The Student Room Group

Do I need biology for medicine?

Which, if any, medical school can I get into if I took maths, physics, chemistry and another subject other than biology at A level?

Scroll to see replies

Original post by selnagi
Which, if any, medical school can I get into if I took maths, physics, chemistry and another subject other than biology at A level?


No, I think Biology and Chemistry is a must have
Same dilemma for me- rn I'm doing bio chem maths RS and EPQ (which i should acc start)

Tbh you could be fine because you have chem and physics

Hate my bio course and teacher so much, I think I'm gonna fail my AS exams, really am hoping to drop bio next year

I know we'll be pretty limited for which unis we can apply to but with the new a level system i expect most people would be taking 3 right from the start (does that mean both bio and chem will be a requirement, or just one of them and that's likely to be chem isn't it?)

This link may or may not be of use to you: http://www.getmeintomedicalschool.com/The-Guide/UK-Medical-Schools.html
i'd like my doc to have a biology A-Level

thread/
Original post by amalick1029
Same dilemma for me- rn I'm doing bio chem maths RS and EPQ (which i should acc start)

Tbh you could be fine because you have chem and physics

Hate my bio course and teacher so much, I think I'm gonna fail my AS exams, really am hoping to drop bio next year

I know we'll be pretty limited for which unis we can apply to but with the new a level system i expect most people would be taking 3 right from the start (does that mean both bio and chem will be a requirement, or just one of them and that's likely to be chem isn't it?)

This link may or may not be of use to you: http://www.getmeintomedicalschool.com/The-Guide/UK-Medical-Schools.html


Why would you even want to take medicine of you're bad at and dislike biology. That's like me applying to aerospace engineering and sucking at maths. Besides, you'll probably need an A in all your exams to be a serious contender for a place. There's multiple people on my school who got rejected for medicine despite having 4 A's.
Original post by Lawliettt
Why would you even want to take medicine of you're bad at and dislike biology. That's like me applying to aerospace engineering and sucking at maths. Besides, you'll probably need an A in all your exams to be a serious contender for a place. There's multiple people on my school who got rejected for medicine despite having 4 A's.


what?! where did they apply? do you know why they got rejected?
or was it simply their interview - like are you talking about post interview or pre interview rejections?
One got rejected from Cardiff because he "only" got 5A*'s at GCSE. The rest weren't given reasons. But their exams and UKCAT scores were great.

Of the 5 people that applied to medicine from my school, 3 got 4 rejections. 2 got 2 places and 2 rejections. And these are all people that got 4 A's. None applied to Oxbridge or Imperial.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by alkaline.
what?! where did they apply? do you know why they got rejected?
or was it simply their interview - like are you talking about post interview or pre interview rejections?


I think you might be underestimating quite how competitive a course medicine is. The universities will have masses of applicants with 4As so that alone won't be enough to impress them. Sadly, many of the top students at my grammar school have had rejections for medicine despite excellent grades...
Reply 8
Original post by Lawliettt
One got rejected from Cardiff because he "only" got 5A*'s at GCSE. The rest weren't given reasons. But their exams and UKCAT scores were great.

Of the 5 people that applied to medicine from my school, 3 got 4 rejections. 2 got 2 places and 2 rejections. And these are all people that got 4 A's. None applied to Oxbridge or Imperial.


Just for reference the cut off for an interview at Cardiff this year was at least 8 A*s
Hold up I only said I hate my teacher who btw can't teach for ****, and just saying I'm not a fan of my course i.e.- the way we're examined. The content's alright apart from in quantity (or is it just my school who teach it weird). I don't hate biology itself, I got an A* at gcse.

If anyone's doing OCR Biology A (new one) can you relate to this or is it just me (and the rest of my school on this course).

I swear the cambridge international A level papers are easier:s-smilie:
Original post by truemiscer
i'd like my doc to have a biology A-Level

thread/


I'd prefer my doc to have a medical degree, wouldn't really care about A Levels
You might have difficulties, My friend has applied to 5 unis, she got 13 A* at GCSE she will get 5A* at A level and a high (i think its UKCAT? ) score and still 3 of the unis turned her down and she's not even looking at Oxbridge (but they were all russell groups). It seems a little silly its so difficult to get in to. But if your not looking at really high grades you might struggle. If you want to know about Biology specifically then message the unis individually. I have the same problem with no Maths for computer science but eventually found of unis that didn't need it. Hope this helps :biggrin:
Short answer - you can, but you'll be very limited in terms of choice.

I honestly couldn't tell you which ones will take just chemistry without biology - so you'd definitely need to do some research on it. Some unis will say they want '2 of the following sciences' (which will probably have chem as one you absolutely must have), or say that if you don't have bio A level you must have it at minimum A/B/whatever but it's usually one of those two grade at AS (not sure how this might have changed with the reforms). Go through unis that you're interested in and look up what they want for 2017 entry, then decide what you want to do (if you've run out of unis, refer to this list - ignore Swansea, Warwick and anything that says 'postgraduate' in the name as they're GEM only).

