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Is it true that some medical schools have a bit of a preference for local students?

Heard this from a teacher today. She didn't state it as a fact, just a rumour she's heard in her years helping med applicants. Our schools is very close proximity to the local hospital and medical school (Sheffield) so it's possible there's some merit to it.

Is this a thing at all that you guys have heard of? I wasn't particularly planning on applying to my home city, but realistically I just want the best chances to get in somewhere.

Reply 1

Turning_A_Corner

Some medical schools run partnership schemes with local school, often those which are underperforming nationally. Newcastle and Manchester are examples of universities which run these sorts of schemes I believe but it’s not exactly that they have a preference, just that a certain number of places are sometimes reserved on these schemes and/or that the university may make contextual offers. People from these schools still have to meet the conditions of their offers, though. It’s not really a case of local student = more likely to get an offer as part of the general pool of applicants. If you don’t attend one of their partnership schools or meet the contextual conditions for an offer under one of these schemes, you’ll be treated the same as any other applicant, no matter if you’re local.
Anecdotally, it was rumoured at my school that if you applied to the local university you were likely to get a rejection just because of the school’s local reputation! Pure anecdote, though.
The one thing that may work in your favour though is if you’re a local student applying to your local university, you can probably give a very convincing answer at interview to “Why Sheffield/Keele/Leeds/Manchester/Newcastle?” etc! And, practically, it might be better for medical students to live at home to save money and some students have no choice in that regard.

Reply 2

GANFYD

Original post by themartinipolice

Some med schools give extra points in their shortlisting for local students - usually due to the area being under-represented in terms of students in HE/medicine, eg ARU give extra points for being local, Cardiff give extra consideration to Welsh applicants, Kings EMDP is for London applicants. This is on top of WP schemes that often favour local applicants, eg Exeter Scholars, Pathways to Birmingham, Doug Ellis Pathway at Aston, etc.
I am not aware that Sheffield has any particular scheme or allowance that favours local applicants, though they do do some stuff wiht local schools for WP