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imperial medicine

hey!

I'm joud and I'm currently in year 12.. not to sound like the "will I get in" person but I've been SO SCARED over this for months and months now and I just wanna see if its worth actually applying or if I'm just gonna get rejected
so, my absolute dream is to study medicine at imperial, then go on to become a psychiatrist! but I'm worried I won't get it because of my GCSES
my year 12 mocks went well, I got A*AA. for predicted grades they told us we would be predicted a grade higher so my predicted would be A*A*A*.
my GCSES were bad tho bc of young caring responsibilities, I got 8776666665.

help!! do I have a chance of medicine at imperial? what if I SMASH the UCAT and personal statement! let me know!!

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Reply 1

Original post by joudie
hey!
I'm joud and I'm currently in year 12.. not to sound like the "will I get in" person but I've been SO SCARED over this for months and months now and I just wanna see if its worth actually applying or if I'm just gonna get rejected
so, my absolute dream is to study medicine at imperial, then go on to become a psychiatrist! but I'm worried I won't get it because of my GCSES
my year 12 mocks went well, I got A*AA. for predicted grades they told us we would be predicted a grade higher so my predicted would be A*A*A*.
my GCSES were bad tho bc of young caring responsibilities, I got 8776666665.
help!! do I have a chance of medicine at imperial? what if I SMASH the UCAT and personal statement! let me know!!

Although you may fall short of Imperial's requirement for GCSE

"GCSEs: Results must be majority 9-7 grades (A*-A) including a minimum of grade B in English Language (or equivalent) and grade 7 (A) in maths and science subjects."

Your young carer responsibilities should be seen by them as a consideration.

Even if Imperial says no to you, there are many other medical schools that are likely to say yes. All the best!

I am taking my UCAT in summer too!

Reply 2

Original post by Jonjon7
Although you may fall short of Imperial's requirement for GCSE
"GCSEs: Results must be majority 9-7 grades (A*-A) including a minimum of grade B in English Language (or equivalent) and grade 7 (A) in maths and science subjects."
Your young carer responsibilities should be seen by them as a consideration.
Even if Imperial says no to you, there are many other medical schools that are likely to say yes. All the best!
I am taking my UCAT in summer too!


hi! thanks for answering
I'm a little confused though.. I can't find anything for 2025 entry about GCSES except a 6 in English language.. where did you get that info? stressful!
good luck for ur ucat too!
Original post by joudie
hey!

I'm joud and I'm currently in year 12.. not to sound like the "will I get in" person but I've been SO SCARED over this for months and months now and I just wanna see if its worth actually applying or if I'm just gonna get rejected
so, my absolute dream is to study medicine at imperial, then go on to become a psychiatrist! but I'm worried I won't get it because of my GCSES
my year 12 mocks went well, I got A*AA. for predicted grades they told us we would be predicted a grade higher so my predicted would be A*A*A*.
my GCSES were bad tho bc of young caring responsibilities, I got 8776666665.

help!! do I have a chance of medicine at imperial? what if I SMASH the UCAT and personal statement! let me know!!


Imperial don't score GCSEs for medicine, they just have minimum requirements in English language (I think they used to also have a GCSE Maths requirement but believe this hasn't been the case for a few years now).
Original post by Jonjon7
Although you may fall short of Imperial's requirement for GCSE

"GCSEs: Results must be majority 9-7 grades (A*-A) including a minimum of grade B in English Language (or equivalent) and grade 7 (A) in maths and science subjects."

Your young carer responsibilities should be seen by them as a consideration.

Even if Imperial says no to you, there are many other medical schools that are likely to say yes. All the best!

I am taking my UCAT in summer too!

That's for the Imperial summer school, not for the degrees.

Reply 5

Original post by artful_lounger
Imperial don't score GCSEs for medicine, they just have minimum requirements in English language (I think they used to also have a GCSE Maths requirement but believe this hasn't been the case for a few years now).


OH right! that's what I was thinking to be honest but I just wanted to make sure, they don't use GCSES as a scoring tool at all right? Just as a minimum
thanks for replying !

