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Is this enough for oxbridge medicine

I've read that on average people get 10 A* (9/8s) in their GCSEs, is 9 (9/8s) and 2 7s still reasonable?
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Hikari Kurasu
I've read that on average people get 10 A* (9/8s) in their GCSEs, is 9 (9/8s) and 2 still 7s reasonable?


The key word is "average" this implies their is a distribution of grades either side.

Oxbridge medicine is very competitive and their are several factors, but you can certainly role the dice with an application.
For Oxford, or Cambridge?

Oxford has ridiculous med GCSE requirements and you'd be disadvantaged by not having 100% 8/9 grades: https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/statistics If you can get a strong BMAT, it may just be borderline but personally would avoid, especially as it forces you into taking the Nov BMAT.

Cambridge has no set GCSE requirements and cares about having A*A*A+ in 3 sciences and your BMAT, so you would be fine so far but a lot depends on the next 2 years.
Original post by mnot
The key word is "average" this implies their is a distribution of grades either side.

Oxbridge medicine is very competitive and their are several factors, but you can certainly role the dice with an application.

This would be generally true but Oxford is pretty insane with their GCSEs for medicine. OP isn't going to be immediately rejected, but would need to do really exceptionally well on their entrance exam tbh and they wouldn't know that until after applying. Literally anything less than 8 A*s and 90%+ proportion of A*s doesn't cut it: https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/statistics
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by becausethenight
This would be generally true but Oxford is pretty insane with their GCSEs for medicine. OP isn't going to be immediately rejected, but would need to do really exceptionally well on their entrance exam tbh and they wouldn't know that until after applying. Literally anything less than 8 A*s and 90%+ proportion of A*s doesn't cut it: https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/statistics

Okay, thanks a lot... so I'm better off applying to Cambridge if I do well in the next two years?
Original post by becausethenight
This would be generally true but Oxford is pretty insane with their GCSEs for medicine. OP isn't going to be immediately rejected, but would need to do really exceptionally well on their entrance exam tbh and they wouldn't know that until after applying. Literally anything less than 8 A*s and 90%+ proportion of A*s doesn't cut it: https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/statistics

Yes. This is true, and medicine is certainly not my area of expertise. I did deliberately use the term role of the dice as I wanted it to be clear I thought it would still be very difficult to get in. But you are right, and nothing is better then looking at the stats.

TBH ive always thought with medical school given the graduate prospects are all the same it makes sense to target universities with the best admissions rates rather then apply for the most competitive of the most competitive.
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by mnot
Yes. This is true, and medicine is certainly not my area of expertise. I did deliberately use the term role of the dice as I wanted it to be clear I thought it would still be very difficult to get in. But you are right, and nothing is better then looking at the stats.

TBH ive always thought with medical school given the graduate prospects are all the same it makes sense to target universities with the best admissions rates rather then apply for the most competitive of the most competitive.

Sorry, I didn't mean to step on toes - it's my default response of "aaaa no this is not the same as other degrees" haha!
You are probably right for OP as their GCSEs look very borderline, just wanted to point out that the 10.2A* 'average' has a spread of like 8-11+ rather than 6-14+ or something.

And yep that's totally right really. The criteria can be so different - two people with exactly the same stats could get 4 offers and 4 rejections.

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