incentive to really learn anything.

First year can seem rather disjointed at times. Course is still very new and is being tweaked every year. They add in seemingly random seminars and lectures which, though interesting, don't really flow well into the course.

The medical school is at least 30 minutes walk away from every uni or private halls in the city.

and Scottish accent

The city's amazing

I love the beach

I've never been. Is it as nice as it looks in the pictures? You're applying there too?

The beach looks amazing but Aberdeen must be too cold for it a lot of the time.

Hells yeah I'm applying! The beach is lovely in the Summer, and the fish and chips are pretty good (if not expensive) the last time I went.

Yeah, it can get pretty cold in the winter, but you can go down to the beach anytime

Plus the town centre is great

Yay, the more I read about Deen the more I like it.

True, and tbh Abderdeen can't be that much colder than Newcastle (where I live) and we go to the beach here so it's all good.

Fish and chips on the beach!

How come you know so much about Aberdeen? Do you go up (down?) there a lot?

Yay, the more I read about Deen the more I like it.

True, and tbh Abderdeen can't be that much colder than Newcastle (where I live) and we go to the beach here so it's all good.

Fish and chips on the beach!

How come you know so much about Aberdeen? Do you go up (down?) there a lot?

Trust me, it is.

People do swim in the sea and have BBQs in summer you know...

I will refute such claims to the bitter bitter end. Granted, I never actually spent any of my summers in Aberdeen.