What is the incentive to study medicine at Oxbride ?

lhh2003

I understand the teaching is exceptional there, but for medicine, a job is guaranteed , and the NHS salaries are standardised for junior doctors regardless of where their degree is from. So it’s not like it will help them earn more money.

So why are places at Oxbridge so competitive for medicine ? I could understand for courses like engineering and CS where competition is fierce for graduates and a degree from a prestigious uni will help secure a job after , but for medicine, what is the incentive ?

I mean for medical students, experience is vital. In London and Birmingham, there are huge hospitals that would be invaluable , compared to the much smaller ones in Oxford and Cambridge ?

Reply 1

emma5528

8

I think the level of academic teaching there is what appeals to most people. Oxbridge go into more depth than other medical schools which sets you up well for a career in research. It’s the perfect place to go for academic medicine. But like you said, it doesn’t necessarily make you a better NHS/ people-doctor.

Reply 2

yeetus9

4

I'm not exactly an Oxbridge expert but here are my ideas:
1) Even though a job is guaranteed after the course, some may want the prestige of having attended university there.
2) Offers traditional medicine course
3) The academic environment and the high level of teaching
4) Medicine in general is very competitive, so it only follows that it would be the same case at Oxbridge.

There are probably other more significant reasons as well.
I see what you're saying about experience in hospitals though

Reply 3

dsidi

12

it sets you up more to go into research, but if you want to work for the NHS/work in hospitals it doesn't give you a very big advantage. Of course also the prestige of having gone to Oxbridge as some of the other users rightly pointed out.

Reply 4

GANFYD

18

Original post by lhh2003

I understand the teaching is exceptional there, but for medicine, a job is guaranteed , and the NHS salaries are standardised for junior doctors regardless of where their degree is from. So it’s not like it will help them earn more money.

So why are places at Oxbridge so competitive for medicine ? I could understand for courses like engineering and CS where competition is fierce for graduates and a degree from a prestigious uni will help secure a job after , but for medicine, what is the incentive ?

I mean for medical students, experience is vital. In London and Birmingham, there are huge hospitals that would be invaluable , compared to the much smaller ones in Oxford and Cambridge ?

It is not particularly competitive.
Cambridge has around 6 applicants per place, Oxford 8.8. Compare this with UCLan at 32 and Edge Hill 16.8, KMMS at 15, ARU 12, Aston 10.6. They actually have fewer applicants competing for places than many other med schools (or most, in Cambridge's case)

Reply 5

nexttime

22

Original post by lhh2003

I understand the teaching is exceptional there, but for medicine, a job is guaranteed , and the NHS salaries are standardised for junior doctors regardless of where their degree is from. So it’s not like it will help them earn more money.

So why are places at Oxbridge so competitive for medicine ? I could understand for courses like engineering and CS where competition is fierce for graduates and a degree from a prestigious uni will help secure a job after , but for medicine, what is the incentive ?

I mean for medical students, experience is vital. In London and Birmingham, there are huge hospitals that would be invaluable , compared to the much smaller ones in Oxford and Cambridge ?

K quite a lot of different answers here. You seem very outcome focused but your outcome measures are very narrow, and its a 6 year degree you should think about how the uni itself is too. I'll number my responses:

The uni (copied old response):

- College system. Oxbridge is divided into 35ish individual colleges which provides a totally unique social, physical and academic environment. You live in a community of 200-500 students with dedicated college staff etc. Its a way more personal environment than a university of 10,000, and as a result you get:
- Substantially better access to extracurriculars like sports teams. Show me another university that has more than 100 competitive football teams, for instance. And that's not even the sport with the highest participation.
- University societies are also far more broad and active. You get loads of very interesting speaker events, I'd wager significantly more than at other unis.
- Every college has a bar so... access to 30+ subsidised bars.
- Short terms. A disadvantage in some ways but it also means long holidays. Holidays in which you can travel, spend time at home, work a temp job/internship for experience... whatever you want.
- The above also makes it cheap, as you only pay for 26ish weeks accommodation per year.
- Excellent financial support for those that need it.
- Tutorial system. It gives you access to world-leading academics in groups of 4, 2, even 1. That's really not something that exists elsewhere.
- Living and studying in 750+ year old colleges that conference guests pay £200+ per night to stay in.
- A very nice city, imo.
- Probably the best thing: the people you meet. I'm not going to pretend that that's exclusive to Oxford, but generally speaking Oxford attracts some amazing multi-talented people from loads of backgrounds, unified by being way more interested in academia than the people not at Oxford. You typically have friends from lots of different subjects, which contrasts with say London where medics are so segregated they actually have their own sports teams.

