How to cope if you don't get into Medical School

I'm writing this blog now, and then I'll post it when I feel like I'm ready to talk about it to people. But I didn't get into med school this year. I know that it's insanely competitive, and I did really well to get to the interview stage, but it's still pretty gutting to get this far only to fall at the last hurdle (In terms of admissions anyway).

So what are my thoughts:

I think they're pretty normal things to think when you're in this situation!

1. 'Can I handle going through this kind of rejection again?' 
It's a massive thing when you aim for your dream only to get told that you can't do it right now, I mean it's really-soul destroying. Things in life don't always go the way you would have hoped for, and sometimes there are massive hurdles, disappointments and moments when you just want to give up, but I think this is part of what makes us human. The important thing is how you react to it. So the answer to the above question is yes. I can handle this. Why? Because I've already handled it before And it's for what I really want, and if I get there all of the disappointment, feeling rejected generally rubbish, and most importantly all of the hard work would have been so worth it. I think it's also important to learn from this situation. Work out the instances in which your application was weak, and improve it - get that extra work experience, improve those interview skills, completely destroy the UKCAT, whatever it takes.

2. 'Am I certain this is really what I want to do?'
Going through this kind of situation really separates applicants with this question. Is it what I want? If you're thinking 'oh well, I'll become a scientist, musician, counsellor, literary genius instead' without much thought or disappointment, then the answer is probably no, and to go and pursue another career path. But if you do what I did and stare at the final rejection email thinking 'but the only thing I want to do is this' then it's probably a good idea to persevere. If you think you'd be just as happy in another career path, that one would probably be easier to pursue!

3. 'What if everyone is disappointed in me?'
Let them be disappointed! The likelihood is that they won't be, medicine is an incredibly hard course to get onto, and many great doctors didn't get in on their first attempt. In all honestly, if you're good enough to even be considered as a potential medical student, then you've done pretty well for yourself.

4. 'What do I do now?'
Now the best situation would be to pursue something that would beef up your application next time around. My personal plan is to hopefully do a masters degree, explore an area of medicine that interests me and also continue setting up a life I could have if I theoretically never got into medicine. This would make me more favourable academically, as well as freeing me up some time to increase the amount of voluntary work on my personal statement which would be great. I think this is a really good plan, however it's not for everyone, so do what you need to do - get a job (medical or not, either can be used to increase skills you'd use as a doctor), go travelling - enriched life experiences look great on a personal statement, especially doing what I did and working in a hospital abroad. The experience is absolutely amazing and I would seriously recommend it to anyone. I went to Thailand with Gap Medics who were particularly good - I'll put a link at the end of this post.

The most important things I can leave you with is to stay positive but be realistic. This isn't a never, it's a not right now, people start medical school at such a variety of ages so not getting in one year isn't catastrophic. It's important to use it as an opportunity to improve yourself and your application for next time, rather than 'you're not good enough'. However it's also important to be prepared, the application process is a difficult start of a long and difficult journey, and it requires commitment and resilience, ironically qualities of good doctors.

Congratulations to everyone who got a place this year and good luck to those (re)applying next year!

XOX

Check them out!  http://www.gapmedics.co.uk/

Interview Response 1: Rejected

I got a response back from the first university I was interviewed for recently, and as I expected it was a no. I can't really say that I'm surprised. I've always come across really well on paper, but when it comes to an interview situation I get really nervous. I can't keep my cool so I forget a lot and don't talk about things I really should or think as coherently as would usually be required of me. Especially when I know exactly what my performance at interview is riding on. I did the same as I did when I got rejected from Kings, and didn't even want to look at my track status. But this time I actually told people, who are amazing and made me feel so much better about the situation. 

I'm feeling a little gutted, but I'm really glad I still have a chance at getting in this year. Currently I'm being considered by two different universities. I've done really well to get to this stage, as competitive as medicine is, it just feels so close that I can almost grasp it, but I'm not quite there. Hopefully one of the other universities will like me enough to offer me a place, but if not I will bulk put my application with more work experience, study for another year and hopefully get myself a masters degree and reapply, working hard on my timekeeping for the UKCAT. 

But for now it's getting close to Easter break, and I have three deadlines to meet before I can get there, and with my dissertation write up due just after, I have a lot of work on my hands. 

Here's to a busy couple of months,

XOX 

The End of The First Round: Shortlist to Interview

For the universities I've applied for at least, shortlisting for interview is complete. I think it's good to reflect back on the process and learn from what has gone well and what hasn't.

