Cardiff A100 2020 Entry

Original post by Christbelle

Was that this year? They told me that the my understood that Welsh students were under represented and disadvantaged with Quals reform 🤔

Yep, a few weeks ago. I thought it was pretty rubbish, personally

Reply 62

Yashchou

9

Original post by GANFYD

This should either be posted on the megathread
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5622970
or in the Cardiff thread, as you are likely to get quicker answers
https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6022452

Cardiff use GCSEs as there primary selection tool, needing 8A*s and an A for 3 years and last year 9 x A*s for an interivew, so it is quite possible they will need to use UCAT as a tie breaker between applicants with this score

i thought this is the first year of new GCSE so cut off will go down than going up? In other words it is difficult to get all A* with new GCSE s?
Would they not invite someone for interview if they have 7 A* 1 A and 1 B? Otherwise they will only interview applicants who have all A* in GCSE?

Reply 63

Christbelle

6

Original post by Yashchou

i thought this is the first year of new GCSE so cut off will go down than going up? In other words it is difficult to get all A* with new GCSE s?
Would they not invite someone for interview if they have 7 A* 1 A and 1 B? Otherwise they will only interview applicants who have all A* in GCSE?

From my understanding 8’s and 9’s are the same weighting as an A* this year. There are more 8’s and 9’s awarded than A*’s and so if you study in England you have more chance of achieving their cut off. This is why I emailed them and they said they understood this. However Ganfyd has heard that they will not take this into consideration.

Reply 64

A_J_B

19

Original post by Yashchou

i thought this is the first year of new GCSE so cut off will go down than going up? In other words it is difficult to get all A* with new GCSE s?
Would they not invite someone for interview if they have 7 A* 1 A and 1 B? Otherwise they will only interview applicants who have all A* in GCSE?

The proportion of people who will get 8s and 9s(both considered A*s by Cardiff) will double . As @GANFYD pointed out, about 13% of students were getting A*s in AQA chemistry in 2017, compared to 26% who were getting 8s or 9s when the new Gcse s were introduced.

Reply 65

Original post by Diso

Cardiff is the most competitive university for medicine. This is shown in 26/27 being required for selection for interview. It is more competitive than London universities and Oxbridge requiring an average of 8 A* at GCSES. If your UCAT score is less than 95th percentile there is no point applying. They only accept 150 students with the best results.

Please everybody ignore this.
For a start, Cardiff has about 309 places for medicine.
It is not "more competitive" than anywhere else, it had 8 applicants per place last year, which is about par for the course.
It just selects using different criteria to other med schools. And only uses UCAT if there is a tiebreak situation (possibly before, more likely after, interview)

Reply 66

Krambo_

11

I wish 'Disco' was lying, however, from my experience this is completely true. I applied for Cardiff last year (2018/2019) with 26/27 points in my GCSE's and A*A*A* predicted grades in A-levels. I was not offered an interview from Cardiff but still managed to receive interviews from Oxford, King's and Leeds. My close family friend is also an admissions tutor for Cardiff and has explicitly stated that it is the most competitive university in the UK with only 150 students being accepted from which are applicants with the highest scores in GCSE's and A-levels. The UCAT is not used as much, however, all the people being selected for interview were either 9th decile or occasionally 8th as the minimum.

Reply 67

Diso

Cardiff is the most competitive university for medicine. This is shown in 26/27 being required for selection for interview. It is more competitive than London universities and Oxbridge requiring an average of 8 A* at GCSES. If your UCAT score is less than 95th percentile there is no point applying. They only accept 150 students with the best results.

Reply 68

Original post by BlazeHunterz

I wish 'Disco' was lying, however, from my experience this is completely true. I applied for Cardiff last year (2018/2019) with 26/27 points in my GCSE's and A*A*A* predicted grades in A-levels. I was not offered an interview from Cardiff but still managed to receive interviews from Oxford, King's and Leeds. My close family friend is also an admissions tutor for Cardiff and has explicitly stated that it is the most competitive university in the UK with only 150 students being accepted from which are applicants with the highest scores in GCSE's and A-levels. The UCAT is not used as much, however, all the people being selected for interview were either 9th decile or occasionally 8th as the minimum.