Reply 6

Original post by joudie
hi! thanks for answering
I'm a little confused though.. I can't find anything for 2025 entry about GCSES except a 6 in English language.. where did you get that info? stressful!
good luck for ur ucat too!

Although that data is from medicportal (not summer school), which I have no affiliation with, the previous Imperial candidates from my sixth form with offers from Imperial were striaght 8/9 to straight 9's on average - so I am basing on my tunneled-vision of limited data. I need to stress what I see may not be a replica across the whole country.

Certainly no need to be stressful about - Imperial is your dream goal but put yourself in others perspective, those who have not got A*A*A* prediction like you but wishes to go med school.

You are already in a strong position so certainly no need to stress about it.

Reply 7

Original post by artful_lounger
That's for the Imperial summer school, not for the degrees.

Please see my reply to OP. Thanks
Original post by Jonjon7
Although that data is from medicportal (not summer school), which I have no affiliation with, the previous Imperial candidates from my sixth form with offers from Imperial were striaght 8/9 to straight 9's on average - so I am basing on my tunneled-vision of limited data. I need to stress what I see may not be a replica across the whole country.

Certainly no need to be stressful about - Imperial is your dream goal but put yourself in others perspective, those who have not got A*A*A* prediction like you but wishes to go med school.

You are already in a strong position so certainly no need to stress about it.

If you search for the exact phrasing that you provided, the only source on the Imperial site that has that content is for the summer school.

Medical schools in the UK are extremely transparent about their admissions processes and shortlisting methodologies for the most part and I would not expect such a significant factor would not be clearly stated on the actual institution's webpages.

I suspect they scraped the Imperial website with AI to generate that rather than had anyone actually read published information on the medical school admissions page. Imperial literally state they don't consider GCSEs in their own FOIA documents: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/study/undergraduate/A100-FOI-FAQs-10.2022.pdf also linked from https://www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/study/undergraduate/medicine-mbbs-programmes/schoolinfo/

I would strongly suggest in future you not rely on third party information aggregate websites and only go to the source material i.e. the course provider, and if you do use the former to always verify against the latter. Especially if asserting something for someone else's information, and particularly when you have had someone challenge that assertion.

As these third party websites have copy frequently written by those with little information, and are also often not validated and inconsistently updated, so and end up a hodgepodge of incorrect and out of date information very quickly.
(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 9

Hi Joud!

I applied for Imperial and have it as my firm choice currently, this means I will be going there to study medicine if I get A*AA 🤞I received 4 interview invites and 4 medicine offers and I'm happy to help you out where I can through your application process if you need, just drop me a DM :smile:

Reply 10

Original post by m0net13
Hi Joud!
I applied for Imperial and have it as my firm choice currently, this means I will be going there to study medicine if I get A*AA 🤞I received 4 interview invites and 4 medicine offers and I'm happy to help you out where I can through your application process if you need, just drop me a DM :smile:


heyyy

idk why but it won't let me follow/pm you on mobile :c how did you revise for your ucat? I currently use medify and I'm averaging like 2500 and my exams in 18 days.. really need to bump it up to minimum 2700! tips?

