King's vs Edinburgh for Medicine

I've received replies from all of my medicine choices now, and I'm struggling between Edinburgh and King's.
Personally I wasn't too enthusiastic about King's after visiting, but I haven't visited Edinburgh so I have no idea what it's like.

One of my major concerns would be the international intake- King's has many more international med students which I'm relieved about, but last year Edinburgh only accepted one student with overseas fee status which scares me a lot because I really don't want to be the only non-Scots/RUK/EU student (I already feel left out when they talk about Scottish stuff in the group chat )

My second concern would be rankings- King's seems to be ranked slightly higher than Edinburgh but Edinburgh seems to have more of an international presence... (I might be mistaken on this)

Thanks all x

You end up with the same degree no matter where you go. Choose based on teaching methods. Edinburgh will also have people from all over the UK and EU.

They're both integrated courses, the only difference would be mandatory intercalated year in Edinburgh and optional in King's, which doesn't really matter to me because I plan to intercalate anyways.

Any insight on the cities of Edinburgh/London if I were to live there as a student?

Seriously don't worry about the rankings, they don't matter. King's and Edinburgh are both really good unis and most importantly you get a medical degree from both.

Edinburgh has quite a lot of non-medic internationals even if not medics but it's true that King's has loads of medics from all around the world and London in general is very international!

I'm at King's, let me know if you have any questions

Thank you so much, I do have a few questions about King's.

Are medics at King's super active in clubs and societies? And as the campuses are quite scattered, would you get opportunities to meet other non-medic students apart from your roommates etc.?

The year is huge so there are definitely lots of active societies and you're pretty much guaranteed to find something you like!

If you do sports or some non-medical societies then meeting non-medics is easy. Of course you'll also bump into people through friends of friends etc. But it's probably true that medics are a bit more separated from other students than at some universities.

What do you mean by more separated from other students? I'd like to join some non-medical societies too but they don't seem as active as the Edinburgh ones (just judging by Facebook activity lolol)

Well as you said all the humanities people are at other campuses and in addition to obviously spending a lot of time on the course together a lot of medics only join medical societies and GKT specific sports teams so generally end up studying with medics, partying with medics, getting flats with medics, etc. I'm guessing this is true of most unis though and building a non-medic social circle is still definitely doable if that's what you want!

Yeah, King's has lots of very active ones but also many not-so-active ones!

Is there anything in particular you're into outside of medicine or do you just want to meet people doing other subjects?

Hi there,
I’m an S5 (year 12) student and will be applying this year - I can’t tell you much about the medical school but I have lived in Edinburgh all my life so if you have any queries about the city in general then I am happy to answer. All the medics I have met at events/work experience have been rly nice. You definitely wouldn’t be the only one coming from outside of Scotland because out of about 30 medical students I’ve spoken to there have been two Scottish ones. Maybe it’s just a fluke, but from my point of view there seem to be a lot of students from England in particular.

Edinburgh is ranked highest out of the five medical schools we have in Scotland. If I didn’t live in Edinburgh I would definitely be applying, but I like the idea of moving away. All the students I have asked are rly enjoying it. They all seem to like how you do all the science based learning in the first couple of years before moving onto clinical placements, because they felt more ready. The only clinical placement, as far as I’m aware, is with a GP in first and second year. Edinburgh and Glasgow are the two big go-to hospitals, so you will probably see a range of conditions and cool stuff from across Scotland.

If it makes any difference, the NHS in Scotland is in better condition than in England and - I might be wrong - but I think if you go to uni in Scotland you get first dibs on Scottish FY1 jobs, so that might be something to look into!

I see, I'd like to build a social circle with different kinds of people including medics. I really want to join a good choir (preferably auditioning), do you know of any except for the Student Union choir? I'd also like to play some team sports but not competitively.

I'm not adversed to spending all my time with medics, but I don't necessarily want to hang out with just the same group of people for 6 years yaknow

Thanks for your reply

Are there a lot of international students in the Edinburgh medical school? For example people from Asian countries?

Thanks for your reply

Are there a lot of international students in the Edinburgh medical school? For example people from Asian countries?

Oh ok, yeah I think that's healthy! Sounds like a great idea - I think there's at least some acapella and chapel choir stuff going on. I think it's also fairly common for people to do music stuff outside of King's like in London Contemporary Voices.

There are lots of sports teams that are pretty recreational. I'd try to join a King's one instead of a GKT one.

Are you a medical student? If yes, do people have a lot of time for other activities or do they seem to be in the library all the time?

Thank you!!

Yeah lol yes people definitely have time for other stuff. I mean there's a small proportion of people who seem to always be at the library but there's also a bunch of people who are doing really well even though they're doing a million other things/just never seem to study! How much extra time you have will depend of course on things like how efficient you are and what your academic goals are but I wouldn't worry too much about it.