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Do I have a chance of getting into a veterinary medicine/science course?

I really want to study veterinary medicine at university however during my gcse exams my grandad passed away and this had quite a serious impact on my results. This affected my biology, maths, chemistry and physics grades.
If my A-level predicted grades are good enough to get into uni to do vet med could they be lenient on my gcse grades? (Especially RVC as this isn’t where I hope to go)
What were your results exactly? If you sat your GCSEs last year then it is too late to ask for mitigating circumstances if these have not already been applied.

Vet schools do not need to be lenient with people who have not met the grade requirements, as there are more than enough people that do. I have heard of people with relevant degrees being rejected for vet med because of their GCSE results; despite having a degree that requires much more knowledge than a GCSE does. Grade requirements are a very easy filter for them to apply to whittle down the applicant pool before they even look at personal statements, work experience documents etc. Ultimately it is at the discretion of the universities you apply to though, so I would encourage you to contact the admissions departments to ask if they would consider you. It is possible for your teachers to comment on how you were affected for your GCSE exams in your reference.

If you do not hear back with favourable responses then it's definitely not the end of the road as several universities (including RVC to my knowledge) accept GCSE resits.
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Lucie16
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Original post by Little Tail Chaser
What were your results exactly? If you sat your GCSEs last year then it is too late to ask for mitigating circumstances if these have not already been applied.

Vet schools do not need to be lenient with people who have not met the grade requirements, as there are more than enough people that do. I have heard of people with relevant degrees being rejected for vet med because of their GCSE results; despite having a degree that requires much more knowledge than a GCSE does. Grade requirements are a very easy filter for them to apply to whittle down the applicant pool before they even look at personal statements, work experience documents etc. Ultimately it is at the discretion of the universities you apply to though, so I would encourage you to contact the admissions departments to ask if they would consider you. It is possible for your teachers to comment on how you were affected for your GCSE exams in your reference.

If you do not hear back with favourable responses then it's definitely not the end of the road as several universities (including RVC to my knowledge) accept GCSE resits.



Hi ,thank you for your response. In the subjects affected I got 2 As (maths and biology), which i believe is fine for most unis but i got Bs in chemistry and physics. I believe some unis accept grade b for chemistry GCSE, however I would probably be at quite a disadvantage . Do you think it would be worth retaking chemistry and applying then if i achieve an A or above or just apply to those that accept Bs? sorry to be a pain, thank you.
Original post by Lucie16
Hi ,thank you for your response. In the subjects affected I got 2 As (maths and biology), which i believe is fine for most unis but i got Bs in chemistry and physics. I believe some unis accept grade b for chemistry GCSE, however I would probably be at quite a disadvantage . Do you think it would be worth retaking chemistry and applying then if i achieve an A or above or just apply to those that accept Bs? sorry to be a pain, thank you.


What A level subjects are you doing? This page isn't up to date any more but should give a rough idea of what your options are (double check on all the websites though. As I say it's about two years out of date.)

On the assumption that you're not doing A level physics and that you got enough As in other GCSE subjects, there are still a few universities that you would be eligible for (RVC unfortunately not being one of them). My personal opinion is that it might be a good idea to retake GCSE chemistry just to keep your options open and because it presumably won't involve too much additional work, but again contact admissions before you go ahead and book anything just in case they will consider you anyway. Bear in mind that if you retake next year, any offers you get will remain conditional until GCSE results day, which is one week after A level results day. This means that if unfortunately you didn't meet your GCSEs conditions (which, to be fair is probably unlikely given that you're doing the subject for A level...) and wanted to pursue something else instead of reapplying for vet med, Clearing would have already been open for a week and many spaces on other courses may be gone.
Sorry to hear about your granddad.
Send an email to the universities you wish to apply for to ask about your situation and what they recommend you should do.
I had mitigating circumstances for my A level year and although I got the grades it took me 3 years rather than 2 to complete them. Despite some of those uni not ordinarily accepting resits or a levels spread out over a longer time frame this did not affect my application at all. My teacher had to explain why I was capable of doing my a levels, if circumstances (my own health) would have been better so the fact I took longer did not reflect on my abilities.
Hey,

So I'd checked out GCSE's as I'm applying this year.

Edinburgh and Cambridge - no requirements
Glasgow - B in English
RVC and Notts - 5A's including Bio and Chem
Surrey - 5A's including triple science
Liverpool - 3A's/ 4 B's - B in English, Maths, 2x science (including Physics)

So really it comes down to where you really want to study/ whether tutors could explain mitigating circumstances for you? The other possibility is gateway courses - RVC, Bristol and Nottingham run them - some have criteria including income etc, some don't.

Notts requires 5B's in English, Maths and Science
RVC - 5C's in English, Maths and Science
Bristol - BB in Science and CC in English and Maths


Hope this helps!! Don't give up :smile:

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