Medicine Applications

I'm not exactly confident in my medicine application.
My UKCAT is bad.
It's 623.
And my Situational Judgement is even worse at a Band Three...
My GCSE's aren't strong because at age sixteen I considered going out during my exams more important. So I ended up with 4A*s, 6A's and 1B.
I got AAAA at A Level in Biology, Chemistry, English Literature and History.
I'm now doing the first three subjects plus EPQ.
I would say the only plus side is my experience.
I've had work experience in General Hospitals, Law Firms, Primary Schools, and in Tanzanian hospitals.
I'm a Health Care Assistant at a Colten Care Residential Nursing Home. I also have a First Aid Qualification with St Johns Ambulance and have volunteered for kids charities, brownies and in nursing homes. I'm a Level One Netball Coach (England Netball Coaching Qualification) and also play frequently in my Club's first team.

I need help because quite frankly I'm terrified.
I don't know if I have a chance after seeing how prepared and amazing everyone else is.

ANY comments will be entirely welcomed.

Dw about your ukcat score. I got 620 and I'm gonna start Med this year. Aim for med schools that don't care MUCH about UKCAT like Liverpool, Bham, UEA and Cardiff I THINK.

I'm not exactly confident in my medicine application.
My UKCAT is bad.
It's 623.
And my Situational Judgement is even worse at a Band Three...
My GCSE's aren't strong because at age sixteen I considered going out during my exams more important. So I ended up with 4A*s, 6A's and 1B.
I got AAAA at A Level in Biology, Chemistry, English Literature and History.
I'm now doing the first three subjects plus EPQ.
I would say the only plus side is my experience.
I've had work experience in General Hospitals, Law Firms, Primary Schools, and in Tanzanian hospitals.
I'm a Health Care Assistant at a Colten Care Residential Nursing Home. I also have a First Aid Qualification with St Johns Ambulance and have volunteered for kids charities, brownies and in nursing homes. I'm a Level One Netball Coach (England Netball Coaching Qualification) and also play frequently in my Club's first team.

I need help because quite frankly I'm terrified.
I don't know if I have a chance after seeing how prepared and amazing everyone else is.

ANY comments will be entirely welcomed.

this year both liverpool and Bham are looking at the UKCAT!

That's okay. Bham say that UKCAT only makes 1/3 of your applicant score. If your PS and academic side is great, you have no worries! Liverpool are using it for the first time as well so I highly doubt that they'd set a high cut-off point and so it all depends on the average score for the UKCAT this year.

The average seems to be up on last year, but lower than 2014 entry (which was stupidly high!!)

the thing is with Bham, the OP's GCSE grades are not really that strong for them, Bham love loads of A* at GCSE, so I dont think an interview would be offered.

Nobody knows how liverpool would use the UKCAT but I have never seen a UKCAT cut off lower than around 630/640 unless the school had very few applicants! Hopefully they would use it along with GCSE grades but who knows?!?!

I think the OP would be better suited to applying to bristol where the PS makes up a huge part of the application as their work experience is very strong!

Cardiff would be an outright rejection with only 4A*'s!

Please dont give advice unless you truly know the universities admissions policy, because on TSR a lot of people take this advice literally! This candidate could have applied to cardiff because of your reccomendation and just got rejected! The reason I feel so strongly about this is because it happened to me last year! Someone gave me horrific advice and thus 3/4 of my choices rejected me pre interview, thank god I went with my gut for cardiff or else Ii would be reapplying again this year!

Yeah, don't worry, I understand where you're coming from but I did take care to say in my first post "I THINK" so that it's clear to OP that I'm not 100% sure.

Its fine, and dont think im targeting you at all, because im not!!

congrats on your offer! where are you heading??

As per my previous post I am starting in roughly 2 weeks at cardiff medical school and cannot wait!

I'm going Bham in two weeks. Good luck

The average seems to be up on last year, but lower than 2014 entry (which was stupidly high!!)

the thing is with Bham, the OP's GCSE grades are not really that strong for them, Bham love loads of A* at GCSE, so I dont think an interview would be offered.

Nobody knows how liverpool would use the UKCAT but I have never seen a UKCAT cut off lower than around 630/640 unless the school had very few applicants! Hopefully they would use it along with GCSE grades but who knows?!?!

I think the OP would be better suited to applying to bristol where the PS makes up a huge part of the application as their work experience is very strong!

Cardiff would be an outright rejection with only 4A*'s!

Please dont give advice unless you truly know the universities admissions policy, because on TSR a lot of people take this advice literally! This candidate could have applied to cardiff because of your reccomendation and just got rejected! The reason I feel so strongly about this is because it happened to me last year! Someone gave me horrific advice and thus 3/4 of my choices rejected me pre interview, thank god I went with my gut for cardiff or else Ii would be reapplying again this year!

So you've never seen any cut off lower than 630 which means there's none that will accept me?

I have never seen a cut off lower than 630 for a UKCAT heavy university, or ones which place a lot of emphasis on the UKCAT!!

At bristol, UEA, keele QUB and possibly liverpool you should be ok! (especially at bristol and keele with your work experience)

Try to think positive!

Oh I really don't mind about the ones that want high, or at least good UKCAT scores. I was looking at Bristol etc before I even took it. I'm just worried that my overall application won't be strong enough anywhere.

Honestly your fine!! just give it a go! what is the worst that could happen!

your work experience and AS grades are strong! you should be fine!

Okay, thank you for putting up with me😂 what you've said is much appreciated.

I would look into applying to UEA, keele, bristol and possibly QUB, but I have no idea whether you would get interviews at any of those

x

Certainly not at QUB as they use GCSEs in conjunction with UKCAT score to shortlist potential interviewees. The way they do GCSEs is similar to Cardiff (they score the best nine) but they give 4 points for an A*, 2 points for an A and none for a B, giving a score out of 36.

The UKCAT score is then graded out of 6 depending on which of the six ranges yours falls into (OP's score would be a high 3). The two are then combined to give a score out of 42 and the cut-off is usually around 37 or 38 out of 42. So OP would have 29/42, which is way below any cut-off they've had in recent years.

Certainly not at QUB as they use GCSEs in conjunction with UKCAT score to shortlist potential interviewees. The way they do GCSEs is similar to Cardiff (they score the best nine) but they give 4 points for an A*, 2 points for an A and none for a B, giving a score out of 36.

The UKCAT score is then graded out of 6 depending on which of the six ranges yours falls into (OP's score would be a high 3). The two are then combined to give a score out of 42 and the cut-off is usually around 37 or 38 out of 42. So OP would have 29/42, which is way below any cut-off they've had in recent years.



OP, have you considered applying to any BMAT universities? Also, with your work experience, Bristol might be a shot (they don't use an entrance exam) but bear in mind that Bristol gives non-academics 80 percent weighting so you'll be up against a lot of other people with amazing non-academics who didn't get a very competitive UKCAT score.