Academic Foundation Programme 2015

Does anyone have any examples of previous white space questions? Kind of scary that we don't really have that long to fill them in so was hoping to do a bit of preparation beforehand!

Last year there were 4 white space questions for Scotland AUoA (I've asked others who don't remember the exact questions but they were something along the lines of):

- What teaching have you been involved in?

- Demonstrate using 2 specific examples your leadership qualities

- What research have you been involved in?

- Why do you want to do the AFP in Scotland?

Thanks!

Is there a word count for the white space questions?

Also there's like 100+ jobs for Thames AFP… we would have to rank them all before submitting the application… right?

Is there a word count for the white space questions?

Also there's like 100+ jobs for Thames AFP… we would have to rank them all before submitting the application… right?

I believe there is a word count, not sure what it is though.

You don't have to rank any that you aren't interested in, but if you're happy to do all of them then I guess you rank them all! Luckily I'm not interested in surgery so that gets rid of quite a few for me.

Just to confirm whats already been said - unlike for FP in AFP you only need to rank jobs that you are interested in.

I think the word count was somewhere in the region of 200-400 last year (for Scotland anyway, but its probably similar).

Does anyone know how the extra points for merits/distinctions work for Thames AFP?
At Manchester we can get Honours or Distinctions in an exam but they don't award distinctions for the whole year and we don't have merits at all. I've emailed Thames to ask but they told me:

"we are unable to advise candidates in detail of how to complete their applications."

So... super helpful. I'm trying to find someone at my medical school who might know, but no luck so far. At the moment my plan is just to put down my honours/distinctions and explain how they are awarded and hope I get some points. I'm just worried I'm going to miss out on points because my medical school doesn't award Merits/Distinctions in the "right" way.

Do you have a letter or evidence showing that you achieved a distinction/honours? I am pretty sure it would count towards your additional educational achievements score if you upload evidence for it.

yeah I have my transcript so I'm just going to put it down and hope for the best

Has anyone here succeeded in an AFP at Cambridge or know of anyone who has? what kind of achievements did successful candidates have?

Also, is anyone aware of the foundation schools that require CVs on the application? I know cambridge do...

thanks

Does anyone know what components Oxford AUoA have in their application and the level/number of achievements that successful applicants have?

A friend of mine emailed them and they were told it is not essential to be published or have an intercalated degree, and that they will look at everything including the white-space questions before they make a decision. They said they've had successful applicants who didn't have publication or intercalated degrees.
That doesn't mean it's easy, I suspect the standards are high. They had the highest competition ratio last year and the year before, with more than 11 and 9 applicants applying per vacancy respectively, which was far higher than any other AUoA.

Just a question to those who have applied to Northwestern AFP in previous years. Were you able to rank different programmes (tracks) from different trusts or do we have to rank trusts first? In other words is it possible rank a certain track from Central Manchester as 1st choice then a track from Salford as 2nd then another track from Central Manchester as 3rd? or do we have to rank all the tracks from 1 trust before ranking tracks from other trusts?

The reason I'm asking is that the local matching process for normal (non-academic) FP in Northwestern consists of a 2-stage process. After allocation to NW foundation school you first rank trusts and once you're allocated to a trust you can then rank programmes only from within that trust. This is the reason why I'm not applying to NW for normal FP because I'm more interested in getting a track that includes a rotation in my specialty of interest than I am in which trust I'll based at.

So if anyone has applied to Manchester AFP before and knows how this works, I'd really appreciate it if you could shed some light on it. Thanks

I was wondering the same if anyone knows?

I emailed them and got a reply. So, unlike the process for regular FP, for academic FP we'll be able to rank any track from any trust in any order we like.

Does anyone know how the extra points for merits/distinctions work for Thames AFP?
At Manchester we can get Honours or Distinctions in an exam but they don't award distinctions for the whole year and we don't have merits at all. I've emailed Thames to ask but they told me:

"we are unable to advise candidates in detail of how to complete their applications."

So... super helpful. I'm trying to find someone at my medical school who might know, but no luck so far. At the moment my plan is just to put down my honours/distinctions and explain how they are awarded and hope I get some points. I'm just worried I'm going to miss out on points because my medical school doesn't award Merits/Distinctions in the "right" way.