Reply 11

Original post by joudie
heyyy
idk why but it won't let me follow/pm you on mobile :c how did you revise for your ucat? I currently use medify and I'm averaging like 2500 and my exams in 18 days.. really need to bump it up to minimum 2700! tips?
ok so I'll share some things which helped me with UCAT prep: the UCAT is very much a sprint rather than a marathon in my opinion so it’s totally normal to feel stressed out! I would say first of all, last year there were so many whatsapp group chats full of other applicants doing the UCAT the same time as me. I found them really helpful to get access to loads of resources and tips as well as providing a sense of camaraderie and support through the process. So definitely check those out, I found links to them through tiktok and then through further links through the whatsapp groups themselvesRegarding resources, I used a few free UCAT ebooks I found online as well as the Master the UCAT book you can get on amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-UCAT-University-Clinical-Aptitude-ebook/dp/B0BK4XZPZ2. These were helpful for getting myself familiar with the exam and what sort of techniques I would need to be practicing and using. I also used Medify for two months and Medentry as well for the last month and so would SO recommend using both resources because I felt together they gave a good representation of the exam overall and good preparation for whatever would be thrown at me. Some tiktokers post discount codes for medentry so watch out for them. I also went on tiktok frequently throughout. My fyp was FULL of ucat tips from med students and other applicants which i found pretty useful so I would defo recommend to stay on tiktok throughout the process. I also watched a lot of youtube videos eg emileddy, kharma medic going through strategies for the sections and walkthroughs to see how high scorers actually did UCAT mocks.For the different sections, I would try out the techniques I’d learnt from the resources above and whistle down which techniques worked best for me and yielded the greatest scores. My hugest tip would be to GRIND questions to really make those techniques, keyboard shortcuts, ability to spot patterns etc habits as this will really help with time management and increasing your scores.For QR which I especially struggled with, I found this technique helped improve my score: first of all doing questions untimed aiming to get over 80% accuracy most of the time to really practice doing the math quickly and using calculator as minimally as possible; then moving on to banging out loads of mini mocks and timed questions to work on building up accuracy in tight timing. Then keep practising the qs that take up most time, practicing techniques to make you get to the correct answer quicker eg estimation and GRINDING mini mocks. Estimating to eliminate answers and making educated guesses will be your best friend in QR, also guessing, skipping and flagging qs which seem to take long to secure all the quicker qs first. Sometimes you have to skip qs you know you could do if you had time because in the UCAT you don’t have that time and doing 5 quicker easier qs yields better scores than doing the 1. I liked to keep a mindset of I’m only going to spend time on a question if i’m pretty certain I can get it correct, this helped me stop wasting time of questions just to get them wrong.Regarding all of the sections, I kept a huge document with reflections on how I felt the sections went including all the mistakes I made and why I made them to help guide my preparation to target what I’m weaker at. This helped me to organise my prep so everyday was contributing to helping improve my score and can help you to feel less stressed. Reading back on your previous reflections and scores as you get deeper into prep is also really motivating because you can see how far you've come which I found was a massive confidence boostEveryday I would try to do at least 100 questions but ideally the more timed qs, you do the better as you need to get as much practice as you can doing timed qs and developing the techniques as habits.Don't neglect SJT because 3000 b4 is way worse than 2500 b1 as ideally you want band 1 or band 2. Medify were pretty good for learning what you need to know for SJT. I also made a log of the answers for SJT scenarios I got wrong on a document which I read through about 3 times to familiarise myself with what the correct responses are. I made a log of all the AR patterns I missed as well and read over those because after you do a LOAD of AR questions, you start to notice triggers for potential patterns pretty quick eg if there are letters in the boxes, the pattern is usually to do with things like Number of enclosed areas, Number of letters, Curved / straight letters, Position of letters, Intersections between letters. You become quicker at spotting the patterns because you have a better idea of where to start and AR often becomes people's best section.Finally, my biggest tip overall for all the sections would be make sure you are keeping track of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING: the mocks you do and scores, all the qs you get wrong and why you got them wrong so you can watch out for them next time and learn from your mistakes, strategies that you've tried and work for you. This is so you have clear direction and know exactly what your weaker areas are to make sure everyday of UCAT prep is boosting your score and not just going over the sections you are already good at.

And finally most importantly, celebrate whatever score you get because you worked pretty damn hard in your summer holiday and that deserves a reward

hope this helps!!

