Medicine at Cambridge???

Hiya,
I wish to study medicine at cambridge (2018 entry), but i do believe my overall performance at AS is not as strong as i would like it to be. I have been thinking of not applying to uni this year (i am currently in Y12) and just taking a year out so that i can apply for uni with my A-level grades (which i definitely believe will be good).

So, in summary, i wish to take a gap year without applying for deferred entry.

Anyways, i've spoken to a teacher at my school and she has told me that Cambridge are not keen on students taking a gap year and this could affect my chances of getting in. Is this true?

Reply 1

JammieDodger27

It depends on what you did with the gap year. If you do nothing, you'll be rejected almost immediately despite your grades. If you spend it volunteering, it could help your application.

Reply 2

Questions4367

Original post by JammieDodger27

It depends on what you did with the gap year. If you do nothing, you'll be rejected almost immediately despite your grades. If you spend it volunteering, it could help your application.

So it doesn't necessarily matter if i decide to take a gap year?
Do some colleges frown upon it?
Do you think i should still try an apply to uni this year, even though i believe i have achieved AABC/ABBC (in order of maths, psychology, biology and chemistry) which is quite poor in my eyes
also bare in mind that i have only completed 1 weeks worth of work experience at a general surgery in admin, and i am going on holiday so i can't do anything over the summer

Thank you

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

You can always apply, then if unsuccessful take a gap year and apply again (you're normally advised to apply to a different college for reapplications).

To my knowledge, it depends on your predicted grades as well as your actual results; they will also take into account GCSE profile for medicine. Overall they are looking to invite to interview people who they believe will meet the minimum requirements of the course, and make offers based on those who will achieve or exceed these and who they feel will benefit from and do well on the course based on the interview. If they feel you won't meet the requirements, they may not invite you to interview (equally if they think you'll meet the requirements but based on your personal statement or other things won't excel in the course, they may also not interview you).

So it's possible if you apply this year you won't get an interview, or may get an interview but not an offer; equally you do get interviewed, they may feel based on the merit of your interview to make you an offer; they may set a higher than usual offer or require A*s in certain subjects because they want to see you reach for these targets. If not, you can just take a gap year and reapply, or if made an offer by another medical school, undertake your studies elsewhere.

If you do take a gap year, as noted, they very much frown upon those who spend the year sitting on a beach somewhere tropical. They also tend to less obviously lean away from "voluntourism" for a variety of reasons which aren't relevant to the discussion. Your best option would be to look for volunteering and work opportunities in your area, and make sure a significant chunk of that is relevant (i.e., patient/caring oriented, or perhaps community serving roles such as PCSO work or similar, ideally with some medically relevant experience). They prefer patient contact based work in a caring role, overall (as opposed to administrative work in a hospital or purely shadowing work).

The only harm in applying this year is the cost of the application; whether you feel that is worth it is up to you. The worst case scenario is that you take the gap year you were planning on anyway :smile:

Reply 4

Questions4367

I thank you very much for clarifying things for me :smile:

From my perspective, it seems as though you are a medical student/ professor at cambridge. Is this true?

Another question, what makes someone successful in the supervision-based interview? I believe, I am not great at thinking outside the box/ creative thinking or even applying my knowlege to complex situations. I am aware that the purpose of these interivews is to work through a difficult question that you are not expected to know the answer to. So, how does my performance in this affect my chances of obtaining an offer?

Reply 5

Doones

Original post by Questions4367

Gap year applicants are fairly common for Cambridge, and especially for Medicine.

If you meet, or ideally exceed, the typical requirements you can be competitive.

Also take a trip over to the Cambridge Admissions Tutor's thread here:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4778102

And there's lots of info about Medicine applications specifically here:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3257001 (closed but relevant thread)

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 6

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Questions4367

I thank you very much for clarifying things for me :smile:

From my perspective, it seems as though you are a medical student/ professor at Cambridge. Is this true?

Another question, what makes someone successful in the supervision-based interview? I believe, I am not great at thinking outside the box/ creative thinking or even applying my knowledge to complex situations. I am aware that the purpose of these interviews is to work through a difficult question that you are not expected to know the answer to. So, how does my performance in this affect my chances of obtaining an offer?

I'm not sure if this was directed at me, but in my case, I can assure you I have no current or former academic links to the University of Cambridge :tongue:

All of my knowledge is available freely on the world wide web! I just happen to have a lot of free time and a short attention span :biggrin:

Regarding the second point, the interview is considered heavily in making offers. Essentially, they are using it as a litmus test to see how you will perform in the Cambridge teaching environment; I will at this point stress that not doing well in this specific format does not impugn your abilities as a student nor on your potential to become a physician or surgeon.

They want to see how you apply your knowledge from A-level to an unfamiliar scenario (albeit that's relevant to your chosen course of study, namely medicine). They won't just throw you in at the deep end; they will ask you more straight forward things to begin with and develop from that into more complex and unfamiliar situations. You are also able to, and encouraged even, to ask questions if you are unsure of what is being asked or unfamiliar with a specific piece of terminology (although they generally try to keep to A-level syllabus terminology).

There are a number of resources available for this, perhaps most helpfully a video (or series of videos) the university filmed successful applicants who were then students at the university "re-acting" their interviews out. It gives an indication of both the format of the interview as well as examples of what may be asked. For example they had a medical student who was asked questions relating to DNA bases, triplet codes and proteins; this was gradually developed into unfamiliar and somewhat novel scenarios, as I recall about how many proteins there could possibly be versus how many there are, and why they were coded by 3 base sequences rather than 2.

However don't just try to memorise the response to this; if the interviewers feel you're giving "rehearsed" answers, and they will notice, they are like to just say "I can see you're quite familiar with this, let's move on to another question" and start elsewhere. They want to see how you think, using the knowledge you have to reason through unfamiliar problems specifically (so it's also important to explain your thought process as you answer). It's not necessarily thinking creatively/outside the box per se, more applying what you know to a situation which hasn't been rehearsed ad nauseam as with exam revision.

You can also find a lot of articles and interviews about the Oxbridge interview process generally, as well as about the winter and summer pools. Medicine applicants in particular seem to get fished out of the summer pool not uncommonly.

Reply 7

Ethics Maniac

Original post by Questions4367

Gap years won't advantage nor disadvantage your application. A few of Cambridge Director of Studies that I have spoken to and that do admission interviews in fact prefer interviewing gap year applicants since their thinking process are more 'mature'. There are also plenty of gap year medics in my year.