Back-up Plan

Firstly, do not let this get you down! You have done so well to even apply, and it takes a lot of courage to do so!

Don’t think that because you haven’t had offers that it means that you will never get an offer.

There are a few options for you if you haven’t been successful in your applications for medical school.

1. Take a gap year and reapply

You can use this year to build on, and strengthen your application. If possible, contact the universities that you applied for to try and get some feedback. Whatever stage you got to, why was your application unsuccessful? You now have the year to improve it to make sure it doesn’t result in rejections in the future. Ask yourself: was it your GCSE’s, or A-Level predictions. Or was it your admissions exam. If you were rejected post interview, ask for feedback on your interview, and work on these skills for your next application. - ideas for improving your application: content and writing style of personal statement, your volunteering and work experience (could you volunteer somewhere new, or take a new approach with volunteering to learn new skills, think about how you can talk about these in your interview in the best way to highlight your skills).

2. Apply for an alternative course for your 5th option

As a medicine applicant you can only apply for 4 medicine programmes, however, with UCAS you are able to apply for 5 courses, so why not use your 5th choice for a different course? There are many options, some of the most popular are biochemistry and biomedicine, as well as some others like psychology. You could also apply for an allied healthcare course, such as nursing, midwifery or physiotherapy. If you decide to do this, there is always the option for you to do medicine as a graduate. There are specialist graduate degrees which are 1 year less than the standard degree. You often need to get a 2:1 or above to be eligible. However, the graduate degrees are extremely competitive- approximately 34 applicants for one place- and you can’t get funding by student finance so it has to be self-funded. However, if you are set on medicine, it’s a great option if you don’t get the grades first time, or if you want to do another degree first to make sure medicine is what you really want to do. There are 14 medical schools that have graduate courses, and for 9 of them you don’t even need a science related degree.

3. If you missed the grades, look at universities that do a foundation year

There are some medical schools that offer these, however they are very competitive and you normally can’t apply for both the standard undergraduate course and the foundation course. Some examples of universities that offer the foundation degree are: Bristol, Edge hill, Hull York, Southampton and St Andrews. These are just a few examples, there are many more. They are often called gateway to medicine courses. By doing them, you extend your degree by a year- so it will now be 6 years.

4. Look at studying medicine abroad

This can be quite an expensive option as you may not be eligible for student finance, but, degrees abroad often have a lower entry requirement and are less competitive. There are some English accredited degree programmes, the most popular one being Queen Mary London’s Malta medicine programme. It’s also a fantastic way to experience a new country. See link: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/undergraduate/coursefinder/courses/2022/medicine-malta-5-year-programme/