The course:
- Very academic course focusing on grounding in basic science before applying it to clinical, more than any other uni.
- Clear preclinical clinical divide
- Small cohort (for Oxford, middling for Cambridge)
- Relatively small 'catchment' area in terms of where your placements are
- Oxford had the highest student satisfaction of any course for 9 years in a row, and remains very high since. Cambridge was middling.

The Outcomes
- Highest average points for doctor's first job applications (including highest SJT results, though UCL sometimes catches up).
- Highest results in doctors exams by a long margin - this saves a lot of stress, money and may speed up career progression (though its unlikely to land you a job you couldn't otherwise have landed if you're patient enough)
- Might provide some advantage if thinking of an academic career
- Might provide some advantage for job applications if applying abroad. For example Singapore only even recognises about half of UK med schools as valid.
- It tends to send graduates to certain specialities - debatable if this is a good thing!

And a final note: sometimes you get people saying 'oh why would you go to Oxbridge its just more work but you aren't any better prepared there's no point'. I think that's a complete contradiction - either it is more work, or the outcomes are the same - not both.

Original post by GANFYD

It is not particularly competitive.
Cambridge has around 6 applicants per place, Oxford 8.8. Compare this with UCLan at 32 and Edge Hill 16.8, KMMS at 15, ARU 12, Aston 10.6. They actually have fewer applicants competing for places than many other med schools (or most, in Cambridge's case)

Though when you have access to applicant to offer ratios, applicant to place becomes completely redundant. I really don't understand why certain users keep using it.

And Oxford is by probably the highest competition there, excepting UCLan. Cambridge is middling.

Reply 6

Oxford Mum

21

Original post by lhh2003

I understand the teaching is exceptional there, but for medicine, a job is guaranteed , and the NHS salaries are standardised for junior doctors regardless of where their degree is from. So it’s not like it will help them earn more money.

So why are places at Oxbridge so competitive for medicine ? I could understand for courses like engineering and CS where competition is fierce for graduates and a degree from a prestigious uni will help secure a job after , but for medicine, what is the incentive ?

I mean for medical students, experience is vital. In London and Birmingham, there are huge hospitals that would be invaluable , compared to the much smaller ones in Oxford and Cambridge ?

For my son (Oxford) it was definitely the research side. Even before he joined the course, he spent ages on his EPQ. Instead of writing the regulation 5,000 words, he wrote 44,000.

25% of the Oxford degree is a research project. A lot of the students thought it was a bit meh, but for my son it was the best part of the degree.

Any day now he is submitting his project to a journal for publication. If it turns out well, he may even leave his clinical studies for a while, and focus on doing a PhD in this research, then going back to the wards later. He told me he may never work in hospitals but just go into research instead.

We were saying that all this would have never happened if he had gone to any other medical school in the UK.

Reply 7

GANFYD

18

Original post by nexttime

Though when you have access to applicant to offer ratios, applicant to place becomes completely redundant. I really don't understand why certain users keep using it.

And Oxford is by probably the highest competition there, excepting UCLan. Cambridge is middling.

I am not sure of the provenance and accuracy of what is posted in the link you have used previously. Any ideas?
Of the med schools that publish data, none of it corresponds with what they publish. Unless I am reading it wrong?
eg on the link
Aberdeen Applicants/Interviews/Offers are 5174 / 2348 / 1357
On their website 1607 / 778 / 486

Birmingham on the link 6071 / 3303 / 2564
On their website 2827 / 1248 / 923

Edinburgh on the link 6363 applicants, 1336 offers
On their website 2132, 412

Manchester on the link 6243 / 1544 / 2547
On their website 2503 / 1544 / 993

Oxford on the link 3841 / 1189 / 482
On their website 1766 / 425 / 170 (internationals not split out of this)

There does not even seem to be a common multiplier between the different stats for a given med school

The applicant to place data is from the MSC website, which I see as a reliable and reputable source, so that is what I tend to quote. Or data or FOIs from the med school's themselves, where available, as above.

