Imperial College- Medicine 2017 entry

Hey! Can't decide between applying to UCL or imperial...

If you have a good GCSE profile, then apply to UCL, because it would just get wasted at Imperial (since they don't consider GCSEs).
They are, after all, the more considering university in terms of the entire application.

If you think you'll get a strong BMAT score, go for Imperial, since once you meet the cutoff, the applicants per place drops to like 2/3 per place.
If your score is in band 1/2, there's around an 80-90% chance of getting an interview. This is also good if you have weak GCSEs(as mentioned earlier).

I have fairly good GCSEs (10A* 3As) and didn't know imperial didn't look at them wow! But hopefully I will do alright in the BMAT, and 2/3 people that's mad

imperial says A*AA is the typical offer, will they want the A* in chem?
I'm predicted an A* in maths but not chem, will this limit my chances?

I currently study at Imperial, so if anyone has any questions about studying medicine there, feel free to ask

Hi Pinkberry_y!
I'm an international student (so the competition gets extra fierce!) and thinking of applying to Imperial, along with Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham. What do you think of my choices (in terms of spreading it out between elite and "less competitive" schools)?

And what would you suggest for studying for the BMAT? Study routine? (I have purchased a couple of books, but haven't started preparing yet)

what do you guys thinks the grade boundaries for the sciences will be this year?

In my year, none. I don't know about the other years in general, but I know one other student in an older year who is from the US

By the way, my academics
IB predicted grades
Chemistry HL - 7
Biology HL - 7
Psychology HL - 7
Hindi A HL - 7
Maths SL - 7
English A Lang & Lit SL - 7

MYP grades (equivalent to GCSEs)
7s (A*) in all subjects except for the 5s (B) in maths and science.
Kind of concerned about this, as they are quite important subjects. Does this mean that I should disregard Birmingham and Leicester, as they place quite some emphasis on GCSEs

UKCAT
VR - 580 (also concerned about this section. Will universities consider this as an anomaly? Especially if I can provide evidence of my English proficiency with my IELTS (8.0 overall) and IB English results?)
AR - 770
QR - 720
SJT - Band 1

Yeah, it's all about the BMAT tbh. It just seems a waste for imperial to just disregard people's GCSEs like that though lol.

Another thing, your overall band is determined by your Lowest band out of the 3. So if you're band 1 in S1 and S2, but band 2 in S3, you automatically get out into band 2.

The chances in getting in interview in being in band 1 over band 2 aren't really that much better, so band 2 is all you need tbh.

How significant do you reckon good GCSEs will be for UCL? Will it be used in the case where two candidates perform equally well and gcse's are looked at to separate them? Or will better gcse's mean it will be easier to get an interview?



Thanks.

Please please please be honest with me on this one, how is the teaching quality?
Also I noticed that the student satisfaction for Imperial is quite low considering it is a top university for medicine. are you satisfied?
Also could you list your achievements such as GCSEs, A_Level Predicitons (if you can remember them) and BMAT score?

Also please tell me how much of a chance I have:

GCSEs: 9A* and 1A
A level Predictions: A* Biology, A* Maths, A Chemistry
BMAT: It's in November
PS: still crafting it

Hi Pinkberry_y!
I'm an international student (so the competition gets extra fierce!) and thinking of applying to Imperial, along with Birmingham, Leicester and Nottingham. What do you think of my choices (in terms of spreading it out between elite and "less competitive" schools)?

And what would you suggest for studying for the BMAT? Study routine? (I have purchased a couple of books, but haven't started preparing yet)

By the way, my academics
IB predicted grades
Chemistry HL - 7
Biology HL - 7
Psychology HL - 7
Hindi A HL - 7
Maths SL - 7
English A Lang & Lit SL - 7

MYP grades (equivalent to GCSEs)
7s (A*) in all subjects except for the 5s (B) in maths and science.
Kind of concerned about this, as they are quite important subjects. Does this mean that I should disregard Birmingham and Leicester, as they place quite some emphasis on GCSEs

UKCAT
VR - 580 (also concerned about this section. Will universities consider this as an anomaly? Especially if I can provide evidence of my English proficiency with my IELTS (8.0 overall) and IB English results?)
AR - 770
QR - 720
SJT - Band 1

I would take the satisfaction scores with a pinch of salt as I don't think it's just for the medical school it's for the entire imperial college? I may be wrong about that. But I do know other subjects eg Chem eng and computer science find the workload to be immensely high and the support to not always be there. Physicists are also depressed a lot with the workload etc. So the satisfaction if it's on imperial college in general may be skewed by the other subjects. I can tell you for Medicine the support really is there if you need it from your personal tutor, to PBL tutor to head of year etc. We also have mums and dads where you get assigned two people in the year above and you can get in touch with them if you need any help.
I haven't had a problem with the teaching to be honest with you, obviously there are some lecturers which are more interesting than others but that's the same for any medical school or course that you go to. There are a few absolute gem of a teachers here as well who you can tell really have a passion for their subject and for teaching. But overall I will say I'm very satisfied with Imperial and don't for a minute regret choosing Imperial over somewhere else. I do sometimes wish I'd applied to Cambridge just to see if I would have gotten an interview or gotten in, but I think that's more of a case of to see whether I was good enough for Cambridge or not, rather than because I think I would've been happier at Cambridge if that makes sense.
GCSE: 7A* 4A
A levels: A*A*A* (was also predicted 3A*)
BMAT: 5.4 5.6 4A


Your A level predictions are perfectly fine and your GCSEs are great, though I don't think Imperial really look at GCSEs that much or place much emphasis on it tbh. The real thing you need to focus on now is your BMAT because you need to get a good enough score to be above their interview threshold and have a chance of getting in. Hope that helped x

That would make sense that you're applying to a range of Medical schools in terms of requirements. I can't comment on how competitive your IB and MYP grades are for these medical schools because I'm not familiar with these exams and the usual grades people applying to Imperial have that have taken these exams.
Regarding the UKCAT, most universities tend to look at the average and don't really take into account each individual section usually or look for reasons why you may have gotten a particularly low score in a section, a lot of people do tend to get lower in verbal reasoning though if that helps.

BMAT preparation: practice practice practice the essays under timed condition using the paper on the BMAT website to get an idea of how much space you have to write etc. Close to the time of the exam do all the past papers on the BMAT website at least twice (again under timed condition)
I used the 400Q (green book) For BMAT, they may have one with more questions now I'm not sure but check it out. I mainly focuses my section 2 revision on physics as I did not take it at AS, but I basically just got a GCSE physics textbook and a specification and went through it. For chemistry biology and maths I just relied on my AS knowledge to be enough. However for biology I did have to revise the kidneys and digestion system as my exam boards at GCSE and AS had not covered that.
Look online as well for practice BMAT questions! I found using TSA past papers also helped for the section 1 of BMAT as its the same critical thinking type questions.