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