How to maximise your chances of getting into medical school

Following John O’Leary's posts on how to make a tactical application to Cambridge or Oxford, he gives us his hints and tips on how to get into medical, veterinary and dental schools.

"Oxbridge candidates are not the only ones who are counting down to a deadline next month: aspiring medical, dental and veterinary students also have to have their applications in then. And they have the extra pressure of being restricted to only four choices in their chosen subject.

Only seven institutions offer veterinary science and 15 undergraduate dental degrees, so the restriction does not cause too many headaches in those subjects. But, with about 70,000 applications for 8,000 places, making the right four choices of medical school is especially important.

Most applicants will have one or two schools in mind from the start, but entry requirements are so similar among the 27 schools that options are limited for those hoping for an insurance choice. Almost every course demands at least two As and a B at A level, with an expectation that most are heading for three As.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service used to publish the number of applications per place on individual courses, but no more. Some schools volunteer this information, which can be found on the Medschoolsonline website, set up by medical graduates in 2005. Success rates for a little over half of the UK’s medical schools, with Birmingham and Queen Mary shown as accepting around one applicant in three.

However, a fuller indication of the pecking order can be found in the A-level scores collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency and published in The Times Good University Guide. 
These are the actual grades achieved by those who entered medical schools, rather than the minimum requirements, and they show much higher scores – an average of four As at A level and one at AS level at Cambridge. Only the Peninsula Medical School, split between Exeter and Plymouth universities, had an average (just) below three As at A level and one at AS level in this year’s guide.

Many of the scores are so close that candidates would be wise to examine more than one year’s figures before making any assumptions about entry standards. The table below shows that the equivalent of one A-level grade covered nearly a third of the schools this year, with some moving ten places or more. Even at the top of the table, only Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh held steady in their positions.

Perhaps the most significant information comes at the foot of the table, however. Keele has joined the table this year, but none of last year’s bottom six has managed to escape. Southampton, Queen’s Belfast, St George’s, Queen Mary and Peninsula all average at least ten points (or half an A-level grade) less than the rest. King’s College has moved up, but has not overtaken any of the schools above that group.
That does not make any of the schools a soft touch at entry – they all make high offers, expect to see evidence of a commitment to medicine and demand good results in the UK Clinical Aptitude Test. But, when competition is this tight, the slightest advantage can make all the difference."

Click continue reading for the table of entry grades for medical school

Rank	Title	Clinical	Entry Standards
1 (1)	Cambridge	5*A	539
2 (3)	Oxford	5*A	524
3 (15=)	Imperial College	5*B	500
4 (4)	Edinburgh		497
5 (12)	Birmingham	5*B	492
6 (17)	Newcastle	5*D	487
7= (14)	University College London		484
7= (9)	Nottingham	3aB	484
9 (7=)	St Andrews		483
10 (2)	Aberdeen	4B	482
11 (19)	Sheffield		472
12 (5)	Glasgow	5B	471
13 (18)	Bristol	5A	469
14 (7=)	Dundee	5*B	468
15= (-)	Cardiff	5C	466
15= (11)	Manchester	4B	466
17 (13)	Liverpool	5B	463
18 (10)	Leicester	4B	462
19 (15=)	Leeds	5C	455
20 (6)	Hull-York		453
21 (24)	King's College London	5C	452
22= (21)	Southampton	5A	442
22= (20)	Queen's Belfast	4C	442
24 (22)	St George's	4A	441
25 (25)	Queen Mary, London	3aB	427
26 (-)	Keele		426
27 (23)	Peninsula Medical School		406

Read John O'Leary on how to get into study law - the easier way

Comments

[term papers]

Blogs are so interactive where we get lots of informative on any topics nice job keep it up !!

[CHLOE]

JM, all medical schools ask for Chemistry up to A-level with the excetion of very few. Most will ask for one other science alongside that, Biology or Physics. Then you need one more A-level and usually medical school entry requirements do not state which subject this needs to be however, on close inspection of some uni prospectuses,such as UCL, they do state a different subject is preferred such as a foreign language, art, history, english etc, and you will have preference with a subject like this alongside 2 sciences in comparison to those students with 3 sciences.

