Is it just me?

Would you rather it was done alphabetically?

I like the UKCAT

Its a bit of a scam, but its better than what Birminghams got going on.

Thats a fair comeback, added to which he would not have had the BMAT result at the time of application, unlike those who get rejected on UKCAT and then moan about it.

In terms of the BMAT break down the essay section (if it still exists) seemed to be the make or break section among my old school freinds applications, which perhaps illustrates a certain amount of diversity.

That said, at the end of the day how much would it cost for the extra time to be spent reading every application rather than performing a straight deletion of all those under X BMAT score?

Also the medical school gets its funding per person, unrelated to how good they are in terms of academic history, so there is no notable financial incentive to take such measures to ensure they only take say the most academic.


I think what I am struggling to grasp here, is why people think that medical schools have a duty to make applications as fair as possible. I accept that one would hope from a ethical point of view that they would, though from a pragmatic perspective its completely impossible.

Lets try and put some numbers on this.

When I applied Leeds had 3500 applicants for 250 places.

2700 of these applicants met all the academic criteria.

(numbers from one of dads mates who was on the panel at the time)

Lets say each UCAS form takes 20 minutes to fairly assess. (though personally I think 30 mins is more realistic)

So thats 900 hours of time, or 22.5 working weeks for each to be done once by one person, and we only do those who met the published academic requirements.

Now I don't think anyone would condone only one person looking at each form, so lets up that to two.

45 working weeks, or some-ones yearly salary appears.

Cost thus far is therefore 20-40 grand, possibly more depending who is doing the reviewing, before we add logistics, any fees to UCAS the unis pay etc etc.

Now lets bear in mind that the medical schools have from the 10th of october to the end of march to do all this, or twenty weeks. Realistically therefore we need to get this all done fast so we can start interviewing.

Lets try and read/mark all the forms twice by christmas, so we have a reasonably fair view of all.

1800 hours of work, over ten weeks assuming we don't work people too hard over christmas (uni term times and all that)

180 hours a week, lets say we have people doing nothing but this, we need four full time people and one part time.

Here we run into a problem, is it fair to get some random in just for this? Or would it be fairer to get someone who teaches medicine, or is in the field to read the forms?

Lets say therefore we get our lecturers to spend some time on it. Twenty lecturers over ten weeks, oh dear, thats nine hours a week. When will they do their research committments etc?


I think all can agree from that very very basic break down that to do it entirely fairly (pre interview only) isn't viable. As such inevitably some form of filtering is inevitable.

Pah, its all the same if you ask me.


I'll dig out that old post on filtering...

Nah, Birmingham's "We throw away so many applicants because of GCSES, that we take anyone that's academic enough, regardless of basically everything else" trumps the UKCAT in terms of filtering style idiocy.

Idiocy or rational use of resources?

Both. Its rational in terms of resources if we're talking purely academic, but should that be a sole over riding factor instead of looking at other factors as well?

If we take the purpose of admissions to be selecting people who will complete the course, then yes.

If you think admissions should be some arm of the patients alliance wanting people with communication skills, 12 ASBOs, and a pitbull, etc to do medicine then no.

Do they actually know yet that higher UKCAT average = better doctor. I thought there still hasn't been anyone that has taken the UKCAT and got out of medical school. So long as higher UKCAT = better doctor then I would have no issue with the test.

Considering the amount the government pays to train medics abd how they expect them to go in to work for the NHS when they qualify, Id hope admissions would reflect this need for training the right people to do the job and not just those who are capable of completing the course.