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Will taking the ESAT benefit me if I want to pursue medicine

Im in Year 11 right now, but i'm wondering whether taking the ESAT as well as the UCAT would benefit my UCAS application in the future at all? I obviously understand the extra pressure, but as i'm taking Maths, biology, chemistry, and further maths at A-level, and 3 of those are part of the modules on the ESAT, i'm wondering whether I could take it alongside my A-level revision? Sorry if this seems silly!

Reply 1

Original post
by Anonymous
Im in Year 11 right now, but i'm wondering whether taking the ESAT as well as the UCAT would benefit my UCAS application in the future at all? I obviously understand the extra pressure, but as i'm taking Maths, biology, chemistry, and further maths at A-level, and 3 of those are part of the modules on the ESAT, i'm wondering whether I could take it alongside my A-level revision? Sorry if this seems silly!


The ESAT is the admission test for engineering at Imperial and Cambridge, and also veterinary at cambridge, whereas the UCAT is for medicine...any reason why you are thinking about taking both admission tests? If it is because you want to keep your options open, you would need to see if Imperial and Cambridge are willing to accept an alternate personal medicine for engineering or vice versa, depending on what your main focus is on the ps that you submit to UCAS.

I have done both the ESAT and the UCAT and none of them are easy and both require different types and lengths of prepartion. If you really wanted to take both exams, I would recommend UCAT is August and ESAT in the January sitting because after my UCAT, to do well, I felt like it burnt me out quite a bit. So although theoretically it is possible to sit the ESAT in October, I personally wouldn't recommend and give yourself a break, and if you are worried about how sitting in January will affect your alevels, it wont really. You will be revising the same content and there will be plenty of time afterwards to revise for it.

Sorry for the bit of a ramble, I dont know if it helped or not

Reply 2

Original post
by Beauty_31
The ESAT is the admission test for engineering at Imperial and Cambridge, and also veterinary at cambridge, whereas the UCAT is for medicine...any reason why you are thinking about taking both admission tests? If it is because you want to keep your options open, you would need to see if Imperial and Cambridge are willing to accept an alternate personal medicine for engineering or vice versa, depending on what your main focus is on the ps that you submit to UCAS.
I have done both the ESAT and the UCAT and none of them are easy and both require different types and lengths of prepartion. If you really wanted to take both exams, I would recommend UCAT is August and ESAT in the January sitting because after my UCAT, to do well, I felt like it burnt me out quite a bit. So although theoretically it is possible to sit the ESAT in October, I personally wouldn't recommend and give yourself a break, and if you are worried about how sitting in January will affect your alevels, it wont really. You will be revising the same content and there will be plenty of time afterwards to revise for it.
Sorry for the bit of a ramble, I dont know if it helped or not

Yeah, i was thinking about veterinary medicine at Cambridge, but i primarily want to pursue the normal medicine course. It's probably a bit early for me to think about it now, so i'll probably just wait for a bit and see if im gonna narrow it down! Thanks for your response, it was really informative

Reply 3

No problem, take your time and focus in your gsce first

Reply 4

Original post
by Anonymous
Im in Year 11 right now, but i'm wondering whether taking the ESAT as well as the UCAT would benefit my UCAS application in the future at all? I obviously understand the extra pressure, but as i'm taking Maths, biology, chemistry, and further maths at A-level, and 3 of those are part of the modules on the ESAT, i'm wondering whether I could take it alongside my A-level revision? Sorry if this seems silly!

0 benefit at all if you’re not studying a course that requires it, it’s also completely different to A-Levels in such a way that you’d be learning a whole set of skills that you’ll never use again for no reason

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