Can any Oxford medical students tell me what it's like to study there?

I have an offer to study medicine at Oxford (grades providing) this year, however I also have a few offers from other places. I'd like to go to Oxford because obvs, it's Oxford, and I feel very lucky to have an offer. But I don't want to go if I'm really not going to enjoy it....

Can any past or current Oxford med students tell me a bit about the workload (how many essays/assignments do you get per week, how long do they take), the exams (are they harder to pass at Oxford than other med schools) and their free time (are there lots of clubs/bars/activities and how often do you go out)??

Thank you!

I was a fresher in 2008. I will talk about pre-clinical as you have the option to change universities for your clinical.

Workload:

Overall the workload really depends on your learning style and what grade you are aiming for! If you had to work really hard for A-levels and now want to get a 1st/distinction, yeah you're gonna work crazy hard. If you breezed A-levels and don't mind scraping a 2.i it will be a lot easier!

You'll have about 20-25 hours of lectures/practicals/dissection room per week. In addition you will have tutorials - it depends on college but generally 2-3 tutorials per week of which perhaps 2 will require an essay. These are short scientific essays though not like those the humanities students write. I'd estimate preparation for a tutorial to take 6 hours?

There's a student survey buried in this document which suggests the average working week is 42 hours. So less than people who work at Tesco.

Exams

Oxford has higher pass rates than other schools on the whole. They might be slightly harder, its hard to tell, but the pass rate is very high

People who graduate from Oxford go on to do substantially better in postgraduate exams. There is going to be a national finals exam in the future which all med students across the country will take. I'm willing to bet that it will be no different, and that Oxford students will have a much higher pass rate there too.

Free time

For me, probably the biggest plus side about Oxford. The college system makes it really easy to make friends (and they won't all be medics like you get at most other med schools!), and the fact that Oxford is absolutely loaded means that you get the opportunity to try things you never could elsewhere. Even things like having an intimate college bar only 300 or so people are even allowed into... or the JCR representing those 300 who had a budget of £20,000 to spend how they liked. I'd take that over a hulking student union any day. There's also the speakers Oxford attracts and the very active political and social societies.

Clubbing... active. small venues, kind of sweaty in most of them! I actually really liked Oxford clubbing though and much preferred it to where I was from (London). In London you'd spend a bomb to get in to share a club with loads of age 30+ townies many of whom thought they were gangsters. The metal detectors you went though on the way in felt reassuring rather than annoying. Compare that to Oxford, where you get free entry on a whim, cheap drinks, and everyone there is a 18-22 year old Oxford student... plus the fact that you can walk home in 10 minutes any time you like instead of having to get a taxi .. clubbing in Oxford was so much more fun. I did eventually grow out of it but there were plenty of people who would go once or twice per week for their whole degree.

Overall the best thing for me was the atmosphere and the people I got to meet. This may be just me, but I loved being around people who were really nerdy and into their subjects, and the bar conversation was politics and philosophy rather than football yet again. Far from unique to Oxford of course but I feel that my experience would not have been the same had I gone to my insurance.

I'll leave now before my glasses get too rosy. But yeah I had a good time and would recommend it. Ask questions if you wish.