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Am i good enough for medicine or oxbridge

So basically i went to a school in a very poor earea and area 1 for advancements to university so the lowest and i also live in hulll but i got 98777766555 at gcse is this good enough
Depends on which medicine course and which course at Oxford or Cambridge. They all assess GCSEs differently.

Your GCSEs are very good in context, and also not all medical schools even score GCSEs (e.g. Imperial, UCL, and others just require minimum grades in English language and/or maths, and otherwise don't look at your GCSEs).

Oxford and Cambridge weight GCSEs differently on the whole, with Oxford tending to put slightly more emphasis on them, but this also varies considerably between courses - for example maths at Oxford tends to put more emphasis on the MAT than GCSEs.

So basically, there's no reason in principle you couldn't apply to Oxford, Cambridge, or medicine. However I would note for medicine at Oxford specifically you are probably not competitive on the basis of GCSEs because they are very GCSE heavy as a medical school.

Of course for medicine it doesn't actually matter which medical school you go to, as the GMC accredits them all equally and considers them equivalent, and the NHS (which is the only provider of graduate medical training posts) doesn't even look at your medical school and in fact blinds recruiters from that information to ensure no bias.

Reply 2

Original post
by artful_lounger
Depends on which medicine course and which course at Oxford or Cambridge. They all assess GCSEs differently.
Your GCSEs are very good in context, and also not all medical schools even score GCSEs (e.g. Imperial, UCL, and others just require minimum grades in English language and/or maths, and otherwise don't look at your GCSEs).
Oxford and Cambridge weight GCSEs differently on the whole, with Oxford tending to put slightly more emphasis on them, but this also varies considerably between courses - for example maths at Oxford tends to put more emphasis on the MAT than GCSEs.
So basically, there's no reason in principle you couldn't apply to Oxford, Cambridge, or medicine. However I would note for medicine at Oxford specifically you are probably not competitive on the basis of GCSEs because they are very GCSE heavy as a medical school.
Of course for medicine it doesn't actually matter which medical school you go to, as the GMC accredits them all equally and considers them equivalent, and the NHS (which is the only provider of graduate medical training posts) doesn't even look at your medical school and in fact blinds recruiters from that information to ensure no bias.

Second this. There are amazing and competitve medical schools that place a much heavier weight on just the UCAT or predicted grades (Exeter and St Andrews are great examples)
With those stats don't apply to oxbridge- really not worth it to be honest you will most probably not get in and it is not worth it. I wanted to apply to Oxford and didn't and thank God as one of my mates is there and they hate it due to the people.
I completely get it as I am from a very disadvantaged background but that alone will not get you into oxbridge.
Oxbridge I would say is not great for if you want more patient contact too

Reply 3

Original post
by artful_lounger
Depends on which medicine course and which course at Oxford or Cambridge. They all assess GCSEs differently.
Your GCSEs are very good in context, and also not all medical schools even score GCSEs (e.g. Imperial, UCL, and others just require minimum grades in English language and/or maths, and otherwise don't look at your GCSEs).
Oxford and Cambridge weight GCSEs differently on the whole, with Oxford tending to put slightly more emphasis on them, but this also varies considerably between courses - for example maths at Oxford tends to put more emphasis on the MAT than GCSEs.
So basically, there's no reason in principle you couldn't apply to Oxford, Cambridge, or medicine. However I would note for medicine at Oxford specifically you are probably not competitive on the basis of GCSEs because they are very GCSE heavy as a medical school.
Of course for medicine it doesn't actually matter which medical school you go to, as the GMC accredits them all equally and considers them equivalent, and the NHS (which is the only provider of graduate medical training posts) doesn't even look at your medical school and in fact blinds recruiters from that information to ensure no bias.

sorry if this irrelevant to the post, i already 4 gcses resits from 6s to 8/9s and overall mainly 8-9s except a 5 and a 4 in cs and french but now i kinda regret coz not say my og gcses were amazing but there is people with poorer gcses than me got into med school, and i have come to thought that me choose to resits just puts me at a disadvantage. pls do suggest any advice i could take tyy!
Original post
by Anonymous#4489
sorry if this irrelevant to the post, i already 4 gcses resits from 6s to 8/9s and overall mainly 8-9s except a 5 and a 4 in cs and french but now i kinda regret coz not say my og gcses were amazing but there is people with poorer gcses than me got into med school, and i have come to thought that me choose to resits just puts me at a disadvantage. pls do suggest any advice i could take tyy!

I mean you've already done the resits so I don't think there's anything to do now specifically?

Just apply to medical schools that don't have an issue with GCSE resits (I imagine most that don't score GCSEs e.g. Imperial etc).

Reply 5

Original post
by artful_lounger
I mean you've already done the resits so I don't think there's anything to do now specifically?
Just apply to medical schools that don't have an issue with GCSE resits (I imagine most that don't score GCSEs e.g. Imperial etc).

ik sorry this is stupid of me to even ask this, i am js all stressed up all the time, good thing is ive confirmed with unis like kcl, ucl, imperial and even cambridge and they all saying i am open to apply especially imperial and ucl which they seem too welcome coz they dont even assess gcses so my resits would have no impact. but idk throughout all these waves of ppl posting recently of medcine rejects - even people with perfect stats were called ' not competitive enough' would just make me think my resits would be the factor of my rejection in the future too..

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