So you need to start choosing a medical school? I’m going to share with you everything you need to know to choose the best school for you. I promise you will feel prepared, maybe even a bit smug, and ready to make an outstanding, competitive application by the end of this blog!
Here is what we’re going to cover:
A-levels, predicted grades and subject choices.
There are some absolutely terrifying statistics floating around about applying to medical school like this
- “Only 10% of applicants get into medical school.”
- “There are 80,000 UCAS medicine applicants every year”
- “8,000 of these applicants get into a medical school.”
How many of you have been tempted to go running in the opposite direction when you hear these sorts of statistics?
I know I did!
But don’t go! I’m here to tell you that those statistics, true as they may be, are not as scary if you look at it this way…
Not everyone is going to make a serious application– The fact that you are here on my blog shows that you are not one of those people! Congratulations!
Not everyone is applying strategically – You might be wondering “what the heck is that!” but don’t worry! You will have ALL the deets you need to be a strategic, smarty pants applicant by the end of this blog.
One final thing to say before we jump into this ultimate guide to picking your perfect Uni…
YOU are terrific and special and deserving! Although you and I know that, not every university will, that’s why we are going to apply STRATEGICALLY to find universities that will be begging on their knees to have you, and that you will equally love!
Choosing a medical school: A-Levels predicted grades and subject choices.
There can be a lot of confusion when applying to medical school about what you actually need and everyone has their bit to say about it.
Lets clarify this:
Do you need maths?
Short answer, No.
Most universities do not need you or even encourage you to take maths at A- level. They like to see that you are a real human being! If you don’t have maths A-level and you’ve got art instead that is absolutely fine!
However, that said some universities such as Oxford and Cambridge will expect their applicants to have this subject. If this is something that puts you off, that’s fine!
Do, not take an A-level subject for the sole purpose of getting into a specific university, *ahem ahem…Oxbridge* There are plenty of universities who will love you for what ya got!
What subjects do I need?
You need chemistry and one other science for most universities. Often this is biology, but not always. It’s not a deal-breaker! There are a few Uni’s out there who don’t mind if you don’t have Chemistry.
Make sure you know which those are before applying if you are someone who does not have Biology and Chemistry. This is part of strategically choosing a medical school.
What grades do I need?
Generally, grades of AAA are required to move to the interview stage
Surprisingly, most universities do not care if you have A*A*A*A* or AAA, they will look at everyone who meets their basic entry requirement in the same way.
Choosing a medical school: Admissions tests – UCAT and BMAT:
The UCAT and the BMAT are the two entry exams that you will be required to sit to access undergraduate medicine.
The UCAT consists of 5 sections: verbal reasoning, decision making, quantitative reasoning, abstract reasoning, and the situational judgment test.
Most universities use this test.
The BMAT is a less widely used admissions test.
Here are the Universities that use this:
- Brighton & Sussex Medical School
- University of Cambridge
- Imperial College London
- Keele University (only for ‘overseas for fees’ applicants)
- Lancaster University
- Leeds’ School of Medicine
- University of Oxford Medical School University College London
- University of Manchester Medical School
You can find out more about the BMAT here.
The GAMSAT is different and you don’t need to worry about this if you do not already have a university degree.
Play to your strengths
One factor to consider when choosing a medical school is that you are unlikely to know your BMAT score before applying.
Therefore, unless you are set on the university, It is worth considering whether you want to spend one of your options on a BMAT Uni.
For example, if you do really badly on the test for some reason, and you don’t get into that university, you now only have three other medical courses that could accept you.
One advantage of applying to a UCAT university is that you will know your results first, so you can apply to somewhere which you know will be gobsmacked by your brilliant score!
*mini fist pump*
Alternatively, if you flunk the UCAT, it’s okay! Part of strategically choosing a medical school is playing to your strengths.
There are plenty of UCAT universities who don’t care that much what you get and will accept a lower score. You can look at how different universities weight the UCAT in my free resource. Just pop your email in at the end of this post!
Choosing your course Type
I’m sure you’ve seen the crazy complicated types of courses that medical schools claim to offer.
Please, stay with me! I’m going to break it down simply here:
Traditional, integrated, and PBL
These are the main three course types and factors to consider when choosing a medical school course.
The Medic Portal offers quizzes to help decide which style would suit you!
Traditional:
This consists of a complete lecture and tutorial-based learning. The clue is in the name, its a traditional teacher-class-student format.
They will teach pure science for the first three years taught by discipline ( physiology, biochemistry, etc), with no cases attached to the content.
