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King's College London GEM (A102) Applicants 2015

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Original post by skyhook
In addition to track, but you'll hear things first on the portal. And it's meant to generate an email every time something changes on the portal.


Great, thanks!
Hello there,

Similar question as most of you. I scored 2720, or an average of 690, placing me in the 8th decile. By my reading, between 25% and 30% of candidates across the country will have a better UKCAT score, and I would imagine that a similar percentage will apply to candidates at Kings for GEM.

On the phone, I was told that the rest of your application is considered only once you past the UKCAT hurdle i.e. you fall in top 25% of applicants at KCL.

I have 5+ years experience in health in international development, a first at undergraduate level, 2 masters' degrees at distinction, worked as a health care assistant (albeit years ago). Still feel I wouldn't make the cut this year.

Would be very grateful for thoughts.

Cheers
Reply 22
Original post by jeanretsileg
Hello there,

Similar question as most of you. I scored 2720, or an average of 690, placing me in the 8th decile. By my reading, between 25% and 30% of candidates across the country will have a better UKCAT score, and I would imagine that a similar percentage will apply to candidates at Kings for GEM.

On the phone, I was told that the rest of your application is considered only once you past the UKCAT hurdle i.e. you fall in top 25% of applicants at KCL.

I have 5+ years experience in health in international development, a first at undergraduate level, 2 masters' degrees at distinction, worked as a health care assistant (albeit years ago). Still feel I wouldn't make the cut this year.

Would be very grateful for thoughts.

Cheers


Unfortunately I don't think your score is going to cut it for King's this year. The 2013 entry cycle is a good point of reference as the scores then were very similar to this year's scores. The cut off in 2013 was somewhere around 730-740 (can't quite remember off the top of my head) and this year's threshold is probably going to be fairly similar, which is a marked drop from 770+ last cycle.

I would consider other options instead of King's in your place since it's very likely that your application will fail the UKCAT hurdle.
yeah, I agree, just want to make sure my feeling was right on that. there do seem to be other options where I can have a more realistic crack at a successful application though.
thanks a lot for your help
Does anyone know which dates Kings A102 interviews are going to take place this year?
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by mindlesss
Does anyone know which dates Kings A102 interviews are going to take place this year?


6th and 7th January according to MyApplication :smile:
Original post by Going_To_California
6th and 7th January according to MyApplication :smile:


Cool, thanks a lot!
Hey guys, just so you know I emailed to ask about applicant numbers and there have been 1384 applications to A102 at KCL this year.
Reply 28
Original post by JenniB22
Hey guys, just so you know I emailed to ask about applicant numbers and there have been 1384 applications to A102 at KCL this year.


I reckon that's close to a 30% drop on last year.

Can't figure out whether fewer applicants will make any substantive difference though - presumably if the distribution remains the same, it should be less competitive than last year? Or does that not necessarily follow?
Original post by JNHE
I reckon that's close to a 30% drop on last year.

Can't figure out whether fewer applicants will make any substantive difference though - presumably if the distribution remains the same, it should be less competitive than last year? Or does that not necessarily follow?


Well that's the real question, isn't it! I suppose it depends on the reason for the reduction in applications. If it's because of the UKCAT drop then I suppose we might expect there to be a higher proportion of top scorers applying this year because they are likely to feel more confident about applying, even with lowers scores on average. However, if it's a generalised funding (somebody suggested somewhere that it might be because final year applicants on 3 year undergrad courses in the UK will this year be the first ones coming through who have had to pay the £9000 per year fees, so they might be more worried about the funding of GEM since they already have higher debt than those of us who were pre-2012) or "future of GEM courses" thing then I suppose it's more likely to remain equally distributed (bell curve etc). I wonder if anybody has had a go at working out Standard Deviation for this year's UKCAT scores...I'm no good at stats so I'm not sure if that's even possible with only decile scores...?
Reply 30
Original post by JenniB22
Well that's the real question, isn't it! I suppose it depends on the reason for the reduction in applications. If it's because of the UKCAT drop then I suppose we might expect there to be a higher proportion of top scorers applying this year because they are likely to feel more confident about applying, even with lowers scores on average. However, if it's a generalised funding (somebody suggested somewhere that it might be because final year applicants on 3 year undergrad courses in the UK will this year be the first ones coming through who have had to pay the £9000 per year fees, so they might be more worried about the funding of GEM since they already have higher debt than those of us who were pre-2012) or "future of GEM courses" thing then I suppose it's more likely to remain equally distributed (bell curve etc). I wonder if anybody has had a go at working out Standard Deviation for this year's UKCAT scores...I'm no good at stats so I'm not sure if that's even possible with only decile scores...?


