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Too far removed from serious academic endeavours?

Hi all

I am a 29 year old investment banker and will be applying for medicine next year (to matriculate in 2017). I graduated from a US uni in 2009 with a degree in business, but took several of the US pre-med courses, all of which I performed well in. I also have solid A level equivalents (but these will be 14 years old by the time I apply). I was accepted into Kings and Imperial as a graduate in 2010 but was deemed an international student (dual UK / US but hadn't spent long enough in the UK prior to applying), so I have spent the last few years working and saving.

I am confident about my ability to perform academically in medical school, and am sure I could earn a good score on the UKCAT and / or GAMSAT, but am worried if I just took the UKCAT schools may judge me a little too far removed from any serious academic activities, and may question my ability to deal with the academic demands of medical school. Is this worry unfounded?

I was planning on applying to Warwick, Southampton, and then Kings 5 year and maybe another 5 year, all of which would just require the UKCAT. Would I have a higher chance of getting a place if I took the GAMSAT also, and maybe applied to Warwick, Southampton, Swansea and Nottingham, for example? Or does this just not matter at all?

Thank you all!

Reply 1

Quilverine

I think most, if not all, the UKCAT schools stipulate you must have undertaken serious academic endeavours within 3 years of application. The GAMSAT ones take a pass score as evidence. I would contact admissions directly once this application cycle has calmed down to check your eligibility. Some UKCAT unis might also accept a strong GAMSAT score as sufficient but any invite to interview would be based on UKCAT score.

Reply 2

banker22

Original post by Quilverine

Interesting, thanks. I know Cambridge and Newcastle both require that. But I haven't seen anything about it for most schools (including Bart's, Warwick, Southampton).

Reply 3

MonteCristo

Why not send that message as an email to your chosen medical schools? I'd be surprised if most would make an issue about you graduating 6 years ago but asking explicitly might save a wasted application. Even if they all said you needed study within the last 3 years (this is probably unlawful as indirect discrimination on the basis of age - worth pursuing if your application is bounced for this reason), I would apply anyway. I find it hard to believe that someone will actually look through 1000+ applications to weed out people that graduated pre-2011. It might be a different issue if you graduated in the 1980s but who's really going to care about 2009?