How hard is it to get into pharmacy (specifically ucl/kcl)?

Hi, I applied to KCL and Manchester in this year. I think your GCSEs are okay and I'm sure you can work very hard to achieve those predicted grades so your predicted grades should be good enough.

Work experience isn't about quantity - make sure you can talk about what you have learned from your placement confidently during your interview. Read extra info like pjonline.com and chemist + druggist (they are both online, PJ online has very good career information as well) to extend your understanding of pharmacy as a career :smile:

Seeing you have done both hospital and community, you can read more on the different roles of a hospital pharmacist and a community pharmacist then use of your personal experience as you worked with them during your interview.

KCL likes people with good amount of extra curricular activities like music, sports, debating etc, if you don't have these at the moment then join some school clubs then you can talk about them in your personal statement. Manchester likes people who are genuinely interested to study Pharmacy at university - you can mention related articles and books on and your work experience in your personal statement to show this.

Try to link everything you have done in preparation to reading Pharmacy at university to a new skill you have gained e.g. working in a charity shop gives you better communication skills with customers.

Reply 2

hollybanolly

Yeah you should get offered an interview, if its something that you are genuinely interested in and want to do it as a vocation, why should they turn you away? You just need to impress them in the interview if youre worried about your AS results.
I applied for pharmacy for 2012 entry got offers from all my unis (bath,Cardiff, Manchester, Aston) but got rejected from Nottingham. I have a feeling I got rejected because I said there might have been a chance of me not getting the expected AAB as I had 2 months off college due to illness. When I applied, at AS I achieved ABBB and had work experience.. All you need to remember is that theres always time for retakes so don't worry.
Turns out that I achieved at A level BBC after expecting this time last year to get AAA (but as I said, was due to illness) so I was rejected on results day. Am now retaking some modules this year and been given an offer again for next year...just need to get the grades now.

But if you really want it and are genuinely interested in it, go for it. They'll spot your enthusiasm and should like you. Good luck :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 3

Domxmb

OP

Original post by hollybanolly

Yeah you should get offered an interview, if its something that you are genuinely interested in and want to do it as a vocation, why should they turn you away? You just need to impress them in the interview if youre worried about your AS results.
I applied for pharmacy for 2012 entry got offers from all my unis (bath,Cardiff, Manchester, Aston) but got rejected from Nottingham. I have a feeling I got rejected because I said there might have been a chance of me not getting the expected AAB as I had 2 months off college due to illness. When I applied, at AS I achieved ABBB and had work experience.. All you need to remember is that theres always time for retakes so don't worry.
Turns out that I achieved at A level BBC after expecting this time last year to get AAA (but as I said, was due to illness) so I was rejected on results day. Am now retaking some modules this year and been given an offer again for next year...just need to get the grades now.

But if you really want it and are genuinely interested in it, go for it. They'll spot your enthusiasm and should like you. Good luck :smile:

Posted from TSR Mobile

so you think with assumptions in the opening post and a decent/good interview it's a pretty good chance at least one of the london universities would give an offer?

Thanks a lot for posting!

Reply 4

Original post by hollybanolly

Yeah you should get offered an interview, if its something that you are genuinely interested in and want to do it as a vocation, why should they turn you away? You just need to impress them in the interview if youre worried about your AS results.
I applied for pharmacy for 2012 entry got offers from all my unis (bath,Cardiff, Manchester, Aston) but got rejected from Nottingham.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Hi I'm applying for pharmacy this year and am also applying to bath and Aston, do you have any advice on the interviews there and what they like in a candidate?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 5

Original post by Domxmb

If you're predicted AAAB (chem/bio/math/phys - b in physics) but got CCCC in as-levels and 2 a* 6 a in gcse. Also done volunteering with a charity shop/work experience at hospital/1 week at pharmacy/etc?

How hard would it be to get into places like KCL/UCL, would it be a coin toss if both were applied to if they were going to get into London or not or would it be quite a confident yes they'd probably get in or straight no not even a chance?

Thanks, that is the most important question but if you can also comment on how hard it'd be to get into manchester/liverpool it'd be great too.

I greatly appreciate anyone that can answer, thank you so much.