Examples of Universities that teach this way are:
- Oxford
- Cambridge
Integrated courses:
These courses are mainly lecture-based, however, you will get some clinical exposure from day one! Integrated courses are normally taught based around body systems and all the relevant disciplinary information will be taught with this.
These are the main integrated medical schools:
- Birmingham
- Dundee
- Edinburgh
- East Anglia
- Kings College London
- Queen’s, Belfast
- Leicester
- Nottingham
- Southampton
- UCL
PBL( Problem based learning):
These courses are very new! They are taught often in small groups, where you will be given clinical scenarios to which you will apply the knowledge that you have learned.
The courses are often very self-directed, however, are likely to have small group teachings and a few lectures too.
Here are the universities that teach PBL:
- Queen Mary Barts and the London
- East Anglia
- Glasgow
- Hull and York
- Keele
- Manchester
- Peninsula ( Plymouth)
- Sheffield
There are other course types that you may have heard about such as Case-based, multi-interprofessional learning, and enquiry-based learning. These are less common, but you can explore them here.
Dissection and prosection:
When studying Anatomy at university, there are two main ways you will study Cadavers. (Deceased people who have kindly donated their body to medical schools for this purpose.) This provides us with some factors to consider when choosing a medical school.
Prosection:
The first is by Prosection. This is where the Cadaver has already had the part you will dissect isolated and has already been dissected for you to observe and study.
Although this may not be as interactive, it is a great way to see the internal structures, intact without fear of messing anything up!
Additionally, you are more likely to be in smaller groups and have more time around the Cadaver to study, so this can be a plus!
Dissection:
Secondly, is dissection. This is where you will be presented with the entire Cadaver and will be expected to dissect the area of interest yourself.
Unfortunately, you might not be able to spend as much time around the Cadaver with this style of anatomy, as there will be a larger group of students around each body, so this is something to consider when choosing a medical school!
Clinical nature
What a section hey! Keep with me we’re almost there.
The last factor to consider when choosing a medical school is the clinical nature of the course type.
Some universities will have Pre-clinical and Clinical years. This means that you will spend years one and two with no patient contact whatsoever and from year three onward you will be based in a clinical environment.
Some people may prefer this option if you fear being underprepared to deal with patients immediately.
Other universities will have clinical days from day one. Although, you aren’t going to be performing brain surgery the day you touch down at med school!
This often begins with a few days a year/per semester and will gradually increase to being entirely clinically-based often from year 3 onwards.
This could be great for you guys who want to feel motivated to keep going in the first couple of years, it also may help you put the things you learn into context nice and early!
You guys are absolutely killin’ it! You are well on your way to making amazing, strategic choices when choosing a medical school to apply to.
By now, your choices are likely to be narrowed down quite a bit, but I want to cover every base on choosing a medical school for you guys, so let’s dive right into the next part…
COURSE LENGTH
There are a few options when it comes to the length of your medical school course.
Medical courses are normally 5 years long, this can change if you opt in to any of the following:
Intercalation
Intercala-what?!!
This is where you study a second degree within your medical degree. I know, like damn girl you are getting Q-U-A-L-I-F-I-E-D! There are many options as to what you can study, but this tends to increase your course length from five to six years.
Side note: Except from Nottingham. ( I know there’s always one *tut-tut*) they offer a partial degree as a result of intercalating within a five-year course.
This is great if you have other interests you want to pursue and also if you’d like a break from medicine. Not to mention, you get two friggin degrees!
Win-Win.
However, you may choose not to do this if you want to get in and outta there like a McDonald’s Drive-thru. That’s completely fine too!
Foundation/preliminary years.
This is for you guys that didn’t take the required A-levels, however, they often still require 3As at A-level.
The course provides a foundation year to get you all science-ed up for medicine.
If this is you, make sure you check which universities are offering you this.
Medicine with a gateway year
This is a pretty cool type of course, that aims to widen participation. It is particularly for students who are high achievers but have had barriers to their learning.
Part of how to choose a medical school strategically is realising opportunities you may not have had and finding where you will be given a leg up to get you where you deserve to be!
Make sure you check this out if that is you!
Graduate entry medicine
Although I won’t cover this in this blog, you can find out more about graduate Medicine here
Go You! You’ve made it, you should have now narrowed down your list of University a ton and are ready to consider some of the more fun things
For this, I have a free separate document you can access to help you compare a handful of universities. You can access this at the end of this post by “joining the list”
Social Life.
Let’s be honest, you are not going to sit in your room at Uni all day doing absolutely nothing!
There are a huge amount of things I tried to consider when choosing a medical school.
