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Why is the default medicine offer AAB?

I was wondering why the standard offer for top 10 medicine uni's (exc. oxbridge) is only AAB.

A lot would say medicine is atleast as competitive as law if not more so, yet in Law the top 20 law uni's bar one or two are all AAA offers! Even the lesser ones like sheffield and cardiff are AAA.

So why is Medicine only AAB?

One arguement is that there is more to being a doctor than grades and that BMAT is used heavily.

But even so AAA standard offer would still encourage plenty of offers with more than enough talented students too choose from.

In law, it is an AAA offer, and LNAT is used yet in uni's such as LSE/UCL there are 3000 apps for 150 places, with half of them easily meeting the standard offer. I suspect that Medicine is not much differant.

AAB will just make number of applicants very hard to handle, and AAA offer would be far more suitable.

Why is medicine AAB, is law more competitative or is there some other explination?

Reply 1

Helenia

20

Because you don't need to be a genius to be a doctor, you don't even really need AAB, it's just that high because competition is so fierce. It gives people room for manoeuvre and a little flexibility with results.

Reply 2

Hawk

1

It is a bit strange but I don't think it has anything to do with competitiveness. Its the same for VetMed and Dentristry, alot of the offers are AAB.
I think after your interview and from your previous grades they can pretty much tell whether you would cope with the course, thus they can afford to lower the offers as they wish.
I think I remember being told that in a few rare cases Cambridge have given offers of EE. They clearly know the person is capable of AAA, and I suppose the lower offer takes the pressure off and they might actually perform better.

Reply 3

Comp_Genius

4

to be honest AAA and AAB aren't really different, I think it makes really no difference at all, wherease AAA and BBB would take the pressure off.

Reply 4

Hawk

1

Another thing, alot of the AAB offers are specified in what subjects they should be in. For example my AAB from Glasgow has to have the two As in Biology & Chemistry and then the B in Maths. Having an A in maths compared to a B isn't going to make much, if any, difference as to how you would cope with the course.

Reply 5

tiantang

OP

8

Why on earth did i get neg rep for this thread?

Reply 6

SK05

lets not kid ourselves, science based subjects are harder than the arts which most potential Law students will be taking.

Reply 7

idiopathic

15

SK05

lets not kid ourselves, science based subjects are harder than the arts which most potential Law students will be taking.

That's bullshit.

Anyway, maybe it's because prospective medics are expected to have more hobbies and be doing more work experience than law students? Not sure though. Is Law more competitive than medicine?

Reply 8

flower_87

you don't need to be a genius to be a doctor, vet or dentist. fair enough, you need to be clever, you need to be able to learn and remember stuff. but setting an offer boundary of AAA is not going to help select the best doctors. why would someone who gets AAA be a better doctor than someone who gets AAB?

Edinburgh - AAB :biggrin:

Royal Vet College - AAA :smile:

Reply 9

KerChing

10

tiantang

I was wondering why the standard offer for top 10 medicine uni's (exc. oxbridge) is only AAB.

A lot would say medicine is atleast as competitive as law if not more so, yet in Law the top 20 law uni's bar one or two are all AAA offers! Even the lesser ones like sheffield and cardiff are AAA.

So why is Medicine only AAB?

One arguement is that there is more to being a doctor than grades and that BMAT is used heavily.

But even so AAA standard offer would still encourage plenty of offers with more than enough talented students too choose from.

In law, it is an AAA offer, and LNAT is used yet in uni's such as LSE/UCL there are 3000 apps for 150 places, with half of them easily meeting the standard offer. I suspect that Medicine is not much differant.

AAB will just make number of applicants very hard to handle, and AAA offer would be far more suitable.

Why is medicine AAB, is law more competitative or is there some other explination?

nope... medicine is HIGLY competitive... but a lot of differentiation between the more able and less able students is made at interview level..

mainly because good medical students are expected to be good at communicating, not jus achieving academically....

this is why most people for medicine, or at least in my experience, found it pretty easy to get the grades they asked for.. and much harder at interviews...

as an aside... most med schools still do pick AAAstudents somehow... so they also do look out for students who are really academically bright.. its jus that they are not too bothered if they miss a couple of grades.. cos they passed the real, competitive interview bit

Reply 10

spoon1

13

SK05

lets not kid ourselves, science based subjects are harder than the arts which most potential Law students will be taking.

