Medicine or biomedical science.

I'm really in great difficulty at the minute. I've been so passionate about wanting to medicine for about a year now. I've wrote my personal statment for medicine, which must be submitted next week, am going to
Book my ukcat and have put so muh effort into attending functions and researching medicine as a course. My careers teacher now tells me there's no point in me applying to medicine whatsoever as I will not get offers at all. I only have 4As/a*s in my gcses, the rest high Bs, however my father did pass away a few months before...and I got AABB in my As results, the b's I am repeating. I don't understand why she told me this so late on in the year!! I am so annoyed and I feel like crying because medicine is the only career I want to pursue! She suggests biomedical science as a route to medicine but obviously applications would be so much more competitive than undergraduates! What should I do? Submit my application or take a different route into medicine?

Submit your application anyway. It can't hurt to try. Have a look at http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Applying_to_Medical_School_using_your_Strengths as well to see where you have the best shot. Depending on your UKCAT score (which you really need to book soon; the registration deadline is in a few days' time and you may not find any appointment slots in a centre near you if you leave it too late), you may have a good chance at UKCAT-heavy places like Exeter. You may also want to look at Bristol, which doesn't use an entrance test. You'll need to have a really good personal statement for it, though, as their selection process is 80 percent non-academic. Also have a look at one or two BMAT universities.

If you don't get in, don't worry. Just work really hard to get A*s/As this year and then apply in a gap year with achieved grades. I don't see why you should go for Biomedical Sciences without first having a go at the regular route.

Thanks for the advice 👍 I live in Northern Ireland and I would love to go to queens but they are very strict on the entry requirments.. I would go anywhere that would have me but I really don't think I will get a strong ukcat score because I only started revising for it after I got my results which was end of August! Do you know of any universities that allow you to transfer to medicine when you're half way through a biomed degree?

I don't know this for certain but I was on a different thread earlier today where somebody mentioned that Bradford allows the best people on its BSc Clinical Sciences course to transfer to medicine in the second year. St. George's, Newcastle, and one other (whose name escapes me at the moment) were also mentioned but I haven't checked these out myself so you should look into them. I imagine it's very competitive though, because if you know it, then so does everyone else who's applying to these places and they'll all be jostling to get through to the medicine course without having to go through GEM. If A100 applications are tought, GEM is the hell.

I do want to say that your school's careers person is being very unhelpful. He/she has no right to dictate to you what you can and can't apply for. Queen's may be difficult for you though, because they want four As at AS and I'm not sure what their policy is on AS resits. They're also GCSE-heavy so that's another disadvantage. :/ However, if you apply with achieved AAAa grades in a gap year, apparently they just give you a full academic score on that basis regardless of GCSEs (assuming you meet the minimum requirements in English, maths and science).

Good luck.

Thank you again! Queens have a new widening program whereby they don't look at the gcse results of pupils from non grammar schools, of which I attend, rather, they look primarily at Alevel grades and predicted grades, although they are ukcat heavy! I honestly don't know what to do, my careers teacher is useless in all seriousness, it's as if she doesn't want me doing medicine and she was so happy that I told her I was kinda put off medicine now that she said that and would look Into biomed just feel so lost and don't know what to do, as ukcat and personal statement send off is so soon!

I did Biomed at king's and I kind of regret it. If I could do things again,I would apply to medicine

Just apply for it anyway. Tell her you're applying for medicine and you won't be convinced otherwise. It's your application; if it fails, she loses nothing so she shouldn't really be getting so worked up about what you apply for.

But is there any point if I'm more than likely going to get no offers so il go into clearing and there may not even be another course that I wanna do? 😖

Look, it won't hurt to try. If you get rejected, you can apply with achieved grades in a gap year. People constantly get put off by the idea of a gap year but, trust me, it's only a wasted year if you choose to waste it. Not to mention doing Biomedical Sciences, a course you didn't want to do in the first place, is a waste of three years as opposed to one, and for what? To make it even harder and more expensive to get into medicine through GEM.

Just go for it. Most people who get four rejections first time around will tell you that they learn a lot from the experience.

Really, why did you regret it??

Ok thanks! Sorry for asking so much 😂 are you currently studying medicin?

Ok thanks! Sorry for asking so much 😂 are you currently studying medicin?

I got bored in the end

Hi,
I'll start my Biomed in a few weeks.
Any advise?(Uni is new to me and want to know how to study better at Uni)
Are you graduated now?

Yeah it's been a couple of years now. I'll just say to keep up with the work and don't leave anything til last minute,Biomed can be very demanding

How is the teaching?
Is it all on your own shoulders to go and study more?
May I ask what is your degree class?
I want to get 1st.Any tips for that or do you have friend who got 1st?

Well yeah most of it is independent study. But you can get help ofcourse. I ended up getting a first and a few of my friends.

Fantastic!
Any golden key to 1st?