15 September 2009

Good A-Level Subjects for Medicine and My Birthday!

Hey guys! Hope you've all had a great back to school/Sixth Form/College :D

Okay so most of you will have already started your new subjects, but I still thought I should do a post on what sort of A-Levels are best, and basically what's required for most Uni's, you can always change it's early!!
I'm HOPING it won't be as long as my last post cause it's my birthday day in 16 minutes!! :)

So basically pretty much all of them need 2 A-Level subjects in Maths/ the Sciences (this excludes Psychology and AS Levels), and one of those 2 HAS to be Chemistry, there is no getting around this, there are very few Universities not require Chemistry A-level, and you would be restricting your application severely.

Most of them would like you to have at least AS Biology, and if not you must have a achieved a very good pass at GCSE. I would suggest taking Biology to A2 though, as medicine is a pretty Biology-intensive subject; if you don't like Biology you won't enjoy medicine. Also some Universities do have A-Level Biology as a requirement, so you might as well cover all your bases.
Maths is a good one as well, especially for the quantitative calculations and stats analysis you'll encounter in your degree. However I would advise you NOT to take Further Maths, quite a few Universities do not accept Further Maths, and it will add unnecessary stress to your application. 
Physics is pretty impressive and also a good substitute if your not much of a Biologist or if Maths brings up tortured memories. It is handy for understanding the instruments used for imaging, and just generally improving you as a scientist.
But remember you still need to comfortable with all these subjects cause they will feature in any Medicine degree!

NOTE OF CAUTION: Be careful when choosing a "softer" subject for your 3rd/4th A-level - Universities have been known to discriminate against people with subjects such as business studies, film studies, textiles etc. Oxbridge published a list at one point of which subjects were acceptable, and the University of Birmingham, for example, expects 4 A's at AS if a subjects such as Psychology, PE or Sports science is being taken with Biology.
Some Universities now even have written on their website "call us if you are unsure about the unsuitability of a subject", so just ask! 

Now some Universities prefer students to be very specialised, for example Cambridge is known for preferring mainly sciences from it's Medicine students, with some colleges even requesting 3 science/Maths subjects at A-Level, and 97% of their applications of their applicants have all 3 (as of 2012).
Only problem with using this system is that Universities obviously don't advertise this on their prospectus' or website! (Apart from UCL, which I think now actually puts in its prospectus "Students with a language of arts A-level will be looked upon favourably").

It's all by word of mouth, and this can be fairly difficult to find if the University you're interested in is not-very well known, so I recommend either looking at the requirements and making an educated guess, (e.g. "We like students with many talents who are well-rounded" = Range of subjects) and ("We prefer candidates to have a exceptional knowledge in the science they are not providing at A2" = Specialised).
Often this can't be done, and in that case make sure you've got at least your 2 including Chemistry, and then just do stuff you like :).

Okay I know this is fairly short and specific to University (some like certain subjects and Scottish Universities can be a little fussy because they do a different Qualification up there), buttttt it's officially my birthday :) and I think I should go to bed/read/be very happy/make a futile attempt to wipe the grin of my face :D
See ya laters peeps!!!!!!
I'M 17!!!!!
xxxxx
P.S. I may do a longer more comprehensive version later, and I will soon be doing a post about applying for volunteering posts, but for now, I'm gonna enjoy Florence & The Machine while being 17 ;)

8 comments:

  1. Hey Tanith. I assume you're applying for med this year? How comes you're so clued up on everything? :D I've applied for med this year. Too bad you didn't have your blog around a year ago! :( You've got some good stuff here though :)

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  2. Oh and belated happy birthday!:D:D

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  3. No I'll be applying next year :) Im only in Y12 now
    Erm I don't know! :D I just seem to have picked things up over the year :S
    Good Luck with your application! where have you applied??

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  4. What you said about Oxford is false. Oxford prefers people with 3 or more sciences at AS/A-level, just as Cambridge do for their medicine course.

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  5. Hey, I'm in a really tied up situation with choosing a-levels. At the moment I've chosen Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Maths. I'm not really a fan of biology and I feel this disinterest will affect my grades - the only part I like about it is genetics and neurology. I also think my subjects are too science related; is this bad because it doesn't show me as having a variety of skills? Ideally I would like to have something different - e.g. replacing Biology with Music. I love music and am doing really well in it at gcse. But I'm really unsure if this is the right choice...
    I've always been interested in neuroscience, will I need biology a-level to go into it (considering I already have 2 science subjects)? I also love the field of astronomy/physics/astrophysics that kind of stuff so I will definitely need physics and maths if I choose to go into that field. The employment in medicine is high but I'm not sure about the employment in physics, especially the field I'm interested in.
    Right now I'm not sure on what to do, sorry for the long message, any advice?

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  6. I'm in year 10 but my teachers think that I would be good at chemistry, biology and english literature because I'm doing that level of work now. Would universities accept me for medicine with those because I think I could do okay in them.
    Thank you

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  7. what can I say. This blog is so perfect. There is so much advice on here that is wonderful. Thanks so much.(:

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  8. hello..is it realky necessary for me to do physics if i want to be a gynaecologist?

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