Second Degree Medicine - just applied to student finance

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Hi Littleeggy I wanted to ask you if you were able to get a partial fee waiver off the tuition fee?????

Hey there, yes I did! Wooooooooo. They gave me a £2k fee waiver and money towards living costs from the National Scholarship Programme. I was absolutely chuffed as without this money I would NOT be able to survive. I even managed to save quite a lot of the money they gave me for living costs by living a rather frugal lifestyle, but not totally hideous! I'm not entirely sure whether I will get the same next year or slightly lower, I really hope I will get the same but getting a job over summer and hopefully working as a HCA part time during term time next year to help with the finances.

I'm Exeter medical school and they were quite generous for year 2013/14 cohort but I think their bursary is going down considerably next year (2014/15) compared to my year. There is also a safety net called the The Access to Learning Fund if things get bad.

Reply 21

kgee

Original post by srahman

Hi Littleeggy I wanted to ask you if you were able to get a partial fee waiver off the tuition fee?????

I just had a similar experience recently, made calls and it all came back to square 1. I studied Dip HE ODP and have been offered a place at med school. now been told by student finance that because of my 2 years Dip HE, I have to fund my first year. Really not the good news i wanted...

Reply 22

srahman

Original post by kgee

Did they say you have to fund for your first year only? Im worried because i have to pay my tuition fees and living out costs for my degree. Its extremely expensive and worried how im going to manage. Im soo happy i have been offered a place and the money lingering is going to be stressful

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(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 23

kgee

Original post by srahman

Yeah they said my first year as they added 1 year to how many years I have to stay at med school and deducted the years I spent doing my diploma which was 2 years...so the 1 added year takes out 1 year for me and and left with one to pay by myself and unfortunately its the first year they want me to pay...I wish it was the last year...lol

Reply 24

tomorrowtomorrow

Original post by littleeggy

Medicine as a second degree, via the graduate 4 year route is very competitive and I would not recommend it. I only managed to get onto a 5 year course.

Hey there. I recently graduated with a BA Philosophy (2:1) and I've been thinking about medicine. I was looking at the 4 year GPEP course at a number of universities.

Did you apply for the 4 year course as well as the 5 year yourself? Or did you just apply for the 5 year course? And is the only reason not to apply for the 4 year course the fact that it's so competitive?

Reading the thread I thought it was slightly illogical not to apply for the 4 year course but I suppose if it is incredibly competitive that's probably quite a good reason to take a more sensible and realistic route. Although do you lose anything from applying and failing to get onto the 4 year course? Time I suppose would be one thing.

Reply 25

littleeggy

Original post by tomorrowtomorrow

Hey, I applied to both 4 year and 5 year courses both times I applied to medical school (I got in second time) If you are going to do grad entry then, yes definitely do apply to all 4 year courses if you can but some people like to apply to THREE 4 year courses and ONE 5 year course as the 5 years are generally less competitive so the odds of getting in first time might be better but this is starting to change and there probably won't be much difference. Medicine in general is very competitive! I didn't want to take any chances in terms of not getting in a second time so I applied to a mix of both 4 year and 5 year courses.

My comment above was more for people considering undertaking a degree in order to then do graduate entry medicine. Some people get rejected for medicine first time but are offered an alternative degree like biomed or ClinSci by the uni and they take the offer. I think if they still want to do medicine then they should probably just keep trying for medicine and do a degree as a last resort.

I would not advise doing a degree first in order to then study medicine, if you can by any means get onto a 5 year course without doing a degree first because it is on the whole an easier, less stressful and much less expensive route, but this doesn't apply to you because you have said above that you already have a degree. I hope this clarifies my comment slightly!
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