Neither the applicant to offer, nor the applicant to place ratios are particularly helpful anyway, as it is farily easy to quantify an applicant's chance of an interview from likely to unlikely via fairly likely and possible, given their stats. So the interview to offer ratio is probably the most use.
We can advise where to apply to stand a good chance of an interview, but the difference between an interview to offer ratio of about 37% at Exeter and >80% at St Andrews (based on FOIs from the uni) can really mean the difference between an offer or not.

Reply 8

nexttime

22

Original post by GANFYD

I am not sure of the provenance and accuracy of what is posted in the link you have used previously. Any ideas?
Of the med schools that publish data, none of it corresponds with what they publish. Unless I am reading it wrong?
eg on the link
Aberdeen Applicants/Interviews/Offers are 5174 / 2348 / 1357
On their website 1607 / 778 / 486

Birmingham on the link 6071 / 3303 / 2564
On their website 2827 / 1248 / 923

Edinburgh on the link 6363 applicants, 1336 offers
On their website 2132, 412

Manchester on the link 6243 / 1544 / 2547
On their website 2503 / 1544 / 993

Oxford on the link 3841 / 1189 / 482
On their website 1766 / 425 / 170 (internationals not split out of this)

There does not even seem to be a common multiplier between the different stats for a given med school

The applicant to place data is from the MSC website, which I see as a reliable and reputable source, so that is what I tend to quote. Or data or FOIs from the med school's themselves, where available, as above.

Neither the applicant to offer, nor the applicant to place ratios are particularly helpful anyway, as it is farily easy to quantify an applicant's chance of an interview from likely to unlikely via fairly likely and possible, given their stats. So the interview to offer ratio is probably the most use.
We can advise where to apply to stand a good chance of an interview, but the difference between an interview to offer ratio of about 37% at Exeter and >80% at St Andrews (based on FOIs from the uni) can really mean the difference between an offer or not.

I assume you mean this source https://public.tableau.com/profile/alec6322#!/vizhome/UKmedicalschoolapplicationratios2017-19/DomesticApplicanttoOfferRatio

It includes links to all of its FOIs. The numbers all seem to add up to me - you've just picked individual years rather than 2017-19 cumulative (and Oxford includes internationals as you point out) plus made a couple mistakes in what you typed out :wink:

I don't necessarily disagree with the use of interview to offer approach - you're the one who used applicant to place! Just saying that that is objectively, completely superseded (also when I was saying certain users I didn't actually mean you, I realise was not clear in hindsight. Maybe you do I dunno but not noticed).

Reply 9

GANFYD

18

Original post by nexttime

I assume you mean this source https://public.tableau.com/profile/alec6322#!/vizhome/UKmedicalschoolapplicationratios2017-19/DomesticApplicanttoOfferRatio

It includes links to all of its FOIs. The numbers all seem to add up to me - you've just picked individual years rather than 2017-19 cumulative (and Oxford includes internationals as you point out) plus made a couple mistakes in what you typed out :wink:

I don't necessarily disagree with the use of interview to offer approach - you're the one who used applicant to place! Just saying that that is objectively, completely superseded (also when I was saying certain users I didn't actually mean you, I realise was not clear in hindsight. Maybe you do I dunno but not noticed).

This was the one you had previously posted.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/jessica.maynard#!/vizhome/Medicineapplicantstatsdemo/Domesticdata

Now that one is MUCH better :smile:

EDIT: Can you separate that out into years at all, as a trend is often more useful?

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 10

nexttime

22

Original post by GANFYD

This was the one you had previously posted.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/jessica.maynard#!/vizhome/Medicineapplicantstatsdemo/Domesticdata

Now that one is MUCH better :smile:

EDIT: Can you separate that out into years at all, as a trend is often more useful?

I have the data by year yes. To do every ratio for every year would make for a huge wall of numbers though!

Here is the spreadsheet if you want it. It has a couple gaps that I haven't back-corrected I think

Medicine applicant stats.xlsx48.3KB

Reply 11

Oxford Mum

21

Original post by nexttime

I have the data by year yes. To do every ratio for every year would make for a huge wall of numbers though!

Here is the spreadsheet if you want it. It has a couple gaps that I haven't back-corrected I think

The level of detail here is great. Bet OP didn't expect this much help.

Reply 12

GANFYD

18

Original post by nexttime

I have the data by year yes. To do every ratio for every year would make for a huge wall of numbers though!

Here is the spreadsheet if you want it. It has a couple gaps that I haven't back-corrected I think