Firstly, I think it's okay to be immensely proud of myself in surviving this stage. So many people, some amazing applicants fall at this hurdle, and I was almost convinced that I would be one of them, so now I would be picking up the pieces and prepping myself for a 2015 entry application cycle. I'm not at this stage yet.

So far I've had 1 rejection, from King's College, London. If I'm completely honest with myself, this was one of my favourites, so I was a little bit gutted to hear this (you can read about this in my post: 'Rejection'). But they were very clear with me, so I completely understand their reasoning. My UKCAT wasn't quite high enough, so I didn't get in based on my mini-panic attack in the exam, causing me to screw up my quantitative reasoning section and miss out 13 questions. But these things happen, and despite this, I'm still doing well.

I had an interview in November at Imperial College, London. I love Imperial as a university, and it's always been one of my favourites. The university has such good standing, and the course looks absolutely fantastic, and completely in tune with my method of learning. The interview itself was strange, and looking back at it now, I wasn't entirely prepared, which is majorly because I didn't really know what to expect. I think some questions I answered really well, others I got flustered and could have answered much better (the kind of answers you consider half an hour later whilst sitting on the tube!). So I guess my standing in comparison to the other applicants will determine if I get made an offer of a place. I should find this out within the next month, which is both incredibly frightening, but also exciting.

Last week, I got an email notifying me I had been shortlisted for interview for the graduate scheme at the university of Warwick. Warwick also looks absolutely amazing, the campus looks so pretty, and the fact that the scheme is entirely for graduates is really appealing. The selection process is a selection day, completely opposite to my experience at Imperial, however I'm hoping the competitive side of me will come out enough for me to appear charismatic, without seeming too overbearing. I have longer to prepare, therefore after my exam, I'll have time to properly research the process and mentally prepare myself for the process, to give myself the best possible chance.

So the day I found this out was absolutely amazing, so to add to my excitement, I got an email from Barts and the London, informing me that they were also considering my application, based on my performance at the selection centre at Warwick. This is amazing. For those who know the medical school selection procedure, Barts and Warwick work together to select candidates to offer places to, however, you only get considered by both, if you are shortlisted by both.

From going from being convinced that I wasn't good enough, 3 of the best universities, and 75% of my choices, have disagreed with me enough to want to take me further. This is really exciting.

The next stage is the interview stage. I'll keep you updated as I go along, and hopefully I'll make it past this stage!

XOX

Rejection

I found out a little while ago that I got rejected from one of the medical schools I applied for. Now this isn't down to anything I did, I just got out-competed, and there wasn't really anything I could have done about it. I got an explanation: My UKCAT wasn't high enough. I had a really good UKCAT, but due to the amount of applicants, I was just below the cutoff, an extraordinary high 772. The downside is, that out of all of them it was my favourite, so I guess you could say I'm a little but gutted about it.

So how did I react? I read the email, remained completely emotionless and didn't tell anyone for about 3 weeks. I've still only mentioned it to one person.
I didn't really expect this, I'm doing okay, I just thought on the inevitability that this would happen, I would feel somewhat different. I thought I'd be more upset, and definitely much more vocal about the whole situation. People keep asking me about how my application is going, and I've just been replying with I haven't heard, not necessarily a lie, I'm still waiting to hear from 2 of my universities, but also it is in this case.

I've coped by focusing my efforts on my uni work, I need to do well, because, as far as I'm aware I'm still a viable candidate for 3 out of my 4 choices. To get into any of these, I need to maintain my high grades, which means copious hours spent in the library and trawling over my coursework, reading countless journal articles and reading for my project.

I'm also continuing volunteering. I'm back at the health clinic tomorrow, and I'm genuinely excited, I've really missed it. I also have my first safespace shift of the year lined up, which is something else to look forward to. I'm lining up a new potential volunteering role as well, working for a scheme that monitors standards of healthcare in the local area and works on patient feedback, which would help me learn so much more about the workings of the NHS, this is potentially really exciting.

On top of this, I'm working on applications for my back up - an MSc in Cardiovascular Science, which is offered by 4 universities in England. Surprisingly the application process for this is more detailed and stressful than going through UCAS for medicine!

So how would I recommend coping with being rejected from a medical school?
Firstly it's important not to see it as the be all and end all of everything. It's gutting to get rejected, but it's a normal part of the application. You have 3 other choices to focus on, therefore work hard and learn from the experience, to better display yourself, should you get an interview for any of the others. If you get rejected from all 4, then look at the feedback given to you by the medical schools to enhance your application next time. If it was your UKCAT, work harder to improve your score. Do more volunteering, more paid work, anything to give you a wider idea of what medicine entails. And remember to apply to your strengths. Different medical schools have different selection criteria, therefore apply to the schools that look for aspects of your application that are particularly strong. Try not to be discouraged.