I see what you mean. My guess is that low UKCAT scores have a fair bit to do with it, which, as you say, is unlikely to affect King's as they always get the highest scorers applying. I reckon that quite a few people take the UKCAT 'speculatively' (because it's relatively cheap), and then don't even bother applying if they get what they think is a low score.

Having said that, you can imagine the £9k fees factor having an effect too...

SD, bell-curves etc are a bit of a mystery to me too. I saw someone asking UKCAT about standard deviation on twitter, but they weren't very forthcoming.
Reply 31
Original post by JenniB22
Well that's the real question, isn't it! I suppose it depends on the reason for the reduction in applications. If it's because of the UKCAT drop then I suppose we might expect there to be a higher proportion of top scorers applying this year because they are likely to feel more confident about applying, even with lowers scores on average. However, if it's a generalised funding (somebody suggested somewhere that it might be because final year applicants on 3 year undergrad courses in the UK will this year be the first ones coming through who have had to pay the £9000 per year fees, so they might be more worried about the funding of GEM since they already have higher debt than those of us who were pre-2012) or "future of GEM courses" thing then I suppose it's more likely to remain equally distributed (bell curve etc). I wonder if anybody has had a go at working out Standard Deviation for this year's UKCAT scores...I'm no good at stats so I'm not sure if that's even possible with only decile scores...?


You can have a crack at calculating standard deviation of UKCAT scores if you assume they're normally distributed (we know the mean, so then you just do a goal-seek on standard deviation to match the deciles as best you can). I calculated about 242, so quite a bit less than last year.

Yeah, difficult to tell how number if applicants will affect things. At worst it's probably neutral!
Reply 32
Original post by skyhook
You can have a crack at calculating standard deviation of UKCAT scores if you assume they're normally distributed (we know the mean, so then you just do a goal-seek on standard deviation to match the deciles as best you can). I calculated about 242, so quite a bit less than last year.

Yeah, difficult to tell how number if applicants will affect things. At worst it's probably neutral!


Sorry for asking a simple question, but what could be inferred (in terms of cut-offs etc) if the standard deviation is 242?

Thanks
Reply 33
Original post by JNHE
Sorry for asking a simple question, but what could be inferred (in terms of cut-offs etc) if the standard deviation is 242?

Thanks


It doesn't tell you much you didn't already know from the deciles. Candidates are a bit more tightly packed around the mean than last year. If we assume cut-offs map to some percentile, then cut-offs drop - nothing we didn't already know!
Reply 34
Original post by skyhook
It doesn't tell you much you didn't already know from the deciles. Candidates are a bit more tightly packed around the mean than last year. If we assume cut-offs map to some percentile, then cut-offs drop - nothing we didn't already know!


Interesting - thanks!
Hello! When does King's notify us about interviews? In which week of January will they be held? Do you think I can just e-mail them? I'd like to book my
Christmas flight tickets asap as they get more expensive every week but I think I'll have to wait until mid-December ...
Original post by yurilein93
Hello! When does King's notify us about interviews? In which week of January will they be held? Do you think I can just e-mail them? I'd like to book my
Christmas flight tickets asap as they get more expensive every week but I think I'll have to wait until mid-December ...


See above, 6th and 7th of January for interviews :smile:
Original post by yurilein93
Hello! When does King's notify us about interviews? In which week of January will they be held? Do you think I can just e-mail them? I'd like to book my
Christmas flight tickets asap as they get more expensive every week but I think I'll have to wait until mid-December ...


Last year Kings notified people of interviews over a couple of days in early December (like 4-5 Dec or so)
Thanks to both of you! :smile: So I shall wait until early December.
Reply 39
KCL tried to give me a heart attack! Got an email, logged in, all they want is a bloody predicted grade for my MSc.

At least they're looking at applications. Has anyone else heard anything?

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