I am currently intercalating in neuroscience (between 2cd and 3rd year at my med school) and am always terrified by how many applicants seem to have no clue and no initiative - I went through a state school with few applicants for Medical degrees, did my own research age 15, worked my socks off and knew exactly what was expected academically and in extracurriculars. Post Grad medicine is a great thing and I think in the future there will be an increase in the numbers of post grads, and a resultant decrease in school leavers. For anyone applying, do your research, work with different sorts of people and be willing to work for it; you won't regret it! A place at med school is a gift that must be earned.

The post- grad medical course is mainl for those who have studied a bio- related degree beforehand, such as medical science, microbiology, pharmacology etc, so you do have the scientific background in order to do medicine. A Level chemistry is the actual requirement for medicine but i think they should put biology up there too seeing as most of it is biology to start with!
Medicine is so hard to get into because of the number of applicants i think. Now there are so many people capable of getting the grades, what do can they use to compare their applicants? I got 3 out of 4 medicine places i applied for and at my interviews i was asked the usual questions such as why do you want to be a doctor, have you ever helped anyone etc, but the bulk of questions was on my extra- curricular activities. Being a doctor isn't just a job it's a lifestyle, and you have to be able to cope with your workload and your actual life as well. To be honest i think they're taking the wrong people in for medicine, I'm a first year and already about 20 people have dropped out, simply because it's not what they were expecting, they can't cope with the workload and trying to have fun, which is what you need to be able to do as a doctor. Another thing people don't seem to realise is that we don't just do the five years and that's it, you then have your 2 years foundation training and then however many years speciality training. You are literally learning for the rest of your life. So it is fair for medical schools to be really picky about who they take in, as it's not just a degree course you're choosing, it's a lifestyle.

[Ajd]

There are several misnomers in the above article. Firstly, there is nothing like 70,000 applicants for medicine each year, the number deviates around the 24,000 mark. Secondly, and something that can only be really appreciated by medical school applicants, medical students and doctors, is that league tables for medicine mean absolutely nothing. Whereas in other subject areas, such as law where an Oxbridge degree would be held in much higher regard than say a law degree from Nottingham Trent university, medical degrees are all regulated by the GMC and therefore it is far more important for applicants to choose 4 medical schools where they will be happy. As for the comment concerning none of the "bottom six" escaping, this just confirms the author's ignorance toward medical schools and their league table standings. A perfect example of this is that Southampton may be ranked 22nd in the Times Good University Guide, yet it consistently has one of the highest number of applicants, 4000-5000, which confirms that league table standings rarely correlate with well-informed medical school applicants choices.

[Alex Smith]

Where is the University of East Anglia medical school?????????!

[Claire]

Why? I was good at EVERYTHING when I was 15. Seriously. I could have gone on to do sciences, but I didn't because I thought I wanted to teach music. Nobody ever encouraged me in scientific areas (because gosh, it was my weak spot- the As at GCSE prove that, in sciences and maths! but compared to A* in everything else I guess it was). You can change an awful lot between choosing A levels at 16 and working out who you are and what you want to do, sometimes much later. I'm now a midwife, did consider medicine but on reflection not the career for me. I have the qualifications to get onto a grad course should I choose to do so.

[whimsey]

Guess that's a fair-ish point about your ability to learn faster once you've 'practiced' on a first degree in any subject. I can only assume you don't need bio A level as the med course will cover it all - but it would still save time if you knew the basics of biology from A level.

Overall, I'm not sure I see the point of this route into medicine - why not simply take in more people at post-A level/undergrad level?

I still find it hard to comprehend why anyone would take humanities A levels if they had the slightest interest in any kind of science-based career. But then, I'm a bit of a science-snob, I know!

[Lucy]

You need Chemistry, but not, as it happens, Biology A-Level to study Medicine as a first degree. The four-year postgraduate Medicine course takes less time because, like it or not, a first degree teaches you study skills and maturity along the way, so you pick things up more quickly.