There are lots of examples of people on the threads here every year being accepted with far lower UCAT scores than that. But if it is not used anyway, then this is correlation and not causation. Again, lots of people have higher A levels than AAA, this is a coincidence, as the requirements are still AAA.

So how are you judging competitivemess here? By the med school that needs the most GCSEs at A* without caring about other parts of your application? Yep, Cardiff win that, but then they are in a group of 1 who select this way, so are both first and last (and everything in between)! On UCAT score - that was Bristol last year? On A level grades required for an interview - most likely Barts?
If it was applicants per place, UCLan came top. Competitiveness is not judged by "I got interviews other places and not here, so it must be more competitive". Nor is it decided by what their own Admissions Tutor thinks, as I'm pretty sure most would lay claim to these sort of stats (well, except that they only accepted people to less than half of their places, as that is just a plain lie or rank stupidity)

Just because you got interviews at other places does not mean they are less competitive, just your stats better suited their application process. And Cardiff have released on an FOI that their cut off was 25/27 last year, so there was clearly something else they did not like about your application
So if Cardiff have 309 places for medicine, what are they doing leaving 159 of them empty if they only accept 150 people? That would lose them well over £7million pounds a year as there are 5 years underscribed at any given time and might leave the med school having to explain to Uni management what on earth they were doing

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 69

Krambo_

11

Unfortunately, I don't believe your reasoning is coherent. You have misunderstood what I am trying to convey, and I will take a portion of the blame for your misinterpretation of my statement as I believe I have not expressed my post in a clear way. The fact that Cardiff remains the University requiring the most out of individuals applying for the A100 Medicine undergraduate course in terms of GCSE grades achieved by students within two years of studying, compared to Universities which are ranked higher in ranking tables such as Oxbridge, King's, QMUL, UCL and Imperial, shows the difficulty in terms of this. The relative comparison of Cardiff being the most demanding and requiring the highest GCSE's are not mutually exclusive, resulting in the tendency to accept candidates with the highest scores which you have agreed with. It is with upmost certainty that we cannot judge competitiveness based off our comparison with other institutions that offer the same course, as the requirements will differ; however, the only University requiring a similar standard of GCSE results is Oxbridge which is arguably the most competitive University in the UK as perceived of by most. From this, I was able to conclude that applying to Cardiff will be objectively difficult for applicants. The necessary nature of this is proven in the previous admissions statistics from which you have stated incorrectly. The Freedom of Information Act states the average score was 24/27 meaning I have formed a sort of deductive argument from my prior experience (being declined with a higher score). The assertion which you have made in terms of previous responses to threads is one of a synthetic claim with no evidence that we can judge to be true or false.

Reply 70

Diso

While it is undoubtedly true that correlation does not in all cases mean causation, indubitably in this case it can be made to argue that it is. There is sufficient evidence to suggest the trying nature of the Cardiff A100 application, bared testament to by the fact that to even be considered for interview, an otherwise exceptional score of 26 is required, otherwise translating to 8A*s and an A. However these statements or purely arbitrary unless compared to another university in order to truly grasp how trying the entry requirements truly are. Let us consider Cambridge, where according raw and processed data found by FOI (Freedom of Information) we can see that many applicants have been successful with even 7A*s and seldom even 6. Thereby we can safely accept the null hypothesis (as there is insufficient evidence to otherwise dismiss it) bearing testament to the difficulty and level of harshness conferred by the university of Cardiff

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 71

Original post by Diso

While it is undoubtedly true that correlation does not in all cases mean causation, indubitably in this case it can be made to argue that it is. There is sufficient evidence to suggest the trying nature of the Cardiff A100 application, bared testament to by the fact that to even be considered for interview, an otherwise exceptional score of 26 is required, otherwise translating to 8A*s and an A. However these statements or purely arbitrary unless compared to another university in order to truly grasp how trying the entry requirements truly are. Let us consider Cambridge, where according raw and processed data found by FOI (Freedom of Information) we can see that many applicants have been successful with even 7A*s and seldom even 6. Thereby we can safely accept the null hypothesis (as there is insufficient evidence to otherwise dismiss it) bearing testament to the difficulty and level of harshness conferred by the university of Cardiff

Except Cambridge do not use GCSEs at all in their selection process, and have no minimum requirements at all. That is like saying Cambridge must be more competitive and harsher as they require a higher BMAT score than Cardiff do!

