How I turned ACDD at AS level to a medical school place

You could have saved a lot of time and energy if you had put your mind to getting good grades in the first place.

You do realise you took someone else's place on the course you are now leaving. Someone could have benefitted rather than using it as a stop gap until you decided to pull yourself together.

I hope you are not a doctor I have to see, you sound like a time waster.

Wow, what a thing to say :/ the person does understand that they could have saved that time and energy, saying such a statement isn't constructive at all. They did their time, worked hard, got their grades and got in.

Yes the idea of going to uni to do another course and dropping out isn't the best. However there are other people who drop out - are they time wasters too having realised that the subject/uni isn't great for them?

If someone who picked themselves up and learned from their mistakes sounds like a time waster to you so be it. But I think you're being overly critical.

Hi, thanks for your reply
did you get your teacher at school to do your reference or was it your teacher at uni? also, did you use the same ps you had used for ur second application? i really dont want to write a new one aha. btw did you do any more volunteering or work experience in the summer before u started uni which you added to ur application?

wow ur ukcat score was great. how long was ur ukcat preperation? so i assume u took the test before u started uni? also out of curiosity, did you do the bmat? if so, did u revise for bmat whilst at uni or did u get all the revision out the way in the summer?

sorry for all the questions, i really appreciate ur help. thanks !

Hey, it was the teacher from school as I'd not met my uni tutors yet.
I used pretty much the same PS but added in work experience.
I just continued working as a HCA.
I had about 2 weeks, I'd have taken longer but I was inter railing, and yes I took it in September.
And no I didnt do the BMAT

Hi guys, I thought I'd share with you my story as I know it would have given me a lot more confidence when I was struggling.

In my GCSEs I got 6A*s, 4As and a B with minimal effort, and I became very arrogant. I also started going out more and spent my weekends either partying or working.

It all caught up with me in the end and in my AS levels I got ACDD. (History, Biology, Chemistry and Maths respectively)

I still believed in myself, however, and took the UKCAT and scored 710. I applied for medicine and got an offer. I resat almost every exam, dropped Maths, and still only got ABB. I had eased off the partying a bit and cut my hours at work, but I still fundamentally lacked discpline.

At this point I changed my attitude entirely. Twice I had messed up severely and it was apparent I needed to change my attitude to life.

I took the UKCAT again and got 715. I worked as a HCA in hospital for the year, and my attitude completely changed. The jobs awful and really made me think about how I got into that position and where I wanted to be.

I resat again in my gap year, whilst working, and achieved A*A* in the two A levels I resat. I resat my D in my AS level and got an A. I got above 95% in every exam, and did it all from home, on my own. I did this by doing every question in the textbook and every past paper multiple times until I didn't get anything wrong.

It still wasn't enough, however, as no medical schools were willing to interview a resitter.

So this year I applied again, for the third and last time. I once more took the UKCAT and got 772.5, after thorough preparation. I had cleared into uni for a different course so I had a fallback plan if I failed this time. I recently received an offer for a medical place in September, and have left my current course.

With hard work, discpline and perseverance I feel anyone can achieve their dream if they are willing to make sacrifices, and often the hardest route can be the most rewarding.

A book I'd recommend is 7 habits of highly successful people. I set a number of goals for the last two years beside medicine and achieved them all. I feel the importance of setting realistic goals cannot be underestimated.

I hope this is some use to someone.