These include:
- Diversity – as a BAME student it is important to me that the university is diverse and makes an effort to tackle racism. Additionally, it’s important to me that there diversity coming from all walks of life, be it religion, financial or whatever else!
I would recommend this tool from UCAS to you guys for this purpose.
- Sport – I love me a bit of netball, so this was important to me. I know you guys may have a sport that you are amazing at so I wanted to include this to help you make this decision.
Even if you don’t enjoy/play sports at the moment, having that opportunity open to you could be useful if you change your mind!
I used the BUCS (British Universities & colleges sport) league tables to help me decide where was best for my sport. You can enter your specific sport and see where each of your shortlisted universities rank.
- Societies and Medsocs– It is almost a fact that you will sign up to your Universities’ Medsoc, it helps if it is a good one.
Even at University, you are expected to have extra curricular activities.
All of the things you are involved with will help you when applying to your speciality training at the end of Medical school!
This might be a long job but research using your shortlist of universities websites’ and find out who has the best MedSoc/Societies you are interested in!
University type:
Campus– This is where the whole university is on your doorstep, all the buildings, normally including halls, are in one place. An example is Birmingham.
Side note: Some universities may claim to be “campus” but actually have a range of campuses across the city, similar to a city University.
Bear this in mind when choosing a med school.
This is handy if you aren’t a fan of big confusing cities but still want to be in a big place! It’s also great if you’re prone to being late like me ( oops).
Not to mention, you will save buckets of money on travel!
City – You guessed it, all the buildings are scattered across the city, I would say that the majority of universities are like this. Examples of City Universities include most London Universities.
This is great if you are a busy bee and you like to be in amongst it all!
That brings me onto the last point!
Location:
Location can be a big chunk of deciding where to study for many reasons.
- You might want to be close to home, for me I set a 3 hr radar around home.
This really helped me to narrow down choices, but if this leaves you with virtually nowhere, consider spreading your wings a bit!
- Finances – for me, London universities were a big no-no. The cost of living and the size of housing was just not what I wanted, you might be the opposite!
You will be living in that place, as a (probably) broke student for 5-6 years. Make sure it is affordable to live and enjoy yourself occasionally too!
- A busy city, or countryside? Consider whether you want to be in a busy metropolitan city or somewhere quieter.
VERY importantly, remember that for most of your time at medical school you will be on placements around the area.
They can send you to pretty far out places so bear in mind you won’t always be in the city centre.
An example would be Cardiff University, where your placement can be all over Wales.
Sweating the small stuff:
Phew! You’ve made it to the end of all my must know, top tips to help you in choosing a medical school.
I want to share a few things you may be thinking I’ve missed out!
I didn’t include these things in the bulk of it all because I think they are all things that you can overcome if you are committed and dedicated to your medicine journey!
To clarify, I would NOT base my choice of University on these factors, but that is truly up to you guys.
- Interview style– MMI or traditional types of interview. (most universities are MMI now anyway, but you may want to check)
You may find interviews tricky and want to take this into account when applying, that’s fine! I would suggest choosing based on other factors and then preparing for interviews when you get there!
- Competition ratios– Please do NOT be scared by these. Some universtieis have extremely high competition ratios, this only means you should be willing to be more strategic and work extra hard.
If you really want to, you can do it.
- Redbrick or Oxbridge – these tend to be the traditionally “looked up to” high profile universities.
You guys do not really need to worry about this, all medical degrees are pretty much viewed the same!
If you have weighed up all the other factors and going to one of these Universities is still really important, then go ahead!
However, I want to quickly share a few reasons I would NOT apply to Oxbridge or Redbrick Universities:
- For clout– this is your journey, don’t apply to a University to seem intelligent or popular.
Do what is best for you.
- For family -Don’t apply just because your family is pushing it, again this is your journey.
- Better employment prospects.
Again, an MBChB or an MBBS is what it is. Nobody really cares where you got it from.
Conclusion
That brings me to the end of this Blogpost! I hope you guys have found this step by step guide to choosing a medical school useful!
I know that you are going to make amazing, strategic and smart choices for medical school!
If you want my Checklist for choosing a medical school or my medical school comparison document just sign up to “join the list” below!
Remember to subscribe to my email list to make sure that you get all the updates and information that you don’t want to miss! Follow me on Pinterest and Instagram to get extra insight, tips, tricks and I will connect with you guys!
If you haven’t read my first blog you can read it here: “Medicine work experience: an honest conversation with a Staff Nurse.” You can read part two here!
See you next week for our next “Interview with a healthcare professional”
Much love xx