Reply 72

Original post by BlazeHunterz

Unfortunately, I don't believe your reasoning is coherent. You have misunderstood what I am trying to convey, and I will take a portion of the blame for your misinterpretation of my statement as I believe I have not expressed my post in a clear way. The fact that Cardiff remains the University requiring the most out of individuals applying for the A100 Medicine undergraduate course in terms of GCSE grades achieved by students within two years of studying, compared to Universities which are ranked higher in ranking tables such as Oxbridge, King's, QMUL, UCL and Imperial, shows the difficulty in terms of this. The relative comparison of Cardiff being the most demanding and requiring the highest GCSE's are not mutually exclusive, resulting in the tendency to accept candidates with the highest scores which you have agreed with. It is with upmost certainty that we cannot judge competitiveness based off our comparison with other institutions that offer the same course, as the requirements will differ; however, the only University requiring a similar standard of GCSE results is Oxbridge which is arguably the most competitive University in the UK as perceived of by most. From this, I was able to conclude that applying to Cardiff will be objectively difficult for applicants. The necessary nature of this is proven in the previous admissions statistics from which you have stated incorrectly. The Freedom of Information Act states the average score was 24/27 meaning I have formed a sort of deductive argument from my prior experience (being declined with a higher score). The assertion which you have made in terms of previous responses to threads is one of a synthetic claim with no evidence that we can judge to be true or false.

Oxbridge is not a university.........?
So clearly you are trolling or have no idea what you are talking about
And Cardiff uni have clearly stated cut off was 25 last year (2019 entry) and 26 the year before

Reply 73

macbook1

5

Original post by GANFYD

Please everybody ignore this.
For a start, Cardiff has about 309 places for medicine.
It is not "more competitive" than anywhere else, it had 8 applicants per place last year, which is about par for the course.
It just selects using different criteria to other med schools. And only uses UCAT if there is a tiebreak situation (possibly before, more likely after, interview)

i second that: There are approximately 300 students in a year at Cardiff-clearly diso and Blazehunterz (assuming the are actually two different people) have no clue what the are saying! UCAT is not looked at except for a tie break which on their open day they said they haven't used as yet (may be different this year)

Reply 74

A_J_B

19

Original post by GANFYD

Please everybody ignore this.
For a start, Cardiff has about 309 places for medicine.
It is not "more competitive" than anywhere else, it had 8 applicants per place last year, which is about par for the course.
It just selects using different criteria to other med schools. And only uses UCAT if there is a tiebreak situation (possibly before, more likely after, interview)

I think Diso and BlazeHunterz were being a bit sarcastic :wink:

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 75

Mutmit287

22

this thread is really getting off topic (or should I say more of an arguement about who knows best). this is a stressful time of year and we are all supposed to be supporting eachother through this process. please stop bickering.

Cardiff is competitive, all medical schools are competitive in different ways. Cardiff have around 3000-3500 applications each year, with around 1200 interviews for 300 places.
they use GCSE score as a cut off which in previous years has been around 25 or 26 out of the total 27 points for an interview unless you have contextual points.
3 points = 9/8/A* (GCSE) and A* (achieved Alevel)
2 points = 7/A (GCSE) and A (achieved Alevel)
1 point = 6/B (GCSE)
after everyone has been scored they read the personal statements to ensure you show the values which they state clearly under non-academic criteria in their admissions policy, if they are satisfied you move onto interview.

The UCAT is only used in tie breaker situations, most commonly post interview where they have more applicants with the same interview score than they have placed remaining so will choose the higher UCATs from those applicants and they will receive the places. there is No UCAT cut off.

yes Cardiff is GCSE heavy, but that will play to the strengths of a large number of applicants who scored very highly at GCSE (like myself when I applied). if that isn't you, then it may be worth considering other options and applying to your strengths.

hope this clarifies things for people.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 76

username4985358

I’m so excited to apply here but worried about the fact that they only consider interview performance to make offers.

Reply 77

username4985358