Wednesday 8 April 2009

TSR, Facebook, Revision and all that Jazz

As I was procrastinating on TSR I discovered a new blog to read, Gillian's World. Turns out, she'd already found me and put me in her blogroll. I'm in a blogroll! Big news really. (Previously thought that only Harry, XE and Little Medic stopped by)

Anyway, exams are ever closer. For the first time I'm starting to panic. I've got 11 exams to take and need to plan for them: Chem 5, Chem 6, Chem 1, English Legal System, Criminal Law, Core Maths 4, Mechanics, Core Maths 1, Unifying Concepts, Environmental Biology, Foundation.

I'm confident that with the right planning and technique I can do this but it's just kinda overwhelming me at the moment. Plus I crazily agreed to camping (tues-fri) with about 20 friends next week. I know it will be brilliant and I know that I will regret not going but revision is such a massive thing on my mind. I might try and come home a day early.

Also the girl, well that ended properly about a month ago now. She's got a uni boyfriend who's at uwe so have to move on. Course she was kind enough to tell me by text before she updated facebook :/ Oh well. More fish in the sea or something like that...

Medicine is going to plan at the moment. This was a very likely outcome of my UCAS application. I've been rejected by all my choices and am now in limbo. My main decision comes down to results day in August. If I get AAAA then it's gap year and reapply. Anything lower and I'll enter clearing and reapply as a graduate for the 5 year course. I really don't want to do that route so will probably go knuckle down after this post.

I've also been considering my university choices next year. I've only told one of my friends this but I'm considering oxbridge. I went to an open day and 3A* is the minimum currently. I know i'll be up against much better GCSE grades but if I can absolutely wow them with my gap year then I'm going to apply. This is going to take some major decision making and gonna have to think long and hard about it.

Speaking of the gap year, I've got a good plan I think:
  • Get a job when college finishes
  • Get some more hospital work experience
  • Work till Christmas
  • Go to Peru for volunteer work for 3 months
  • When I come back volunteer with vitalise for a week maybe a month
  • Take part in Camp America during the summer
  • And get into a medical school at some point
I need to look at timing better because of interviews and stuff. Not sure how to deal with it. Maybe leave a note in my personal statement although doubt I'll have the room. I'll phone up Queens Mary later and ask them about it...

8 comments:

  1. Its great you've got an action plan but grad med is a bad idea, its twice as competitive as normal med!

    It doesn't really work like that with Oxbridge. They're very statistical. Oxford put no of A*'s and your BMAT score into a formula to calculate who they will interview, they don't even look at your PS. Cambridge basically interview everyone, but one guy at my school got the same interview score as another girl and there was only one place for the two of them. He got rejected purely because he had lower UMS than her (by 5%).

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  2. Glad to see you found my blog, its still early days yet so not many people know about it.

    you sound like you have a pretty solid plan for your gap year. i'm sure you wont have much trouble getting in with your A levels under your belt. like phoebe said; graduate entry is best avoided if possible - not because of the competition but because of the expense! all the best.

    Gillian.

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  3. Cheers Phoebe. You seem to be a fountain of knowledge. Cost has been a main concern of graduate medicine. I've heard about the competitiveness but i'll definitely stay away now.

    Guess I've got no chance with Oxford then. Cambridge I might give a gamble, see how well I do in August.

    Gillian: I'm sure it'll get off the ground. I spread mine about so I can bounce ideas of people like this. Yeah, alot of people seem to get into med second time round because they have the grades there and then plus have learnt so much on what the admissions want.

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  4. Don't listen to those two about Oxbridge, if you went to an open day why didn't you ask them whether you have a chance? I found that the Oxbridge people are much more upfront about telling you not to apply, whereas in London they won't say anything. In fact someone I know was told he could apply with a C in Chemistry at GCSE, but then was rejected because of that. Also my interview at Oxford lasted 3 days and I stayed over 2 nights, during which I decided my college was crap and hence wasn't bothered to do well in the interview..

    Some places only look at 3 a-levels, so AAAB or even AAAC is ok. Lots of friends in London who got in with those.

    And by graduate entry do you mean 4 year or 5 year course. In the clinical years you can get NHS bursaries anyway, and for the 4 year you only have to pay for the first year (but theres a 5 grand college fee at Oxford). And if you're doing a science degree first there will be lots of time to work and earn some money.

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  5. Anon, I did ask them my GCSE grades met their requirements but at the time my AS grades were awful so they said I had no chance. I'd want to try next year though if I came out with AAA.

    I'm considering doing biomed degree at Queens Mary but not sure. Need to talk to them about transfer and places at the end of the degree on medicine course.

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  6. Just to add another two cents about Oxbridge, by all means apply if you think you can woop the BMAT. But its a tough route to go down and you might not want to throw away one of your four choices on a long shot.

    This time apply for a biomed degree etc as your back up, rather than somethiong thats quite specialised like paramedic science :)

    Ooh and apply to Liverpool, because if you have good GCSE's/good A-levels you're onto a winner. I don't know one person who they rejected, and I know a lot of medics.

    Don't lose faith, good luck with the revision :D

    PS I'm quite chuffed to be a fountain of knowledge. I was just seriously determined to know my stuff and grilled every admissions tutor I could find!

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  7. Oh my god, i can not believe that you have to take 11 exams, if was me, i go crazy, i can only take 5 exams, because i feel that my head go exploit, i wish you luck and when you finished your exams, tell me how did it go.

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  8. I do not know how works the TSR, i need that you explain me more about that because i want to implement that.

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