Medicine and veterinary medicine
Medicine and veterinary medicine
– UKCAT or BMAT – to give admissions teams a benchmark to which they can measure applicants and decide which students they would like to interview .
So how hard is applying to medical school ? Well , even writing the personal statement can be daunting . In 4000 characters a candidate must highlight their skills and demonstrate an understanding of the profession and the NHS .
Then there are the interviews . Sennockians are fortunate in that they receive significant support from the parent body in the form of lectures , clinics and mock interviews . Students have to face up to three different styles of interview : Oxbridge , Panel and the newer Multiple Mini Interview format . All of these are subtly different , each requiring a different approach . For a 17-year-old the questions can at first seem daunting . They might be asked about the biochemistry of the blood , or to describe a situation requiring successful teamwork , and with the MMI format , a student might even be asked to demonstrate how they would break bad news to a patient and respond to any subsequent difficulties .
Getting into medical school is notoriously difficult , but this has been a record year at Sevenoaks for offers to read Medicine or Veterinary Medicine .
Above : Our medics and vet of the class of 2017
Nationally , in a typical year , only 40-60 per cent of all applicants to read Medicine receive one offer . All 18 Sevenoaks students applying in 2017 received at least one offer , and the cohort , including one prospective vet , received 46 offers in total .
Universities are increasingly coming up with solutions to distinguish between the 20,000 high-quality applications that arrive each October . Several medical schools now formally ‘ mark ’ personal statements and this score is then combined with GCSE grades and results in one of the two entrance examinations
Sennockians have done well , exceptionally well when we consider what the process entails .
Chris Bates
Our prospective Medics and Veterinary Scientist have had a record year . Every single one of our 19 students has been successful . Together they secured a total of 46 offers to study Medicine or Veterinary Medicine . Of particular note , seven Sevenoaks students received offers from UCL where approximately 2500 applications to the Medical School ( pictured right ) are received each year , for a total of 322 places . Bristol offered four places ; Cardiff , Queen Mary , Nottingham , Edinburgh , Southampton , Barts and KCL all offered three places each ; Oxford , UEA and Imperial each made two offers , and other universities making one offer included Liverpool , St George ’ s , HYMS , Birmingham and Manchester .
Right : University College Hospital , Martyn Williams / Alamy Stock Photo
18 ACADEMIC REVIEW