[whimsey]

Lisa - how can that make sense, though? If you didn't do science A levels, that means you have two years of A-level level bio and chem (at least!) to mug up, and THEN all the detailed human biology/pathology you need for medicine. So how can it take LESS time than a normal med degree course? Unless maybe they don't take vacs!!

[Lisa]

You can do a post-grad medical degree, which takes a little less time than an undergrad med degree.

[whimsey]

Glad to see I was right about Bio and Chem, and would have been worried if I hadn't been right! And I was even right about History.

I have heard that it's possible now to have a late entry to med school, as a non-science graduate, but I find that somewhat alarming. Surely if you know at l5 you are not the slightest interested in science and therefore opt for humanities A levels, you are not going to suddenly 'discover science is great' at 21 and opt for medicine??

I suppose if you had over-persuasive humanities subject teachers at l6 who steered you off science A levels, it might be an explanation. But I'd take a punt that most people who like science wouldn't dream of not taking them for A levels. And science teachers would fight tooth and nail to get hold of any GCSE students who did well at science subjects to bag them for A levels!

[j]

JM why are you asking us which subjects to do? it should be clear from what was said about the Cambridge article that this article wont be the best place to check.

Read the prospectus online and it will tell you.

[jnrdoctor]

Everyone on my med course had done Biology and Chemistry. Those are essential. Many (maybe two thirds) had done maths, fewer had done physics. If you are taking four A levels, then I think the fourth should be in a non-science subject (although still in an academically respected subject such as History, English or Languages) as they are are always banging on about the importance of being well rounded and it will improve your essay writing skills which you may not get chance to hone in your science/maths A levels.
Work experience is vital but not necessarily in a hospital or doctors surgery as you are unlikely to do much of substance while you are there. Volunteering (regularly and for a sustained amount of time) in an old people's home or, as I did, a play scheme for disabled children, shows you are able to work with lots of different sorts of people, can cope under stress, understand the reality of being "ill", have a caring side, are responsible and mature etc. Doing your first aid cert and volunteering with St Johns would be great as well.
Some sports/music/creative extra curricular activities also make you seem like a real person and not a freak with your nose in their books all the time- they don't need to be at a high level, just show you are interested in more than just schoolwork. Doctors need to be able to communicate clearly with patients and have a good bedside manner.
There are now entry exams as well but there weren't in my day!

[whimsey]

JM - aren't the only subjects to take at A level with a view to studying medicine going to be Biology (obviously!!!!!), Chemistry (almost as obviously), then Physics (has to be useful with all the medical technology such as scanners etc). Maths might be useful, but I can't see it as essential to being a good doctor???

If you want to be a surgeon, maybe something like DT is a good idea - skill with using instruments to cut and shape must surely come in handy when you're handed a scalpel and a body to chop into!!

If you wanted to be a good 'people doctor', that has a holistic attitude towards health care, then probably something like pyschology might come in useful. Or even somethng like History would prove useful, as it would teach you how to do research, and draw inferences from scant and ambiguous data (ie, diagnose from dubious symptoms.

I'll be curious to read what the 'real' answers are, though!

[Adam]

Sciences and Mathematics are generally favoured above "the arts"

[whimsey]

This is completely insane. We import foreign doctors, but fail to train enough of our own.

SO, here's a novel thought - LET'S OPEN MORE MED SCHOOLS!!!!!!

It's totally absurd to think that at LEAST the 'next 8,000' candidates that 'just fail' to get one of the current miserly 8,000 places are incapable of being decent doctors.

The UK -and the world - is facing an ever growing need for medicine and doctors and medical staff - far, far more people in the economy need to be clinicians (though please, NO MORE health service managers!!!!!), both as populations age, and as mortality rates decrease from conditions that are becoming ever more curable/treatable. Not to mention the tide of the obese, sustance-addicted self-created invalids that are already washing up on the shores of the health service.

The cost of sick people and prematurely dead people to the economy is completely unacceptable, and without sufficient investment in medicine to stop that burden that cost is not going to go down.

[JM]

Does anyone know if specific A-level subjects are favoured by the Medical and Dental schools and if so, what are they?