Vet Med without A Levels? Access Course?

Hi, I’m hoping someone here will be able to help me as I’m completely lost in what I’m doing and can’t seem to find any concrete answers to what I’m asking😫. Basically, at GCSE, I got 1 A*, 2 A’s, 5 B’s and a C, (Maths A*, Eng A, Science BA). I then went onto do maths, chem and bio at A Level, unfortunately didnt go to plan due to certain reasons and all I achieved was an E in maths and an E in bio. The dream has always been to go to Notts to be a vet and so after results I sort of gave up, but recently applied to an access to vet nursing course at Brackenhurst as a ‘second-best’. But I’ve now seen that Notts take access courses for Vet Med, the course I’d do would be the one with the gateway year, and I just need to find out if the courses I’ve applied for are accepted! I’ve spoke to Uni and the leaders of the courses and got nowhere so thought I’d try here before I try and get a meeting with someone!
This is the Brack course I applied for: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/study-and-courses/courses/find-your-course/animal-rural-environmental-sciences/fe/2019-20/access-to-higher-education-diploma-in-land-based-studies-animal-science

And this is the other: https://www.wnc.ac.uk/Courses/Access-to-University-Sciences

Does anyone know if these are good enough??😫 It has to be 60 credits, 45 at level 3, 15 of which must be distinction. But I just can’t seem to find out how many credits these courses give? Thank you so much to anyone that can help!

Hey I’m doing an access to HE in science at the moment and have two offers for Vet med from Bristol (5 year) and Nott for the 6 year. It’s a 60 credit course. 45 of those are graded at pass/ merit/ distinction and 15 are what they call core units which are just pass or fail. Both have made me and offer for 30 credits at distinction and the rest of the graded units must be merit or distinction.

I have a pretty similar story to you in that i got great GCSEs and rubbish a levels. Went on you do the Vet nursing diploma but no unis accept that for the Vet med degree so the access course was my best option. Nottingham do accept some vocational qualifications but I thought I should do something as I’m up against A* a level candidates. Hope that helps you out

I'm a first year vet student but I've just turned 25! I did my A levels as a mature student by finding a 16-19 college that accepted the occasional adult and completing my A levels just like everyone else, (but 6 years late). It's probably possibly to do access courses but I'd be really careful picking which one- certain vet schools only allow specific courses and not others, and dictate what scores you have to achieve throughout. I'd totally recommend A levels because studying for 2 years is the standard route and it gave me more time to organise work exp and prepare to apply in the 2nd year.

Don't rush a decision, find the right path for you, if you need to get a job and save some money for a few years then in my opinion you'd have a better shot at applying as a mature student as you can take the time to get a really good application. Plus then you've had general life exp, job exp, interview exp etc which will help you in vet school interviews.

I’m so happy that’s helps! Are you a mature student?

So you should have a look at this website https://www.accesstohe.ac.uk/Pages/Default.aspx?carouseltab=3

You want to search for science not combined or any of the the other funky ones. I’m in Essex and there were loads of colleges offering it so hopefully your area will too. Within the course you might get an offer from uni saying they want however many credits in a certain subject.

The access course covers biology, chemistry, physics, maths which are the ones you need high grades in, and then the core units which are just like can you make a presentation/ use computer programs so it’s good for people who might’ve been out of education for a while.

I applied to Nottingham, Bristol and the RVC and the RVC were the only ones to reject me and that was due to my a levels. So most unis are open minded and don’t think mistakes you made when you were 17 taint your whole application.

I really hope you get it!

I'm a first year vet student but I've just turned 25! I did my A levels as a mature student by finding a 16-19 college that accepted the occasional adult and completing my A levels just like everyone else, (but 6 years late). It's probably possibly to do access courses but I'd be really careful picking which one- certain vet schools only allow specific courses and not others, and dictate what scores you have to achieve throughout. I'd totally recommend A levels because studying for 2 years is the standard route and it gave me more time to organise work exp and prepare to apply in the 2nd year.

Don't rush a decision, find the right path for you, if you need to get a job and save some money for a few years then in my opinion you'd have a better shot at applying as a mature student as you can take the time to get a really good application. Plus then you've had general life exp, job exp, interview exp etc which will help you in vet school interviews.

I considered re-sitting A Levels but theres no way I could afford it tbh so thought an access course would be better for me as I can get a loan. I’m going to go and soeak to someone from Nottingham before I finalise anything so that I’m definitely going on the right course as obviously dont want to waste time. Good luck for the rest of your course!