Buckingham 1 year pre-med CertHE 2020 entry

Hi all

The first offer to come in was Buckingham Pre-med and I was wondering if anyone knew more than what the website says:

“If you get 70% you'll be guaranteed an interview for their med school. If you don’t apply or get in by the end, you can apply move onto the second year of a 2 year BSc and if you get a 2:1 you are guaranteed to be interviewed at the MMI.”

I am waiting for the admissions team to hopefully release some stats but I worry the practicality of actually being admitted to the MBChB is actually extremely low, and I want to try here maybe get some perspective.

thank you!

Have you asked them for the stats? I would just do A levels and then get access to many more unis. Cheaper as well.

So I asked, and they replied they don't have the stats. I think as the first CertHE course of theirs probably just started half a year/ one ago, I assume the people haven't completed it, or even if they did they haven't collected the stats for outcomes of their applications yet.

If this is also the case for for example, Aberdeen's CertHE, then there is no actual way of knowing for sure.

I do not live in the UK so I have no idea at all.. It would be very beneficial to me if someone can break down common speculations about for example, the general perception of a Private University degree in the UK.

I would do A levels as cheaper and more choice.
When unsure I go with what everyone else who succeeds will be doing so traditional uni and traditional route.
I would say its a gamble.

There arent many private unis in the UK especially compared to state ones. If given a choice it would always be a state one. Besides Buckingham, then I think places like BIMM (specialises in Music) and Uni of Law might count. Not particularly prestigious.

Ask @ecolier as he might be kind enough to suggest what he would do given the choice.

Do you think you cna get 70% and why have you decided not to do A levels?

Thank you very much for the responses even just the tiniest observations help me a lot! There also now comes a new weird problem which is that Buckingham Uni wants me to reply within 14 days after their offer letter. I do know they allow direct application but I applied through UCAS and I am only familiar with the UCAS system so I don’t quite understand if that is appropriate. I certainly want to follow UCAS process which is to wait until all my unis have given me either an offer or rejection. I have emailed to ask for a push-back, is this sort of rather forceful acceptance window common/ reasonable?




i think it will require work but should be okay as I am really determined and if failed they allow CertHE to do another extra year to turn it in a BSc. The thing I worry the most about Buckingham is that their CertHE to BSc to MbChb pathway sounds a bit too good to be true. And one or two users were discussing in some posts on this forum saying Buckingham University Degrees are not that well-regarded (in disciplinaries other than finance). Plus, the medical council have approved ~7 medical programmes in the past year, so even if in the past medical degrees may mean more or less identical in the past, the first batches of students graduating in a few years from the course may be testing the waters, I’ll take your word for it. Anyway this is only the pre-med course I am admitted into and that could be less transferrably recognised e,g. admittees of the Pre-med course if completed but not admitted in the MbChb programme may mean they basically wasted a year for nothing. Especially if it is costing this much money to study these days...

I actually am 27 and have done IB, then a bachelor 2:2 and a PhD. But most unis avoid taking in students with 2:2 so my choices are limited.



So I specifically worry more about the perhaps exaggerated success rate of pre-med to MbChb pathway than the actual Medicine degree. After all I am only offered the pre-med not the medicine. So I logically suspect that the middle stages of the CertHE -> BSc -> MbChb pathway may have some caveats... Isn’t it a bit too good to be true?

It looks very much like this course is heavily based on the Medipathways course that used to run in London (i.e. same modules etc). That course failed QAA and got some interesting reviews on student room.....and had slightly ridiculous success stats. Obviously it's had time to change but you never know...... https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/reports/medipathways-ltd-trading-as-medipathways-college-her-plus-15.pdf?sfvrsn=d2c4f481_4 https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2428919