If you want to study Medicine at university then you have to be ready for some fierce competition.  There are only a handful of universities that offer medicine and it is an academically demanding course that tests even those with the best grades.  But many students who intend on applying to do medicine fall down at the application or interview stage because they fail to see they need to stand out. We’ve asked our tutors to come up with some tips for applying to do medicine. You’ll find these especially helpful if you’ll soon get your GCSE results and finally decide AS/A Level options or are about to go into Year 13.

If you want to apply to do medicine you do it through UCAS (Universities and College Admissions Service), in common  with admissions for all courses to all universities in the UK. The early application deadline is 15 October medicine (earlier than some courses).

You can apply for four medical places (you have six spaces – most people use the other two for back up courses in medically related fields like pharmacology).

1. The UCAS form is the thing that will secure you an interview so it’s vital you spend plenty of time on it – the two most important aspects are your personal statement and teacher statement.
2. You’ll be expected to get very high grades – places like Oxford require AAA (or possibly even A*). You will need Chemistry at A Level. AS results, A level results, A2 results and GCSE results also matter, you need to show a consistent academic performance.
3. In your personal statement carefully check your grammar and spelling (or get someone else to do it). Make sure it meets the UCAS entry guidelines – so it has to be less than 47 lines on the form (not 47 lines typed in Word) and less than 4000 characters. You need to be clear about why you want to study medicine, any work experience/voluntary work you have done, what you know about working in medicine and how you found out about this (work experience etc), your hobbies and achievements, any jobs and responsibilities and sum up why they should choose you.  It’s not really the place to start going over your AS results, A level results, A2 results and GCSE results.
4. One thing in your personal statement that will help you stand out is any relevant work experience – start thinking about this now. You can find useful information here . Holiday work will look good in your personal statement and also ensure that you are picking the right career path.  
5. Make sure your teacher or referee knows the kind of information a Medicine admissions tutor is looking for – you want them to backup your passion for becoming a doctor and studying medicine while talking about your achievements and your positive attributes such as leadership and communication skills.

If you need help with tutoring at As or A2 and A Level subjects such as Biology and Chemistry in Manchester and Cheshire then call 121 Home Tutors (01625 531360). Over the next few weeks we will be around to chat through your options when you get your AS results, A level results, A2 results and GCSE results.

We have a team of dedicated and experienced tutors who have helped students gain places on courses to study Medicine.

Tags: A level, Getting into University, medicine, ucas, university study

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 11th, 2011 at 1:56 pm and is filed under A level, A level results, A2 level results, AS level results, Exam results, GCSE results, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.