Why is UCL medicine no longer available for international students?

Not trying to make this a long post, but I am really sad. I am from Austria, but have had friends in England for several years now and have therefore always planned on going to university there.
I started researching unis and courses probably at age 13 which I know is really early, but going to uni in England and later properly moving/working there is really a dream of mine.

I heard of UCL early on, but only really became attached to it after reading about student experiences and looking at what they offer. I was 100% sure I was gonna apply to UCL and make it my firm choice should I get an offer.

Last year when looking at the MBBS course page I saw something different, a bold sentence stating that only students with IB or International A levels will be able to apply. It wasn't on the 2022 course page, so I decided to wait until the 2024 page to see if it was still gonna be there and unfortunately it still says this.

I don't really understand why international students can no longer apply (besides those few with rich parents who sent them to IB schools so they could later apply to Oxbridge, Harvard etc.). My parents don't even speak English and obviously even after finding out this was required last year I can't stop in the middle of my high school education to suddenly go to an IB school.

I know this is a pretty emotional post, but why are my qualifications no longer equivalent to ones from the UK? The subjects I'm doing are Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, English and German which is already pretty close to IB and in my opinion a very good set of subjects as it includes maths, 2 languages and the sciences. I'm also predicted A* equivalent on all of them.

This isn't just about my country though, I checked a few popular ones like Australia, Germany etc. and none of their qualifications are acceptable for medicine anymore either. Why did UCL suddenly decide that only people who pay for IB qualifications can apply for the course? I think it's really unfair and makes me super sad, because there's nothing I can do. I can still apply for e.g. a biology degree with my (biology) qualification and I don't see how medicine is any different, especially as sciences are a really big part of the course in the preclinical years anyway.

Thanks for reading my rant, I'm just so confused / upset :frown:

Reply 1

Aufbau

Hi, I completed high school abroad. Something many students did was pay for the exams separately. This way you are not doing the lessons and only sitting the exams. They are expensive, but cheap compared to actual going to school and with a few dedicated self study sessions, you can do well.

University College London

London

Reply 2

myanchovies

it has to do with the fact that intl students are more likely to take their medicine degrees and use it overseas. government is probably pressuring unis to 'make' more doctors that will work in the uk, hence medicine apprenticeships and foundation year courses. ucl probably saw the only allowing home students to apply as best way to ensure as many of their graduates end up working within the nhs. the truth is career based courses like medicine arent made for students who are passionate about the course, it's to generate jobs that will benefit the country/government. anyways, there are lots of great medicine courses that do admit intl students, like brunel medicine, which is exclusively for international students and based in london.