I hear from the medical school I got an interview for next month and the other schools should give me a decision as to whether or not I get an interview in the next couple of weeks.

Wish me luck!

XOX

Trips, New Jobs and the UKCAT

I started this blog yesterday, but apparently I'm unable to start a blog without stopping midway through!

'Let me set the scene on what im doing right now - Firstly I'm alone. It's a sunny Thursday afternoon and im sat in a Starbucks in Reading with a vanilla latte in hand and an apple fritter doughnut. Im meant to be on a health kick, but apparently I have no self control when starbucks is concerned. Two days from now I'll be boarding a flight to Bangkok, which in itself is exciting. I'm going to be in Chiang Mai, undertaking various hospital placements and I guess I'm looking forward to it, even if I'm incredibly nervous. But right now I want to look back. 5 days ago, I started a new job, and it was really enjoyable, but opened my eyes to how much i still need to learn. It also involved a lot of patient contact and far more medication and treatment than I could have ever dreamt of seeing with the Red Cross. It's made me see how far I actually want to advance in my skills as a first aider, naturally, but its also cemented how much I actually want to do clinical work. When I started my biomedical science degree, a lot of people said to me that I'd like it so much, I wouldn't want to continue perusing medicine afterwards, and I can see why a lot of people feel that way. There are a lot of attractive career prospects  that come with doing a degree like mine, and ones that I don't doubt for a moment I would get great satisfaction from, but my heart definitely lies with medicine. 

Let's now go back to this morning. I sat in a room, surrounded by people clutching their green licences and counterparts. Now I'd be lying if I said that it didn't entertain me considerably sitting there with my pink photo card, but that's irrelevant. I went back to a room I'd been in almost 4 years ago, but for an entirely different purpose. So if you've read my previous posts on my blog, you'd know that I have a lot of work to do in terms of my exam strategy, as in if I can do it without going slightly crazy, I consider it a win! So naturally I was nervous. And then I got into the exam room. The UKCAT screen was in front of me, and I looked at the questions which were an entirely different format for the verbal reasoning from the practice ones in the books I bought. I then got onto the quantitative analysis section and my time keeping was just terrible. I mean worse than I've ever had in any exam before. I missed out 13 questions. So by this point I was contemplating univerrsities that didn't require the UKCAT. then it got onto the abstract reasoning section. I've always been good at this one, so this helped to relax me a little. I then got onto the decision analysis. When I started practicing questions back in June, this was my nemesis. But I'd practiced the question format so much, and after relaxing a little during the previous section, I went through this really calmly, and finished the section 5 minutes before the time was up. This actually turned out to be my best section, and I achieved a near perfect score on it. 

Anyway I ended up averaging 750, which is good in terms of getting into medical school, but not quite as good as my practice tests, which I attribute to the lack of finishing the quantitative analysis section, however this is another 'green light' to continue my application to medical school this month, so I'm relatively happy about it! '

Now to embark on my next adventure! Expect lots of posts

XOX

Stepping Up a Gear

Earlier this month, I spent an entire day looking around London universities for a range of either medicine or post-graduate opportunities. Now I know this blog is about getting into medical school, which I'm still 100% on, but I'm also realistic about the chances of me getting into medicine. I know that I can be an amazing applicant and still not get in. I can have the right academic performance, scores on the admissions exams and a great range of work experience and still not be selected for interview. For those of you who aren't medical applicants, it's just that competitive as a subject, particularly for graduate entry. Therefore I have a plan B and this is it: I'm going to apply for some masters degrees alongside my medical school application, mostly in Cardiovascular science, but also some in Biomedical science with a significant amount of cardiovascular in it's content. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this previously, but I want to eventually be a cardiologist. Therefore if I don't get into medicine this year, then I'll try again next year, hopefully with a masters behind me. Preparations are well on the way. I have my UKCAT exam booked for the beginning of next month. I'm halfway through submitting my UCAS application and I've decided on the universities I want to apply to. I'm continuing my long-term work experience and organising more also. I'm becoming a society member at university next year, which will boost my application and give me some great experience. On top of all this, at the end of next week I'll be jetting off to Thailand! I'm going to be working on a GapMedics placement in Chiang Mai for 2 weeks, which I'm incredibly excited about, and I'm looking forward to blogging about all my experiences out there!!

Things are progressing rapidly now :)

XOX