Which is harder to get into - Medicine or Oxbridge?

Ain't nobody got time for that

Well I want to do what we talked about yesterday, it sounds like a plan!

I know , but what's your point? (Not in a rude way)

FYI: Graduate entry medicine is more competitive and needs just as much if not more volunteering/relevant experience so you'll still have to do it at uni or afterwards probably.

Damn you. I have to say that Medicine at Oxbridge seems like a bit of a lottery though.

The point is it's laughable to say "You don't need top grades to study, say, History at Oxford". No, you just need to be one of the top students on the HAT, an admissions test in a completely different league to the complexity and insight required with AS/A2 exams - and outperform 20-25 people (out of about 30-35) at interview.

Well, medicine is hard to get into but you don't need perfect grades. Oxbridge want perfect grades regardless of the subject.

Interviews wise - you will have to know a lot more about your subject at Oxbridge than at a Medicine interview.

You get 4 medicine options but only 1 shot at Oxbridge.

I would say Oxbridge, and that's coming from a Medicine applicant

Damn you. I have to say that Medicine at Oxbridge seems like a bit of a lottery though.

To be fair virtually everyone is so well qualified, and so similarly qualified, that the differences between applicants becomes so small that it does look like a lottery system. Though I would say in their defence they do not make the decisions lightly.

Edinburgh and Southampton I would say were worse 'lottery-wise' as they did not/ do not interview which always struck me as odd.

Maths at trinity, yeah medicine's easy

I would easily say Medicine is harder.

To get in anywhere for medicine you need broadly just as high grades as you would need for any course at Oxbridge.

But the difference is that science subjects require a very precise knowledge. You either get a calculation right or you get it wrong. Any discovery that you make could have life or death practical applications. They don't need dead weights on their courses.

Arts subjects do not require quite as precise a knowledge. You say what you think others might want to hear/read in order to deem you 'spot on'.
Some arts students will have precise knowledge on certain things but they are not necessarily the majority. And their knowledge is not necessarily any more objectively meaningful than someone who says that they can explain all the plots of every episode of Eastenders.
Dead weights on their courses are acceptable to them because they can always be 'argued' away.

Someone doing medicine at a red brick university might eat any Oxbridge student for breakfast.

Oxbridge do not require perfect grades, I have a friend at Oxford reading Philosophy and Theology who had AAAB at AS. So obviously good grades but not perfect.

Regarding interviews I am not so sure about your point. Medical interviews require a very good knowledge, on average, of the NHS etc. So although they will not expect you to explain complement fixation or the brachial plexus they are going to expect a degree of competency. As for Oxbridge I was interviewed for Medicine, but they were only really interested in how I thought.

AAAB at AS is good for medicine. I know a lot of people that applied with lower.

People can get into medicine with BBBC at AS level, if they are predicted AAA.
For foundation courses, the requirements are much lower.

Also in terms of GCSEs, Oxford want pretty much nearly all A*s, whereas with medicine, a mixture of A*s/As/Bs will do for most unis.

The point is it's laughable to say "You don't need top grades to study, say, History at Oxford". No, you just need to be one of the top students on the HAT, an admissions test in a completely different league to the complexity and insight required with AS/A2 exams - and outperform 20-25 people (out of about 30-35) at interview.

With BBBC at AS you might be able to get into Medicine, I do not know on that so I will take your word for it, but the likelihood is probably quite low.

Again that is true regarding GCSEs but most people at Medical school, from what I have found, tend to have mostly A*s to a fairly high proportion. Those without a high proportion of A*s are few, so perhaps similar to Oxford in a way. I have no stats to back me up on that only anecdotal evidence so

To be fair virtually everyone is so well qualified, and so similarly qualified, that the differences between applicants becomes so small that it does look like a lottery system. Though I would say in their defence they do not make the decisions lightly.

Edinburgh and Southampton I would say were worse 'lottery-wise' as they did not/ do not interview which always struck me as odd.