2014 Medicine Re-Applicants

Also as an experienced wannabe-medic, do you think the average UKCAT score is going to shoot up this year? I am seeing a lot more crazy ass 750+ scores this year than last?o.

And I thought no-one read it You fully made me lol though! Well done yourself Mrs A*A*A (i.e. you) and going to St Andrews in Sept - WOW! You must be thrilled - if you see any Prince William lookalikes with a bit more hair, please send them in my direction. Are you from Scotland, or did you just fancy applying to 2 scottish universities?

Did you work as a HCA in your gap year? (I think I remember you saying you did, but i'm so useless with remembering who did what on TSR)

Also as an experienced wannabe-medic, do you think the average UKCAT score is going to shoot up this year? I am seeing a lot more crazy ass 750+ scores this year than last?

Thank you!

Have you done the UKCAT? I haven't even started prep :\ lol going to start very soon


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Has anyone here got some experience of Nottingham University campus? I'm getting a lot of love-it-or-hate-it vibes...and having not been, I'm not sure which category I'd fall into.

When are you planning on taking it?

Not yet when are u doing it?

Hi, I also had manchester and leicester interviews and got rejected. I think they're difficult compared to maybe just a more normal style of interview ( i don't know much about st georges but they're MMI aswell?). Do you think you'll reapply to Leicester or Manch?

End of September would be best for me as I would have a month to prepare. And yourself?


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From Nottingham, campus is one of the best in the country. Don't see how anyone could not love it.

But it's another really popular university, bit ambigous on how they score applications apart from they use 49% Ukcat weighting.

I like reading blogs Call my nosey if you wish

& thank you - I'm rather excited! Although not as much as I thought I'd be.. more restless than excited now I suppose. All this waiting!
Nah, I'm from Cambridge. Just happened to fancy the look of St. A and Dundee Also liked Edinburgh, but I applied there last year and came nowhere near so decided not to risk it again.

I didn't work as an HCA in a hospital, but I did work as a care assistant in a nursing home for 6 or 7 months (before throwing in the towel to enjoy my summer with my friends / boyfriend). It was handy because, although I can drive, the local hospitals (Addenbrooke's, Papworth, Hinchingbrooke) are still a fair drive away whereas the care home was a 10 minute drive at the most. I could have walked, really, but I didn't fancy walking across a park at 6.30am in the middle of winter..
The experience was no doubt different to if I'd have had an HCA job in a hospital, but it was enjoyable in its own way and definitely added something to my application.

Not sure about the UKCAT, I'm afraid. The average does seem to rise every year, but TSR's will always be higher than the country-wide average due to the nature of the forum. There have also been changes to the UKCAT this year, and I'm not sure if that will have had an effect on the scores.
At the end of the day, though, unless you're applying to somewhere like Newcastle that employs a UKCAT cut-off, as long as you apply smart there's no reason a 'lower-than-TSR-average' UKCAT score would be a significant disadvantage.

You should do one yourself! I'd read it :P
Is there any truth in the age-old myth of scottish universities preferring scottish applicants? The numer of English offers is far outweighed by the number of scottish offers?

Currently working as a HCA myself, and don't really expect to be doing it past April so I can enjoy my summer too. Think I'll have to move to a closer hospital though! A scrub nurse once said to me that I shouldn't place too much emphasis on my time as a HCA in my medic application because it suggests that I want to be a nurse?

Ah OK, was just wondering - maybe it's just my mind selecting the biggest scores and focusing on them. I hope your right, but if I get what I got last year (627.5) I will certainly be disheartened. You really need to be getting 650+ to be safe applying to Manchester, Exeter/Plymouth, HYMS, Sheffield (who have upped their goddamn cut-off), Leeds, Southampton, SGUL etc?. T

The only places I can think of that would still be worth applying too if I got 627.5 again would be BSMS, Keele, Bristol and Liverpool?

Keep your eyes peeled around the start of Freshers, that's all I'll say
At Scottish universities, Scottish and RUK (rest of UK) applicants don't actually compete against each other, I assume due to differences in funding. So no preference is given to Scottish over English / NI / Welsh applicants, although they may have fewer spaces for RUK applicants than English unis have for home students.