@alkaline. , don't panic - NightHazel's pretty much said it. Pretty much everyone applying will have nigh on identical AS grades/A2 predictions. As a result I don't think a lot of unis actually make decisions based on that - most tend to go for something with a bit more variation like GCSEs, UKCAT/BMAT, or even PS. So long as you get your grades and smash whatever admissions tests you take you should be alright, and even if you get 4 rejections first time it'll suck but it won't be the end of the world. Take a gap year and try again - second time round you'll have extra knowledge and experience and it should be a lot less of a headache.
Reply 13
Original post by Samonia
You might have difficulties, My friend has applied to 5 unis, she got 13 A* at GCSE she will get 5A* at A level and a high (i think its UKCAT? ) score and still 3 of the unis turned her down and she's not even looking at Oxbridge (but they were all russell groups). It seems a little silly its so difficult to get in to. But if your not looking at really high grades you might struggle. If you want to know about Biology specifically then message the unis individually. I have the same problem with no Maths for computer science but eventually found of unis that didn't need it. Hope this helps :biggrin:
those grades amazing, and thanks for the advice and good luck with computer science :biggrin:
Reply 14
Original post by lightwoXd
Short answer - you can, but you'll be very limited in terms of choice.

I honestly couldn't tell you which ones will take just chemistry without biology - so you'd definitely need to do some research on it. Some unis will say they want '2 of the following sciences' (which will probably have chem as one you absolutely must have), or say that if you don't have bio A level you must have it at minimum A/B/whatever but it's usually one of those two grade at AS (not sure how this might have changed with the reforms). Go through unis that you're interested in and look up what they want for 2017 entry, then decide what you want to do (if you've run out of unis, refer to this list - ignore Swansea, Warwick and anything that says 'postgraduate' in the name as they're GEM only).

@alkaline. , don't panic - NightHazel's pretty much said it. Pretty much everyone applying will have nigh on identical AS grades/A2 predictions. As a result I don't think a lot of unis actually make decisions based on that - most tend to go for something with a bit more variation like GCSEs, UKCAT/BMAT, or even PS. So long as you get your grades and smash whatever admissions tests you take you should be alright, and even if you get 4 rejections first time it'll suck but it won't be the end of the world. Take a gap year and try again - second time round you'll have extra knowledge and experience and it should be a lot less of a headache.

Yeah a lot of unis do say "chemistry and two of..." So I think I'll take biology at least to AS level. It's just that I wanted to do either further maths or geography instead but biology would be better suited for medicine
Original post by selnagi
Yeah a lot of unis do say "chemistry and two of..." So I think I'll take biology at least to AS level. It's just that I wanted to do either further maths or geography instead but biology would be better suited for medicine


Good plan. It's a case of weighing up whether you want a wider choice of unis, or do a subject you prefer that you therefore could (potentially) get a better grade in. Either way, good luck :smile:
Original post by amalick1029
x


I did OCR bio and can confirm it was a nightmare to start with, mark schemes being weirdly specific and all. It does get better once you get used to it (and if it's any comfort, when it came to the actual exams the grade boundaries were fairly low).
Take this with a pinch of salt as I did old spec, but I don't think it will have changed too much in that respect?
Reply 17
Original post by selnagi
Which, if any, medical school can I get into if I took maths, physics, chemistry and another subject other than biology at A level?


Entry requirements are here
Original post by lightwoXd
I did OCR bio and can confirm it was a nightmare to start with, mark schemes being weirdly specific and all. It does get better once you get used to it (and if it's any comfort, when it came to the actual exams the grade boundaries were fairly low).
Take this with a pinch of salt as I did old spec, but I don't think it will have changed too much in that respect?


Mark schemes are ridiculously stupid, I lost a mark for saying hydrophilic interactions instead of bonds (even though it's right everywhere except biology).
And low grade boundaries? My teachers using "old spec" 85% is an A, 93% for an A*

You did old spec? Lucky, in the upper sixth who still do that course there's like 30 people out of the 40 in the year who love it and the ones resitting biology say the new course is the worst thing.
Original post by amalick1029
Mark schemes are ridiculously stupid, I lost a mark for saying hydrophilic interactions instead of bonds (even though it's right everywhere except biology).
And low grade boundaries? My teachers using "old spec" 85% is an A, 93% for an A*

You did old spec? Lucky, in the upper sixth who still do that course there's like 30 people out of the 40 in the year who love it and the ones resitting biology say the new course is the worst thing.


Tell me about it! In A2 we had a case where we had 2 past papers that had the same question with the same number of marks, but had different things on the mark schemes.
Yeah, the 'standard grade boundaries' we used for marking tests were 80% for an A, 70% for a B and so on, but if you look at grade boundaries for past papers they're actually pretty low. The lowest I can remember is 58/100 for an A on a unit 2 exam.

Yep - was lucky enough to finish A levels in 2015 (resitting a couple of A2 chem units but we don't talk about those :wink:). Honestly feel sorry for you guys on the new spec.

Quick Reply