Are highschool graduates preferred over uni graduates???

So, I'm a recent uni graduate and am now applying to medicine. I saw that now all unis have both undergraduate and graduate medicine (i.e. even if you are a degree holder, you still need to apply for undergraduate medicine to get a medical degree).

I know that this means that I would be competing with much younger students fresh out of highschool. Would this put me as an applicant in a disadvantage somehow?

Do med schools prefer highschool leavers (GCSE graduates) over uni graduetse (bachelors degree holders), or does it not really matter as long as I meet the academic requirements?

Super concerned!

Reply 1

TSR Hippocrates

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

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Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by hemsterhipster

You're conflating two things. Graduates can apply to a standard entry medicine course, and have always been able to (note that the funding model is really, very bad for graduates on those courses). However there are also accelerated graduate entry medicine (GEM) courses - these are only open to graduates, and not all medical schools offer them. "Graduate medicine" therefore could refer to either and not all universities have both.

You need to meet the same academic requirements regardless. The major challenge as a graduate applicant for a standard entry course is financing yourself for it (as you will only be able to get a maintenance loan for the first 4 years, not a tuition fee loan as well). GEM courses are much more competitive than standard entry courses however. I'm not sure if standard entry courses are more competitive for graduates - I believe there was some anecdotal suggestion this might be the case before but I've not heard much of it since.