Reply 12

Original post by m0net13
ok so I'll share some things which helped me with UCAT prep: the UCAT is very much a sprint rather than a marathon in my opinion so it’s totally normal to feel stressed out! I would say first of all, last year there were so many whatsapp group chats full of other applicants doing the UCAT the same time as me. I found them really helpful to get access to loads of resources and tips as well as providing a sense of camaraderie and support through the process. So definitely check those out, I found links to them through tiktok and then through further links through the whatsapp groups themselvesRegarding resources, I used a few free UCAT ebooks I found online as well as the Master the UCAT book you can get on amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Master-UCAT-University-Clinical-Aptitude-ebook/dp/B0BK4XZPZ2. These were helpful for getting myself familiar with the exam and what sort of techniques I would need to be practicing and using. I also used Medify for two months and Medentry as well for the last month and so would SO recommend using both resources because I felt together they gave a good representation of the exam overall and good preparation for whatever would be thrown at me. Some tiktokers post discount codes for medentry so watch out for them. I also went on tiktok frequently throughout. My fyp was FULL of ucat tips from med students and other applicants which i found pretty useful so I would defo recommend to stay on tiktok throughout the process. I also watched a lot of youtube videos eg emileddy, kharma medic going through strategies for the sections and walkthroughs to see how high scorers actually did UCAT mocks.For the different sections, I would try out the techniques I’d learnt from the resources above and whistle down which techniques worked best for me and yielded the greatest scores. My hugest tip would be to GRIND questions to really make those techniques, keyboard shortcuts, ability to spot patterns etc habits as this will really help with time management and increasing your scores.For QR which I especially struggled with, I found this technique helped improve my score: first of all doing questions untimed aiming to get over 80% accuracy most of the time to really practice doing the math quickly and using calculator as minimally as possible; then moving on to banging out loads of mini mocks and timed questions to work on building up accuracy in tight timing. Then keep practising the qs that take up most time, practicing techniques to make you get to the correct answer quicker eg estimation and GRINDING mini mocks. Estimating to eliminate answers and making educated guesses will be your best friend in QR, also guessing, skipping and flagging qs which seem to take long to secure all the quicker qs first. Sometimes you have to skip qs you know you could do if you had time because in the UCAT you don’t have that time and doing 5 quicker easier qs yields better scores than doing the 1. I liked to keep a mindset of I’m only going to spend time on a question if i’m pretty certain I can get it correct, this helped me stop wasting time of questions just to get them wrong.Regarding all of the sections, I kept a huge document with reflections on how I felt the sections went including all the mistakes I made and why I made them to help guide my preparation to target what I’m weaker at. This helped me to organise my prep so everyday was contributing to helping improve my score and can help you to feel less stressed. Reading back on your previous reflections and scores as you get deeper into prep is also really motivating because you can see how far you've come which I found was a massive confidence boostEveryday I would try to do at least 100 questions but ideally the more timed qs, you do the better as you need to get as much practice as you can doing timed qs and developing the techniques as habits.Don't neglect SJT because 3000 b4 is way worse than 2500 b1 as ideally you want band 1 or band 2. Medify were pretty good for learning what you need to know for SJT. I also made a log of the answers for SJT scenarios I got wrong on a document which I read through about 3 times to familiarise myself with what the correct responses are. I made a log of all the AR patterns I missed as well and read over those because after you do a LOAD of AR questions, you start to notice triggers for potential patterns pretty quick eg if there are letters in the boxes, the pattern is usually to do with things like Number of enclosed areas, Number of letters, Curved / straight letters, Position of letters, Intersections between letters. You become quicker at spotting the patterns because you have a better idea of where to start and AR often becomes people's best section.Finally, my biggest tip overall for all the sections would be make sure you are keeping track of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING: the mocks you do and scores, all the qs you get wrong and why you got them wrong so you can watch out for them next time and learn from your mistakes, strategies that you've tried and work for you. This is so you have clear direction and know exactly what your weaker areas are to make sure everyday of UCAT prep is boosting your score and not just going over the sections you are already good at.
And finally most importantly, celebrate whatever score you get because you worked pretty damn hard in your summer holiday and that deserves a reward
hope this helps!!


i think u must be my guardian angel THANK YOU SO MUCH! i will 100% be taking this into account and this has really helped me in where to go next. I'll let you know what i got!!

Reply 13

Original post by joudie
i think u must be my guardian angel THANK YOU SO MUCH! i will 100% be taking this into account and this has really helped me in where to go next. I'll let you know what i got!!

glad to be of such help!! yes please let me know best of luck!!!!

Reply 14

Original post by joudie
hey!
I'm joud and I'm currently in year 12.. not to sound like the "will I get in" person but I've been SO SCARED over this for months and months now and I just wanna see if its worth actually applying or if I'm just gonna get rejected
so, my absolute dream is to study medicine at imperial, then go on to become a psychiatrist! but I'm worried I won't get it because of my GCSES
my year 12 mocks went well, I got A*AA. for predicted grades they told us we would be predicted a grade higher so my predicted would be A*A*A*.
my GCSES were bad tho bc of young caring responsibilities, I got 8776666665.
help!! do I have a chance of medicine at imperial? what if I SMASH the UCAT and personal statement! let me know!!

