I was rejected after being mislead by a medical school, What should I do?

You were told that GCSEs were not a "major concern" however that doesn't mean that they do not use them. While their initial assessment is based on the highest level of qualification achieved, they have to have some way to distinguish between those who are predicted the same A level grades.

In that case they go back through a list which will include personal statement, references, UKCAT scores and GCSEs. In your case they drew a comparison between GCSEs and you're equivalent grades over in Nigeria, where you fell short of other applicants, and also you were below the level of many successful applicants with your UKCAT scores.

By the sounds of it you would have been rejected even without the GCSE/equivalent results being taken into account.

So personally I don't think they mislead you at all and you just need to suck it up and move on. All you will achieve by appealing is to waste your time, their time, and end up with the same outcome.

Sorry, I've got nothing to add to the thread.

But I've just got to say, those are amazing grades! I can see the distinct difference in the grades you got at A level and those in your WASSCE exams. More proof that international exams are significantly harder and have much higher boundaries than the British A levels, lol!

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I had a similar situation with KCL. I applied and received an offer last year, however, due to extenuating circumstances over my two years of A Level study I achieved A*AB instead of AAA. I was hugely encouraged to reapply, told that they would strongly consider my application along with my extenuating circumstances. They rejected me outright because "my academic results did not meet their criteria" ..

It's so frustrating. If you really want to do something you can always appeal to the head of the medical school

Thank you for the explanation. If one of the emails says it is not a major concern (which could mean minor concern), another email I received from them said it is not an issue at all because they have no specific GCSE requirements.

I believe that in the context of the email I sent (the email is the post before yours), they meant that my A levels is what they would consider and they said they would give me SERIOUS consideration even though I gave them my WASSCE grades before I applied.

Please, could you explain the 'legally binding' bit to me? Does that mean if they gave me wrong information (which is not my fault), they can't reconsider me? Thanks.

My point is that there is nothing in their emails that they have directly contradicted in their reasoning for your rejection. They have used terms such as 'major concern' and 'specific requirement' which are all so dubious and non-binding (i.e. they have no actual definition to which they must stick to).

Email them, they clearly mislead you. Its not fair that you should be rejected because of something that they said wouldn't matter that much.

Thank you. It is either:

1) WASSCE is harder than A levels or it has higher grade boundary (not sure).

or

2) I improved. I developed better exam techniques and had more resources to study (highly likely).

True. When I came here, I improved MASSIVELY. Well done with your grades though. What other unis did you apply for? I'm also applying for this year's cycle of medicine.

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It says in your first email that it they believe that your WASSCE grades were below par and that has formed one reason for your rejection. There isn't really an awful lot you can do about it now. Surely you applied to other medical shools and so just concentrate on them. More people want to study medicine each year than there are places so they have to discriminate somehow.

Also the ammount of people in this thread not realising it is misled rather than mislead is staggering. With people replying something along the lines of 'yes you were mislead'.

There's really no way around this rejection, you cannot make them change their mind on the basis of an obscure email you received from their administration prior to submitting your application. This was more of a misunderstanding than you being purposefully misled.

Thank you. They only use academic attainment and UKCAT to call people for interview. So my personal statement and reference are not the problem. And in another email, I was told that not having GCSEs is not an issue because they have no specific GCSE requirements.

I am sure that some applicants have higher UKCAT score (mine is just a little above average) than me but if that is the reason for my rejection, then that is unfair because I know people that I got lower UKCAT scores than (not small difference in scores) that got interview.

Appealing is not a waste of time for me (it requires little effort) and I believe there is no harm in trying. If they give me a satisfactory answer, I will move on - there is more to life than rejection.

True. The rejection might not be overturned but at least, they might be more careful with future applicants when answering enquiries. Thanks.

That's still not being misled. GCSE requirements is probably referring to minimum requirements to apply, when they have removed all the people who don't meet the minimum requirements, they then use their own selection procedure to choose those to interview which appears to have included GCSE/equivalent. Two different processes, it seems they may have been talking about the initial process whilst you interpreted it as the second selection process. Sorry if it's not what you wanted to hear.

Ok, you might be right. But I specifically asked if my grades would be competitive (I didn't ask for minimum) and they said not having GCSE is not an issue/ major concern since their assessment is based on the highest qualifications. They also told me that my application would be given "serious" consideration even though my WASSCE grades were in the email.

But I will receive their response next week and will right it here. All I need is a satisfactory answer from them and I will forget the rejection.