Applying to medicine with a mediocre UCAT score.

I am a scottish medicine applicant this year and am slightly worried about my fairly middle of the road UCAT score of 655 and band 2 in SJT. I am applying to edinburgh, glasgow, dundee and aberdeen and although I am not worried about the last two, I am aware that Edinburgh and Glasgow weights UCAT heavily and favours a higher score (720 for Edinburgh and 680 for Glasgow). I achieved 5 As in my highers in human bio, chem, physics, maths and history and I am fairly confident in the quality of my personal statement. Really just looking for some thoughts on my chances for Edinburgh and Glasgow. Thanks.

Agree that Edinburgh and Glasgow sound risky--Glasgow more so. Edinburgh publishes past offers by deciles and there were many offers at your UCAT score. Re. Glasgow I heard that last year's 680 was the highest ever. So you could still risk it. What matters is to have one offer after all, and in combination you should be fine if your grades are good

I would be curious to know why you are not worried about Dundee. It gives 40pct weight to the UCAT (60pct on grades), and interviews 40pct of applicants. Doesn't that mean an interview is unlikely?

Hello there!

I am not entirely sure how much help I can be however I have found some interesting articles which may provide you with some noteworthy information.

Using the medic portal's recent interim scores they project an average of 2541, which would put you certainly ahead of the average and within the 6'th decile according to this article.
(https://www.themedicportal.com/blog/interim-ucat-scores-for-2020-entry/). I can also try and provide you with some anecdotal information about the medicals school and the quick google search I used!

Glasgow
https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_475041_en.pdf
It shows that the lowest score accepted for interview in 2018 was 2680 for Glasgow. However bearing in mind that this does change from year to year, although probably not drastically. From my understanding, Glasgow is a heavy UKCAT selecting university - so you may need to be cautious applying here.

Edinburgh
Edinburgh appears to use academic score, SJT banding and UKCAT decile score to invite the top 650 student for an interview ( which is a new system that they have employed this year.) This will then factor 50% of your overall application with the other 50% attributed to your performance at interview. I again cannot find any information on what the lowest score they used last year. However, as this is a new method of selection adopted for this year, it is likely to change how they select. My overall feeling is that the UKCAT will be a much greater factor in selection than previous years, as they seem to have reduced the importance of the personal statement by a considerable amount.

Dundee
I however have more information regarding Dundee, as I study there. I believe your UKCAT should be enough to get an interview, however this is only based on my years cohort which was 6 years ago now. The lowest score I am aware in my year is around the 650 mark. Moreover, medical portal state the following:

" “There is no specific cut-off applied but obviously a high score is advantageous.” So how high are we talking? Well, Dundee states that their analysis of the 2016 applicant cohort revealed that the average UKCAT score of applicants invited for interview was 2740."
https://www.themedicportal.com/blog/apply-good-ukcat-score-2018-entry-part-two/

I believe Dundee use a decile system to select on academics and UKCAT score, with a ratio of 60% academics to 40% UKCAT. It is likely you will be within the deciles 4-6, based on the medic portal information, and considering your excellent academics I feel this is a good choice for you.

Is there a possibility that the weighting previously carried by PS has been moved to interviews for Edinburgh rather than UCAT. Looking at previous averages, I dont see how they can increase the weighting on UCAT anymore without making it ridiculous.

From reading their admission document, the impression I got was that the personal statement will only be used as a factor for questions at the interview. There will be no score attributed to it. Therefore, I think this means that Edinburgh will select for interview with 50% weighing academics and 50% UKCAT ( with SJT being factored into this). Have a look at their pdf file on this, perhaps I an interpreting this incorrectly!

https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/applying_for_medicine_low_res.pdf

Hello there!

I am not entirely sure how much help I can be however I have found some interesting articles which may provide you with some noteworthy information.

Using the medic portal's recent interim scores they project an average of 2541, which would put you certainly ahead of the average and within the 6'th decile according to this article.
(https://www.themedicportal.com/blog/interim-ucat-scores-for-2020-entry/). I can also try and provide you with some anecdotal information about the medicals school and the quick google search I used!

Glasgow
https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_475041_en.pdf
It shows that the lowest score accepted for interview in 2018 was 2680 for Glasgow. However bearing in mind that this does change from year to year, although probably not drastically. From my understanding, Glasgow is a heavy UKCAT selecting university - so you may need to be cautious applying here.

Edinburgh
Edinburgh appears to use academic score, SJT banding and UKCAT decile score to invite the top 650 student for an interview ( which is a new system that they have employed this year.) This will then factor 50% of your overall application with the other 50% attributed to your performance at interview. I again cannot find any information on what the lowest score they used last year. However, as this is a new method of selection adopted for this year, it is likely to change how they select. My overall feeling is that the UKCAT will be a much greater factor in selection than previous years, as they seem to have reduced the importance of the personal statement by a considerable amount.

Dundee
I however have more information regarding Dundee, as I study there. I believe your UKCAT should be enough to get an interview, however this is only based on my years cohort which was 6 years ago now. The lowest score I am aware in my year is around the 650 mark. Moreover, medical portal state the following:

" “There is no specific cut-off applied but obviously a high score is advantageous.” So how high are we talking? Well, Dundee states that their analysis of the 2016 applicant cohort revealed that the average UKCAT score of applicants invited for interview was 2740."
https://www.themedicportal.com/blog/apply-good-ukcat-score-2018-entry-part-two/

I believe Dundee use a decile system to select on academics and UKCAT score, with a ratio of 60% academics to 40% UKCAT. It is likely you will be within the deciles 4-6, based on the medic portal information, and considering your excellent academics I feel this is a good choice for you.

I see what you mean. It seems like an odd choice to not "formally assess" the personal statement. I hope that doesn't mean a large increase in UCAT weighting.

I fear it may - I'd call their admissions office and chat to them about it though! Also bear in mind, you have a really great profile still and certainly have options!

I guess I'm not as concerned for Dundee because I have the required grades and although not great, I would still class my UCAT score as good. I dont see how this puts me at a huge disadvantage.

I think you are right. In the formula, what counts is the decile you are in relative to all applicants. I've found data on applicants by decile from Edinburgh and your (and my daughter's) UCAT fall in the 5th octile of applicants (2018 data). https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/mbchb_admission_statistics_ii.pdf