National 5

I would like to ask for information regarding specific national 5s to GSCE equivalents, I am unsure what the specific grades are. Would a grade A at national 5 be considered as a 9/8 or grades 7-9 at GSCEs? If it is the latter, how would admissions diffentiate between a 7, 8 or 9? Would an upper A at national 5 be equivalent to GSCE grades 8/9, and a lower A at national 5 be equal to a grade 7? I was also wondering if National 5s are valued equally to GSCEs in a course like Medicine, or would the emphasis be placed on Scottish Highers? Hypothetically, if I received all As at national 5, would the band of which these were achieved have a significant impact on my likeliness to be offered a place in a particularly competitive course such as Medicine? Are there any successful scottish applicants to medicine at Oxford, and what were your grades like? Any information is greatly appreciated,
thank you!
(TLDRoes an A at national 5 equal a 9/8 at GSCE and will universities check banding of national 5s to assess strength of an application?)

Technically, an A2 at N5 (70-85%)= a 7 at gcse. An A1 at N5 (85-100%) is in the 8-9 range but I think 9s are in the above 90% range. If someone that takes gcse's could advise on the grade boundaries it would be helpful!
You could use these to work out your grades. I'd list your N5s, if you have taken the exam, and the percent you got in them, using my scale from before to work them out. If you have more 7s than 8/9s you should consider Cambridge as they weigh gcses less heavily than Oxford, and put more emphasis on the ucat and interview, both things that you can easily do well in now.
TLDR (as you did one 😁) An A2 at N5 = a 7 at gcse, an A1 at N5 = an 8 at gcse, and a high A1 at N5 = a 9 at gcse.
If you have more 7s than 8/9s, consider Cambridge as they put less emphasis on gcses than Oxford.
Best of luck, any more questions I'll try my best to answer them!

Thank you very much! if I received 1 or 2 7s and 7 or 6 8/9s, would I be okay for oxford med if all of my other stats are fine?

Yes I think so. You'd be best to email the Oxford admissions team to get a clear answer.
You'd have to do very well in the ucat as well as do well in the interview (special interview) so best of luck in those!
What year are you in now?

Thanks for letting me know! I am in S4 as of now.
I have already emailed their medical school admissions with something similar to what I wrote in my original post however they weren't very clear on the subject of grade banding at national 5.
Here's what they responded with:
"Many thanks for your email and your interest in Medicine at the University of Oxford.
There are no formal GCSE (or equivalent) requirements for Medicine. However, in order to be adequately equipped for the application process and for the academic demands of the course, applicants will need to have received a basic education in Biology, Physics and Mathematics. For example, students should have received at least a grade C/4 at GCSE, Intermediate 2 or Standard grade (Credit) or equivalent. The GCSE Dual Award Combined Sciences is also appropriate.
Our academic entry requirements for applicants taking Scottish qualifications would be as follows:
AA in Advanced Highers (taken in the same academic year) and AAAAA in Highers (taken in the same academic year)"
Applicants are required to offer Chemistry (compulsory) and one (or more, if desired) from Biology, Physics or Mathematics as Advanced Highers.
Please do note that we only GCSEs in our shortlisting algorithm if they have been taken by an applicant. As you took National 5s, we would instead double-weight your UCAT score for the purposes of automatic shortlisting. Our admissions tutors would be able to review all aspects of your application, including your National 5 grades, at the second stage of shortlisting and if shortlisted, during the interview process. For more information about our shortlisting process, please see our website."

So this is just saying they only care about what you got specifically in your gcses, if you took gcses. As of this, all A's in your N5s would be all you need as well as what they asked for at higher/advanced higher.
Basically just get all A's (easier said than done, I know, but this is medicine 😅) and you'll be fine!
Best of luck in your revision and exams, I got high grades in my N5s so I can help with questions about them if you have any!

I think you are misunderstanding here- they don’t actually use the National 5s for shortlisting, they only review them as a “sense check” to have a rough idea of your overall academic ability. Otherwise, they wouldn’t double the weighting of the UCAT

So I'm not totally wrong, all you really need is A's and you are fine.

Here are some further snippets of their emails:
"We will only use GCSEs in our shortlisting algorithm if they have been taken by an applicant. As you have taken National 5s, we would not use these for the automatic shortlisting and would not ascribe an equivalent grade for these. For the purposes of the shortlisting algorithm, we would instead double-weight your UCAT score.
In the second stage of the shortlisting process, admissions tutors review all aspects of each application not automatically shortlisted and will be able to see your grades in National 5s. We do not specify the need for specific bandings in Scottish qualifications to meet our academic entry requirements."
"We do not have any requirements for banding, but if you include them in your UCAS application, then this will form part of the information available to admissions tutors at the second stage of shortlisting and when interviewing (should you be shortlisted for interview)."
What I got from this is that it is up to you whether or not you want to include national 5 grade banding in your UCAS application, correct me if I'm wrong.

So I'm not totally wrong, all you really need is A's and you are fine.

If you really care about the bandings I would highly suggest applying to Cambridge instead- they actually do acknowledge bandings and care about them to some degree. However, even being so, I think this only applies to your Highers and Advanced Highers, not your National 5s

Yeah, I'm applying only Scottish because I don't think I could survive living in England.
It's also free for uni, which is a bonus.

I also strongly believe that they won’t actually use National 5s in your application at all- they said that they are “able” to look at them, and this is only such as you have to put them on your UCAS application anyway. It is Medicine, you are right, but I think it’s very unlikely that they will have to resort to qualifications you took 2 years ago to whittle down applications, that’s what the UCAT etc is for.

Yes i’d say 8 As minimum.

If I received a B in national 5 Music, would a resit to get a grade A affect my chances?

It shouldn't impact your chances at most universities, but if you've ever gotten Bs in exams you should be rethinking Oxbridge and others like it. You'll get the same degree from any medical school, it's just the nature of places like Oxford that if you aren't near perfect, they have another thousand applicants who are, so why would they pick you?
Best of luck.

That is near perfect…
No need to be so harsh. Applicants can stand out in many other ways besides grades.