Birmingham A100 2020 Entry

Hi everyone, I've just finished my 2nd year studying medicine at Birmingham, feel free to ask me any questions you like!

Hi everyone, I'm about to start my second year studying medicine at Birmingham. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to help out!

What was your UCAT and GCSE scores?

I had average 713 with a band 1 and my GCSEs were 7A*'s and 3A's

I got 650 band 2 in UCAT, and 9A*s and 2As (French and English Lang).
Do I have a strong chance of getting into birmingham?

Depends a bit on what your As were in

french and english lang

Then I make your score 7.278 and cut offs have been over 8 in recent years

But that was when UCAT was 30% and GCSES 70% towards interview? Now its gone to 60-40 and according to one source the threshold is going to go down.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/medicine_cut_off_scores

Indeed it was (although scoring changed last year and would be interesting to know what the cut off was, but getting information out of Birmingham is like getting blood out of a stone - took reporting them to the ICO to get them to release anything!). They don’t know the change will drop thresholds (or they didn’t last year and have not openly published that it did so people applying this year can make an informed decision). It may be that more people with a higher UCAT score will apply and they will go up.
Birmingham have also been telling people that anything over 7 is “likely” to get an interview for the last 2 years, despite knowing the cut offs were over 8!
When I played around with things last year, similar stats to those that would have given 8 the year before gave about 7.88, I think.
However, scores change every year and people need to make their own decisions

To be fair, it’s not just Birmingham that encourages applicants who unlikely to get an interview based on previous thresholds. I’ve sat in about 4 medicine talks this year where in response to questions on this area, the message from speakers has been to definitely apply even if very few A*’s, disappointing UCAT etc as can’t predict future years based on historical stats. This even where it’s clear from threads on here that actually sometimes we don’t have any chance at all unless we at least close to thresholds from previous years. I suppose it’s up to applicants to do their own research and make up their own minds but seems a bit disingenuous when admissions people recommending students apply when clearly a waste of a choice. It’s a big reason why we go to the expense of attending open days, to get first hand whether we a good match for a particular organisation. I realise that medical schools want to be competitive and get as many applicants as possible but still...

Particular shout outs go to Southampton, Cardiff, Kings, Manchester holisitc route, Aston, UCL as well as Birmingham for doing their best to confuse and hide their selection process and cut offs, even refusing to reply to FOIs a lot of the time and when they do giving bland, non-information that does not answer the questions asked - do they think they are above the law? The ultra good guys are Sheffield (obviously) but Leicester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Liverpool, SGUL, Barts, Imperial, Oxford, Plymouth and QUB all have all the info you need to know fairly well what your chances are before you apply. I know which ones I think are likely to have the better ethos when you get there: I would pick the open, honest, transparent, look-at-the-evidence-and-choose-for-yourself places over the we-are-so-important-you-should-be-honoured-to-apply-to-us guys any day!

I nearly had a stroke until I saw you were listing King's as a bad example, not a good one.

I think it exists on every level - website, official events, unofficial advice at open days, advice on here - that people aren't really willing to say 'actually your chances aren't great you shouldn't apply'. Official bodies like to keep their applicant numbers high, and unofficial bodies don't like the awkwardness. The truth is... a passive observer.

Hi am an international student with predicted grades of 7 7 6 in IB HL subjects Chem Bio and English and my UCAT composite score is 680 Band 1.
When i tried Birmingham calculator i got the response 'offer unlikely' so how accurate is this? Should i leave this uni out from my list? if anyone has information on this pl share