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Will any medical schools accept these grades?

I've had a look at a few universities (My favourite is Liverpool), and know that a few WILL accept my grades. But I am only up to three so far.

I'm redoing maths and double science GCSE's, and hoping to get the highest grades in double science, and a 'B' in Maths. I have two 'C's in English (one was a resit). I'm also starting an Access to HE in Medicine next year, once I've resat these GCSE's. I was predicted much higher grades in a few subjects, but due to my home life and/mental health issues, I did not do well in exams.

I do not have any other GCSE's. But will be doing some unpaid work in a local care home in the New Year, until I start my Access course in September next year.

My question is, does anyone know of Medicine courses in the UK that will accept these qualifications? (Provided I get distinction in all graded units, once I start my Access course? I do not mind doing a foundation year.

Reply 1

Hey there, thanks for posting a question in the Medicine forum. :biggrin:

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Reply 2

Original post by OsteoBlasting
I've had a look at a few universities (My favourite is Liverpool), and know that a few WILL accept my grades. But I am only up to three so far.
I'm redoing maths and double science GCSE's, and hoping to get the highest grades in double science, and a 'B' in Maths. I have two 'C's in English (one was a resit). I'm also starting an Access to HE in Medicine next year, once I've resat these GCSE's. I was predicted much higher grades in a few subjects, but due to my home life and/mental health issues, I did not do well in exams.
I do not have any other GCSE's. But will be doing some unpaid work in a local care home in the New Year, until I start my Access course in September next year.
My question is, does anyone know of Medicine courses in the UK that will accept these qualifications? (Provided I get distinction in all graded units, once I start my Access course? I do not mind doing a foundation year.


If anyone knows of any specific courses (foundation or otherwise), I would much appreciate an answer!

Reply 3

I know that Liverpool does a foundation course in Medicine where you'll need 5 A*s to C. The foundation year in Animal and Health Studies (I think!) Check them out.
Original post by OsteoBlasting
I've had a look at a few universities (My favourite is Liverpool), and know that a few WILL accept my grades. But I am only up to three so far.

I'm redoing maths and double science GCSE's, and hoping to get the highest grades in double science, and a 'B' in Maths. I have two 'C's in English (one was a resit). I'm also starting an Access to HE in Medicine next year, once I've resat these GCSE's. I was predicted much higher grades in a few subjects, but due to my home life and/mental health issues, I did not do well in exams.

I do not have any other GCSE's. But will be doing some unpaid work in a local care home in the New Year, until I start my Access course in September next year.

My question is, does anyone know of Medicine courses in the UK that will accept these qualifications? (Provided I get distinction in all graded units, once I start my Access course? I do not mind doing a foundation year.


Note that not all medical schools even score GCSEs (e.g. UCL and Imperial do not score GCSEs at all and just require minimum grades in English language and maths). I would only suggest you retake those you need to meet minimum GCSE requirements in English language/maths, and focus on medical schools that don't score GCSEs and/or only score based on UCAT (like Liverpool I believe - Newcastle also used to be in this category but for this year onwards they will score the most recently completed academic qualification which sounds to be GCSEs in your case so probably want to avoid them then).

You haven't mentioned A-levels but have mentioned the access course, so that's probably the primary qualification you are applying with. You will need to check the specific access course is accepted by the medical schools you plan to apply to - not all medical schools accept all access courses. Usually they will tell you if yours is accepted, I would recommend contacting medical schools now to ask if they will accept the course offered by the provider you are planning to do it at.

As above though, you should be targeting medical schools to apply to strategically based on your profile - in this case avoiding GCSE heavy medical schools and focusing on those with minimum requirements like UCL and Imperial.

Reply 5

Original post by artful_lounger
Note that not all medical schools even score GCSEs (e.g. UCL and Imperial do not score GCSEs at all and just require minimum grades in English language and maths). I would only suggest you retake those you need to meet minimum GCSE requirements in English language/maths, and focus on medical schools that don't score GCSEs and/or only score based on UCAT (like Liverpool I believe - Newcastle also used to be in this category but for this year onwards they will score the most recently completed academic qualification which sounds to be GCSEs in your case so probably want to avoid them then).
You haven't mentioned A-levels but have mentioned the access course, so that's probably the primary qualification you are applying with. You will need to check the specific access course is accepted by the medical schools you plan to apply to - not all medical schools accept all access courses. Usually they will tell you if yours is accepted, I would recommend contacting medical schools now to ask if they will accept the course offered by the provider you are planning to do it at.
As above though, you should be targeting medical schools to apply to strategically based on your profile - in this case avoiding GCSE heavy medical schools and focusing on those with minimum requirements like UCL and Imperial.


Thank you very much. I hadn't come across any universities not looking specifically at GCSE's. Liverpool is both my favourite university for teaching methods, and accepts my grades at time of completing all pre-uni courses. I've noticed the Access to HE that I'll be doing is QAA accredited. Which is what they look for in the course. So, the Access to HE isn't the problem. I'll look at more uni's. I was even thinking of doing ?"Indepedent study"? To do more GCSE's to bump up those grades. But I can't find much information online about it. Going down a study spiral on it now. As I saw someone online mention in passing that they do it, and it was cheapeer than an online or in person course. Thank you again. :smile:
Original post by OsteoBlasting
Thank you very much. I hadn't come across any universities not looking specifically at GCSE's. Liverpool is both my favourite university for teaching methods, and accepts my grades at time of completing all pre-uni courses. I've noticed the Access to HE that I'll be doing is QAA accredited. Which is what they look for in the course. So, the Access to HE isn't the problem. I'll look at more uni's. I was even thinking of doing ?"Indepedent study"? To do more GCSE's to bump up those grades. But I can't find much information online about it. Going down a study spiral on it now. As I saw someone online mention in passing that they do it, and it was cheapeer than an online or in person course. Thank you again. :smile:

No, medical schools don't just look for it to be accredited. They normally only accept specific access to medicine courses from specific providers and have a list of them. It's really important to verify this before you start so you don't do an access course that won't be accepted.

I dont think doing extra GCSEs now is worthwhile. Just target the medical schools thay don't score GCSEs. This is why it's very important to look at the shortlisting methodologies across all the different medical schools because they are all different.

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