Hi to anyone reading this - last time I posted I got "censored" - aka Clinical Sciences admins managed to get it taken down but I cannot read what you are saying without sharing this with you.
I want to be of any assistance possible here. Last year I graduated from the Clinical Sciences degree after doing the full 4 years (which included the foundation year). The course is a shambles full of lies and false promises from day 1. I, like many others, was lured onto the degree having missed the grades to be able to get directly into Medical school and was assured I would be a very strong candidate for the transfer and that there would be 50 people on the course going for the 20 transfer places of foundation year and 20 transfer places of year 1. There were over 110 students on my first day of the course and there was the evident first lie of the experience. (They are now taking on well over 200 students for the same 20 places). Suddenly prospects of having a 1 in 2.5 chance of transfer for each year became almost a 1 in 6. From day 1 it was evident that the 'widening participation' aspect of the course just wasn't the case. I was competing against students with straight A's and higher at A level and it became quickly apparent that the course was nothing more than a money making machine that was playing on people's desperation to get into Medical school.
Many people met the grades (70% average in foundation year and 60% in first year) which ultimately meant people who had done nothing but work in order to transfer into Leeds didn't. You are treated with less respect, less fairness and less professionalism than you are in primary school throughout the degree, particularly in years 2 and 3 when you haven't transferred and are effectively trapped in their system. The teaching quality is often appalling, exam standards are shocking and the culture of bullying stems from the top down.
I cannot strongly enough express how awful this degree was. Where those who work for the faculty would say that those who didn't transfer are just bitter (this was indeed used against us by the course director when we politely asked for a meeting to discuss our concerns), that is simply not the case.
Please do not do this degree. I, having graduated with a 2.1 and moved on with my life, feel that it is my duty to warn others and inform others who are considering this path what an awful lie the whole things is. There is a thread from as long as 10 years ago stating the exact same feelings as I write here today so please believe me when I say that the way I feel is a general consensus and not just the thoughts of one individual. I will include the links to other threads at the end of mine. If you want to private message me at all or have more questions please do not hesitate to ask. If you feel that this course is the best way to get into Medicine please just explore all other options. I would tell my 18 year old self to do a degree I would enjoy, perhaps nursing/physiotherapy/midwifery/biomedical sciences then apply to graduate Medicine afterwards. I do not want anyone to go through what I and so many of my peers have.
Feel free to ask me more and stay clear of Clinical Sciences!
A quick look on the course page (scroll to the bottom) will show the student satisfaction score was just 36% - this is NOT normal!!
http://www.bradford.ac.uk/study/courses/info/clinical-sciences-bsc-3-years Here is the link to the thread stating the same problems from 10 years ago:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=266482&page=2