I'm the other way around actually.

I find science subjects much easier because there are set facts to learn and something is either right or wrong-with arts subjects like english when you write essays about a book i find i never really know what to write, and it usually ends up really wishy washy. suer there are lots of facts to learn doing a science subject but when you read a question in an exam you know exactly what it's refering to and how to answer it.

Reply 11

Endy

spoon1

I'm the other way around actually.

I find science subjects much easier because there are set facts to learn and something is either right or wrong-with arts subjects like english when you write essays about a book i find i never really know what to write, and it usually ends up really wishy washy. suer there are lots of facts to learn doing a science subject but when you read a question in an exam you know exactly what it's refering to and how to answer it.

If you end up doing science at university you'll find out how "wishy washy" it is. Many questions are left unanswered and there is not normally a definite answer. The fact learning aspect in science really applies to A-levels and during the early years of a science degre. However, medicine is all about fact learning and experience.

Reply 12

naivesincerity

2

Simple reason, because there is a high demand for places at Med School

Reply 13

naivesincerity

2

Endy

If you end up doing science at university you'll find out how "wishy washy" it is. Many questions are left unanswered and there is not normally a definite answer..

There is in mathematical physics, and genetics and mathematics, and loads of science..i disagree

Reply 14

Comp_Genius

4

surely some physical concepts are only theories and not proven facts. Theories attempts to describe real-world phenomona and if another theory describes it better then the first is abandoned.

Reply 15

elanvital

Endy

If you end up doing science at university you'll find out how "wishy washy" it is. Many questions are left unanswered and there is not normally a definite answer. The fact learning aspect in science really applies to A-levels and during the early years of a science degre. However, medicine is all about fact learning and experience.

I think there is a definite answer to all scientific problems, although many (most?) of them have not yet been discovered (and hence, are not to be found in textbooks). Sciences have an "answer key": the real world on which scientists experiment in their empirical studies. Therfore, sciences will always converge towards the truth/the reality/a definite answer (although they may never actually reach there... something like an asymptotic function!) Arts subjects, on the other hand, are intrisically divergent. There is no answer key, because the very purpose of studying the arts is to develop new analyses, new views and new arguments.

Which field you find the easier probably depends more on your talents than on the subject itself.

Reply 16

Comp_Genius

4

surely some scientific problems become philosophical when it is beyond our limits to carry out the experiment. For example the Big Bang may have been hypothesised however its cause is unknown. There are possibilities e.g. quantum fluctation, or membranes collision resulting in a bang, though we can never proof what really happened. Also the question "what happens before the big bang" becomes meaningless as there is really no time before our universe began, which was when time started, along with our space dimensions.

Reply 17

ThePenguinMafia

1

Medical schools are often a lot bigger. UCL has 120 places for law and 330 for medicine. Rums is nearly 3 times the size.
If you have to get more students in whilst having a similar amount of applicants, then you have to alter your admissions requirements. I doubt it has anything to do with the 'qualities' required of doctors, as I'm fairly sure Law students need communication, empathy and motivation in the same way as a medic would.

Reply 18

Elles

17

ThePenguinMafia

I doubt it has anything to do with the 'qualities' required of doctors, as I'm fairly sure Law students need communication, empathy and motivation in the same way as a medic would.

just out of interest - is Law taught as a vocational course though?
i.e. are the "qualities" looked for in prospective students anymore than those required for any academic university course - subject motivation & general communication skills etc.

perhaps the Law students i see are slightly rare :wink:

- but most of them don't want to practise as Lawyers & it's stressed the course is an academic one, whereas the assumption in teaching medicine seems to be you will definitely end up as a medic of some description (perhaps unfortunately misguided!) & if you were merely interested from an academic perspective you'd be studying the relevant constituent - biomedical science, anatomy, neuroscience, pharmacology etc.

but to answer the original post i'd just agree with Helen's first comment - it's not an especially academic subject - competition forces up the minimum grades, but for them to become any higher would rule out plenty of potentially good doctors who don't receive AAA+.

Reply 19

ThePenguinMafia

1

Perhaps, but my other points still stand.

Even still, a university would have to recognise the qualities needed. Manchester quotes that 65% of their Law students go onto become a solicitor, which is a substantial percentage. They will have to make sure that they have the right qualities.

Why is the default medicine offer AAB?

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