I’m going into year 12 in September, but I also really like dent/med so I emailed imperial if they care about GCSEs, they responded We do not look at your GCSEs when considering your application.’ As for predicted grades they replied ‘All applicants who are predicted AAA will go through to the next stage of the selection process (the UCAT grades), thus a candidate predicted 4 A*s has no advantage over one who is predicted AAA.’ So yes you have the same chance as anyone else if you do well in UCAT, have a good ps and good interview
Hope this helps!

Reply 15

Original post by m0net13
Hi Joud!
I applied for Imperial and have it as my firm choice currently, this means I will be going there to study medicine if I get A*AA 🤞I received 4 interview invites and 4 medicine offers and I'm happy to help you out where I can through your application process if you need, just drop me a DM :smile:

What were your stats for GCSEs, UCAT and extracurricular?

Reply 16

Original post by Rabiya1
What were your stats for GCSEs, UCAT and extracurricular?
gcses 99999999999
ucat 2770 b1 (imperial was bmat tho)
extracurricular i played an instrument and did sport
supercirriculars briefly were a lot of mentoring and school related events, lots of webinars and i ran a medical society and newsletter, online and hospital wex, volunteering at a hospice —- basically just grabbing every opportunity i could get
grades A*A*A* so got into imperial for 2024 entry

just try your best at every step so you know you’ve put your all in it. and be proud of yourself whatever outcomes you get!!
Original post by Rabiya1
Thanks for answering. Do you think imperial will weigh GCSEs heavily. I won’t lie I don’t think my GCSEs would be that good 9877665. (The 5 would be in lit). Do you think I have a chance to get into imperial if I get 3A*s and lots of volunteering, wex, smash the ucat/bmat and read do lots of super-curricular activities (how did you do so many gcse subjects!)


It's literally been answered multiple times in this thread that Imperial do not score GCSEs and only require you get minimum grades in English language.

The BMAT no longer exists.

Reply 18

Original post by artful_lounger
It's literally been answered multiple times in this thread that Imperial do not score GCSEs and only require you get minimum grades in English language.
The BMAT no longer exists.

Sorry for asking. I sound really annoying but I was just worried that I won’t be able to do medicine. I just wanted advice. My bad
Original post by Rabiya12
Sorry for asking. I sound really annoying but I was just worried that I won’t be able to do medicine. I just wanted advice. My bad


If you want to apply to medicine successfully you need to be able to do this kind of minimal due dilligence - there's plenty of aspects of the process which are not obvious or where it may be less common knowledge, but when your question has literally been answered in the fourth post of the thread you posted in, it just comes across as a bit intellectually lazy.

In any event, medical schools are very transparent about their requirements so most of the information is publicly available. Regarding GCSEs, you can't assume all medical schools consider them in the same way, as essentially all medical schools have a completely unique way of shortlisting applicants in how they weight different parts of the application - but as noted, this is always stated very clearly on their websites.

For example, while Oxford and Cardiff are quite GCSE heavy due to how they score GCSEs when shortlisting applicants and it forms a big part of the score when determining who is invited to interview, Imperial and UCL don't score GCSEs at all and they just tick off if you passed English language (and maths for UCL) and if you have, they move to the next part of their assessment. Applying to medicine successfully requires you explore these to understand which medical schools have the shortlisting methodology and criteria which best suits your application.

You need to apply strategically, so if you have weaker GCSEs then places like Imperial and UCL may be be better options for example, if you have a weaker UCAT score then you probably want to apply to a medical school that places less emphasis on the UCAT. The vice versa also holds true - play to your strenghts! If you have a very strong UCAT score, pick the UCAT heavy medical schools (because most others with a weaker score will get filtered out so there's less competition), if you have very strong GCSEs, focus on those ones that put a lot of weight on that, etc.

Unless you aren't on track to get 3 As predicted in your A-levels or aren't taking 2 sciences including biology or chemistry, there will be at least some medical schools that you meet the requirements for.
(edited 10 months ago)

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