Aye, don't blame you - is your commute still an hour and a half long? (Hope I haven't got the wrong blog there!) That's commitment!
Eh.. honestly, your job as an HCA will probably give a greater insight into the workings of a hospital / multi-disciplinary team / role of a doctor etc. than you'd get from your standard week of work experience, so write away! Obviously it depends on what you write, but I'd say HCA work is looked upon favourably. No real risk of looking like you want to go into nursing, unless you just write about your observations of nurses
Just the extended patient contact aspect of it is beneficial, IMO. As I said, I worked in a care home that was staffed purely with care assistants and nurses - not a doctor in sight, bar the occasional visiting GP. You learn loads just by interacting with patients.

Trust me, the UKCAT feels a lot easier the second time round. Although it's said to be an aptitude test, I went from 665 last year to 715 this year without much more practice - I was just used to the style of question. I honestly wouldn't think about it too much until after you've taken it - if you put yourself under pressure to get a high score, chances are you'll just get stressed out!

I look forward to it!

I really really liked the look of Dundee, but I don't think I've got much of a shot there because they apparently rank their applicants by level of qualification, so someone (not a lot unlike yourself ) with A*'s would easily surpass me. Never mind all the grad applicants and what have you...

Haha yes it is - actually near 2 hours. We shall see though - keep reading, i'll keep you updated! Did you get any other additional wexp aside working as a HCA? I had a few weeks worth of shadowing different doctors from different departments, helping in a school, vitalise and care home volunteering so I wasn't really planning on doing anything else. [Albeit, I haven't done any experience at a GP's as this is terribly hard to find for me...] I also hope working as a HCA and having the patient contact you mentioned will be beneficial at the interview stage - did this help you at all?

I already feel a bit more confident with UKCAT, and I will certainly take preparing for it a lot more seriously than I did last year - just hope I can slot the prep around work easily. What about all this SJT rubbish? What do you make of that? Some universities have already stated that they're not going to be using it at all...

You, Missy, damn well better be available come October when my UKCAT if my UKCAT comes crashing down...!

A wonderful medical school (almost accepted their offer over St Andrews') but perhaps a tad risky.

does BSMS require the BMAT for undergrad sstudy??

Dundee's a tricky one. They don't look at the PS before interview, so their pre-interview selection is done on 60% academics, 40% UKCAT, but after interview it's a clean slate and offers are made on interview score. A wonderful medical school (almost accepted their offer over St Andrews') but perhaps a tad risky.

Nope, no extra work experience whatsoever. This wasn't picked up on at all (although I mentioned work exp in my PS, it was actually from the summer of 2011 - but they never asked me so may have assumed it was recent) although when I did my work experience, I kept a word document so managed to refresh my memory on what I did
Definitely helped, yes. Both in terms of having experiences to talk about, also being more confident in the interview itself. Having a job that involved talking to people (people who perhaps weren't 'all there') for 8 hours a day infinitely increased my confidence in talking to new people, and I found interviews far less stressful the second time round.

The SJT was being tested when I took my UKCAT. I was told our scores wouldn't matter, so I just skipped through the entire section. Pretty much closed my eyes and chose answers at random..
Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I didn't take it seriously. Currently, the SJT also plays a large part in the FPAS, so it's not the last time you'll come across it. No idea on how to prepare for it, but I doubt it'll be used extensively considering it's in its first year.

Oh, I'll still be here! However, be positive - that won't happen, you'll smash it!

Whilst this doesn't apply to me, where can you apply if you resit your AS year with no extenuating circumstances? I ask, because many universities that would normally consider reapplicants consider them on the basis that they achieved XXX at A2 at first sitting, however because you resit your AS year you don't know that information?

Judging by a recent spreadsheet illustrating the UCAS tariff scores interviewed, a majority seem to be above the 420 point... It's not even clear how they score academics?

Oh good, all good things then. What period were you working from / until?

I certainly hope that the SJT score is real easy to score highly on, as I know me, and most other people did the same...

I hope so TBJ!!! Don't want all the fantastic medic-freshers forgetting about us measily applicants