Do you think medicine is basically dominated by middle class people?

And what is your proposed solution to this?

widening participation schemes extra tuition grammar school and more advice on the medical school admission process

I doubt if medicine is alone in this. Acting comes to mind, for example.

I'm not sure how a grammar school would help decrease the prevalence of the middle classes in medical school? After all children from professional families do go to them as opposed to just the poor. Indeed, hgh achieving schools tend to act like magnets to the well to do and will then displace poor people.

What do you mean by 'widen participation schemes' though? As in the things that give school kids a taste of the career to try and get them interested, or?

Either way, i dont see how any of this would significantly alter the percentages, not least because a fair reason children from middle class homes succeed is down to parents who are more involved with their children, push them to achieve and generally facilitate learning. Only so much of that can be replicated by ham fisted government policies.

Football is probably the most egalitarian sport in the world. You don't even need a proper ball most of the time.

Running.

Fair point. I do wonder if the overhead from a professional running track is more than fitting goal posts on a field though?

i didn’t grow up in the UK so forgive me if i’m asking some dumb questions. do medical schools determine applications based on what school the applicant went to? how much harder is it to get the required grades for medicine in a state run school?

it’s probable that medicine is dominated by middle class kids, but is it because the schools they went to benefit their application or give them added benefit to achieve the grades required over a state run school (again, didn’t grow up here so don’t know from experience)?

i grew up extremely working class; like in my neighbourhood growing up almost no one has a university degree - yet i know a number of kids who achieved straight As at your equivalent of A levels. the reason they don’t have a uni degree at all is largely in part it seemed like an unrealistic expectation of them and basically no one knew anyone else with a uni degree either. could be different here but i would assume there must be some similarities.

Has anyone here heard of a free scheme called zero Gravity? Basically if you go to a state school and have 7x 8/9s you can apply and get a medical student at your dream uni to give you one hours mentoring per week. Those on the scheme have been highly successful in securing interview invites at Oxford and Cambridge.

Also I am not happy about this state of affairs and so wrote my online tsr book Oxford demystified. Lots of other tsrians wrote their own chapter on how to get in. I wrote a chapter about my son’s journey to Oxford medicine. Despite never having even applied to Oxford, my chapter remains the most popular out of the entire book, and apparently I am often discussed in the Oxford medical offer holders group as that Oxford mum!

I got a pm last night from an Oxford student who said they were urged by their jcr to join zero Gravity.

Yes it may be unfair right now but there are some of us who are actively fighting for change.

TSR's answer to Rowling

PRSOM, @Napp. Coming from one of my all time TSR heroes, this is a true compliment.

I first posted in the early morning, and have not finished my rant, lol

For you and @KarlPilkington, these are the chapters about medicine for Oxford Demystified.

Here is my chapter, which inspired a lot of TSRians to apply (and get in for) Oxford medicine:

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6019726

Then there was a follow up chapter by my son:

https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6044384

Having been pm'd by so many students (90% of them Oxford prospective medics) and knowing it's results, I decided, as an experiment, to email the chapters to all the state secondary schools in my county. There are over 100 of them. So it is a tried and trusted resource. It was absolutely free of charge. It could have helped anyone aspiring to medical school (not just Oxford).

Guess what? I didn't even receive an acknowledgement from a single one of them, never mind any nice comments. Bet they never even clicked on the link.

Over at Zero Gravity, despite their own previous success rate, and glowing references from mentees I have spoken to, they have difficulties getting into the schools as well, despite all of them being DB checked, and despite articles of praise from the Times, the Guardian, Daily Mail, the Tab, the Cherwell the founder, Joe Seddon (an PPE graduate from Mansfield College, Oxford with a first) has also appeared on Calendar TV (Northern England) and even received an award from Boris Johnson, yet can they get into schools? Can they heck.

Looking at the chapter I wrote about medicine, there are lots of other hoops to jump through, over and above school work. How are these bright but disadvantaged people going to find out about them, if schools don't let Zero Gravity come along and tell them? Or if they don't have access to the information I tried to give them? What chance do they have?

There is, however, a glimmer of hope. Look at this, other great scheme. Target Oxbridge:

https://targetoxbridge.co.uk/

Founded by Oxford graduate, Naomi Kellman, it is for black prospective students only. It is run on pretty similar lines to Zero Gravity (except Zero Gravity is open to state school students of all backgrounds, and also for Russell Group unis as well). She was lucky (and/or talented) enough to catch the eye of Oxford and Cambridge universities and now her scheme is endorsed by both unis. This has given them publicity, and entree to schools who desperately need them. Despite the places available now being doubled to 360, 1,000 people apply every year and it is massively oversubscribed. Ms Kellman was asking a friend of mine what she could do to place those who were rejected, so I emailed Target Oxbridge. They told me they were already using Zero Gravity for their rejected candidates. As I said before, one of my Oxford Demystified chapter writers said his college JCR had recommended they volunteer to be mentors for Zero Gravity.

In order to help as many disadvantaged students as possible, Zero Gravity need a constant stream of mentors and mentees. Unfortunately they remain a secret thanks to a lack of publicity and cooperation. Ultimately, it is the students, deprived of such insider knowledge, who will lose out and be the type of people who, as Karl Pilkington says, do not get to go to medical school.

It would be my dream come true to get Louise Richardson (vice chancellor, and effective head of Oxford University) and Zero Gravity in the same room and watch them pitch their scheme to her. And for Ms Richardson (who says she wants a more diverse Oxford) to see the amazing possibilities, endorse Zero Gravity, and watch Cambridge and other Russell Group universities to follow. They need sponsorship, publicity, and most of all we need hope for those students who have none.

Awe thank you very much . Thats so cool that you wrote all of this and then send it around the schools though! It must have taken you ages?! But serious respect for that, thats such a nice thing to do!!))

And all for nothing, lol. All I can think of is, those poor students.