Not achieving recommended grades

What happens if you are applying for veterinary medicine and you dont get the advanced highers you need, are you still able to find a route to do vet med in the future?

Reply 1

totallyfine

I think one route is the graduate entry route, where a candidate has a degree in a related subject. There are some shown here (but not many left on the list at this time of year) to show you what I mean:

https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/search/course?utf8=%E2%9C%93&c%5Bq%5D=vetinary+graduate&c%5Bacademic_years%5D=2023

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

Nessie162

Just graduate entry I'm afraid. Very expensive, SAAS won't fund it.

Reply 3

RambleAmple

As above, there isn’t a way into becoming a vet except having a vet degree. But the graduate entry I’ll warn about as an option because it is even more competitive to get in, obviously longer and much more expensive - I’m not as clued up on the Scottish student finance but I think (correct me if wrong someone) that you don’t get tuition fee funding for a second degree. Now I don’t know how that works if you went to a Scottish uni but I think if you went to an English one (as it is very competitive so I wouldn’t place bets on getting into a Scottish one 100%) that means you’d have to pay it yourself, and paying 9.25k a year is quite a lot, particularly as it can be difficult to work properly throughout the degree as it is busy - not impossible, many people do it, but it is part time and/or through holidays between placements so it is limited what you can earn too. But obviously it is an option many people do every year, so not discouraging but something to bear in mind.

Personally the better option would be to just resit them. If you applied in a cycle and got offers you didn’t meet, I’d be calling them up and seeing what options are possible - e.g. in very rare cases possibly a not oversubscribed course would accept maybe a grade below, particularly Nottingham April cohort which has in previous years gone into clearing. To follow from that I’d also make sure to be on top of checking clearing on results day, it is rare that there are spots and they get taken up very quickly, but you don’t know if you don’t try. But the unis may also carry over the offer as a deferred one if you wanted to resit - now this is also very rare and I’ve only heard of this happening during covid with CAG mess etc, but again, don’t know if you don’t try. But even if the calling up fails, I’d recommend resitting. It is just one year, I’d say maybe half of all my year group doesn’t come from the traditional school straight into uni route. You avoid all the expense, it’s shorter, you may be able to work through while you resit and earn savings, or do some other things, gap years are amazing even if you didn’t plan on it and seem daunting initially. While you resit you can reapply with prospective grades. Only thing to watch out for is some unis may have a “minimum” for your first attempt or they may stipulate higher requirements for resitting by a grade or two but that’s a uni by uni thing.

Reply 4

Nessie162

Original post by RambleAmple

Now I don’t know how that works if you went to a Scottish uni but I think if you went to an English one (as it is very competitive so I wouldn’t place bets on getting into a Scottish one 100%) that means you’d have to pay it yourself, and paying 9.25k a year is quite a lot.

Grad entry is £35k a year at Glasgow and Edin for all students including Scottish students. Still can't wrap my head around it to this day.

Reply 5

RambleAmple

Original post by Nessie162

Grad entry is £35k a year at Glasgow and Edin for all students including Scottish students. Still can't wrap my head around it to this day.

That's awful, literally could have paid for a house by the time you'd have finished a degree. 9.25k is difficult but I guess do-able with working holidays and part-time, maintenance loan and hopefully some external support, but 35k is literally above what most people working full-time earn per year...

Reply 6

Nessie162

Original post by RambleAmple

It's the only degree in Scotland that charges this much too. One exception being graduate Law at 9.25k... But all the other degrees are capped at £1,820 for Scottish grad students.
I tried to find out why, no one seemed to know anything except "the government doesn't want to fund it".
Don't think they have any motivation to change it anytime soon either as Edinburgh is a popular destination for American students and 35k is still cheaper than the US fees.

It's quite disheartening though, especially since the maintenance loan in Scotland is lower than in the rest of the UK - 7k is the maximum (with +2k bursary if you qualify). No London component either. So for a lot of students Glasgow and Edinburgh are the only financially feasible options. Sure you can reapply if you don't get in, but if you don't get the grades that's pretty much it. There's no option to resit Advanced Highers as no place offers it, and grad entry is out of reach for most.

Surely if the Scottish government can afford to let all Scottish students study their first degree for free, they can afford to partially fund grad entry for ~200 or so students.