Advice I'd give you is to drop a subject physics or biology I would reccomend dropping. It will make it easier to get the grades and they only want 3.5 a levels so if you drop physics you can get predicted AAAc which is above the asking of any of the pharmacy unis

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 6

Original post by JRP95

Hi I'm applying for pharmacy this year and am also applying to bath and Aston, do you have any advice on the interviews there and what they like in a candidate?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Hi I'm going to Bath Uni this Sept so I should be able to answer your question. However I didn't apply to Aston so I can't help you with that. Bath interview was very chilled! It was just a chat with the professor about why are you doing Pharmacy and why did you choose Bath. They select the top 10% for interview so if you get an interview, provided nothing goes wrong in your interview then you should be okay!

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 7

Original post by Jennyjelly

Hi I'm going to Bath Uni this Sept so I should be able to answer your question. However I didn't apply to Aston so I can't help you with that. Bath interview was very chilled! It was just a chat with the professor about why are you doing Pharmacy and why did you choose Bath. They select the top 10% for interview so if you get an interview, provided nothing goes wrong in your interview then you should be okay!

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

they select the top 10% for interview? does that mean only 10% of applicants get a place normally? Also thats good to hear as everyone who got an interview to bath has told me the same very chilled

Reply 8

Original post by JRP95

they select the top 10% for interview? does that mean only 10% of applicants get a place normally? Also thats good to hear as everyone who got an interview to bath has told me the same very chilled

Well this is what they told us in the talk on interview day on the 10%. Of course it can vary depending the overall standard of applicants of your year. They were very nice before and during the interview, they even gave each of us £4.00 lunch voucher :smile:

(Not that I was attracted by the lunch money :P) Bath has a good reputation for the Pharmacy & Pharmacology Department as well as the uni itself so they receive lots of applications. To stand out with your UCAS form you can refer to the mini essay I have written for the OP above :smile:

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 9

bellion023

this year, i put UCL as my firm choice and manchester as my insurance. The conditional offer of UCL is AAB and manchester is ABB, UCL still accepted me though i only have ABB in GCE. I guess what you write in your personal statement can really make a difference, if you can give them a good impression, they may even give you a lower conditional offer. For example, both me and my frd applied for manchester this year but manchester required him to get AAB.

If you really want to get into UCL/KCL, i would suggest you applying to both and pick out one to be your firm choice later on.

Reply 10

Original post by Jennyjelly

Well this is what they told us in the talk on interview day on the 10%. Of course it can vary depending the overall standard of applicants of your year. They were very nice before and during the interview, they even gave each of us £4.00 lunch voucher :smile:

(Not that I was attracted by the lunch money :P) Bath has a good reputation for the Pharmacy & Pharmacology Department as well as the uni itself so they receive lots of applications. To stand out with your UCAS form you can refer to the mini essay I have written for the OP above :smile:

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Could you look through my ps if I were to send it to you and you could tell me what to do to improve it?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 11

Original post by JRP95

Could you look through my ps if I were to send it to you and you could tell me what to do to improve it?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Sure please PM me :smile:

Reply 12

Original post by Jennyjelly

Sure please PM me :smile:

Ok I sent it to you :smile:

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 13

hollybanolly

Original post by Domxmb

so you think with assumptions in the opening post and a decent/good interview it's a pretty good chance at least one of the london universities would give an offer?

Thanks a lot for posting!

Yeah, I wouldn't see why not. If you're into it then go for it!
The worst that could happen is that you don't get offers, but at least you tried to pursue it, just try again when you have your A Levels if this did happen. But now with the fees going up and many people I know who didn't get their offers this year, unis will probably be trying to get more people into their university to fill their courses so will be giving out more offers maybe :smile:

Reply 14

hollybanolly

Original post by JRP95

Hi I'm applying for pharmacy this year and am also applying to bath and Aston, do you have any advice on the interviews there and what they like in a candidate?

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Hi

If you get an interview for Bath Uni, then great, you're more than likely to get an offer as many people who go to their interview days get offers.

With Aston I didn't need to go to an interview. They offered me AAB without seeing me (this is common for Aston I think) but they did say that if I went to see them at the uni for an open day, they'd give me an interview and may lower the offer of AAB if you attended...but I didn't as I wasn't planning to go to Aston and the days that they were offering this interview was when I was really ill so couldn't make it. So my offer remained AAB.

Good luck :smile:

let me know if you want to ask any more questions!

Reply 15

Okhotsk

I got BBB (chemistry, biology, physics) at A-level and KCL gave me a place. This was a couple of years ago though, so I guess it will have changed and become more strict, but in general I think KCL is "reasonably" competitive in view of national Pharmacy admissions

Reply 16