Tends to agree with you on this, as its selection processess/procedures are really demanding ..... having money only

is not enough to confidently gain entry.

This has already been long established!

you are wrong.....

coping academically is NOT the same as being there on merit....

anyone in the top 5% of a cohort can cope with the academic demands of the course....many in the 90-95 percentile can also cope....that is why most imu students are successful in completing their phase 2 in these countries.....

but being in the top 5% does NOT mean you have the merit to enter....it just mean you have the academic ability to undertake the course....

only 0.3% of the cohort will be selected into medicine in uk...therefore careful selection is required from the top 5-10%.....no, it is NOT a game of chance....it appears so to you because you do not know the criteria they use....all you see is someone with 3a not getting in, but another with the same result offered....if you know enough about human nature, you will know there is always the right person for any job....

what makes a good doctor?....this has been studied extensively, and while it is not perfect, the present method of selection is as good as it gets in selecting the right candidates....

and no.....money is NOT a criteria at all.....

I'll say out that money should the least deciding factor when pursuing medicine overseas, especially in UK. The number of international applicants to places in each medical university is roughly about 20 to 1. The selection process itself is highly evaluated and the decision to select a particular individual has to be reviewed a couple of times before being made.

The typical evaluation includes personal statement, UKCAT (not all), grades and the interviews themselves. In my university, the interview has been recently changed to the newer MMI (multiple-mini interviews), which i found more suitable in deciding one's ability to do medicine. The individual himself is tested upon basic common sense, empathy, passion, arithmetics and communication skills. These are highly important in regarding to being a doctor later.

So, overall the selection is really demanding and I'm really glad to be able to get into one at all.

Just my 2 cents.

Apparently the quota includes those transferring from IMU PMS which effectively will have significant reduction in the numbers going to UK.

How would you explain that most successful applicants ONLY received one offer and not multiple offers if you think that a successful applicant met the tough criteria as stated by you.Unless most of the universities has different criteria. MABECS has indicated that one is LUCKY if one manage to get one offer.

If you are talking about recruiting a CEO, there is only one main criteria. If you dont perform within 2 years, you have to walk through the door taking into consideration that the first year is a honeymoon year.

Since you have one offer, what do you think happened to the others.

I would assume that some of your answers to the questions posed were more acceptable to the successful one than the others.

Even those who made it to Oxbridge may not get offers from other universities.

I thought you knew this. I remember having had this discussion a couple of years back about each medical school having different selection criteria. If you follow TSR forums, you will see that while some of the locals do get more than one offer, the majority gets one and many more fail to get in, even after their second application cycle. They get feedback like "your non academic profile is less competitive than others" or something along those lines. What more to say for internationals competing for those 20+ spots?

This post has been edited by podrunner: Feb 25 2014, 10:04 AM

each university has their own philosophy on what kind of students they want.....thus they give different weightage to the different components of the selection process...(there are forums on this, to guide applicants to the 'right' panel of med schools to apply to)....

there are actually quite a lot of people who received multiple offers...personally, half the number of successful applicants i know had 2 or more offers....that is the reason why some first round candidate acceptance rate can be as low as only 70%....ie 30% had other offers which they preferred.....

if you only has one offer, it means you are a borderline applicant....there are so many other excellent candidates, academically and extra-curricularly.....and these stands out from the crowd, and will get multiple offers.....really the crème de la crème.....

This post has been edited by limeuu: Feb 25 2014, 11:05 AM

i should add that ucas only allow 4 choices.....and most people will use one of the 4 for an 'insurance' course.....so in reality, the maximum number of offers is 3....and there are people who got that....

We also use things similar to this when explaining our unsuccessful applicants!

Our main question, "Tell us why you deserve this job and how we benefit from you".

Yes, MAYBECS did say previously there are more than one offer but unfortunately not the past 2/3 years.

And also Sg seems to dominate the international places.

For other courses, majority will have multiple offers.

[quote=cckkpr,Feb 25 2014, 11:36 AM]
Yes, MAYBECS did say previously there are more than one offer but unfortunately not the past 2/3 years.

And also Sg seems to dominate the international places.

For other courses, majority will have multiple offers.

[/]

How does MABEC collate the data? do they obtain info from the British High Comm?

[quote=podrunner,Feb 25 2014, 01:40 PM]
[quote=cckkpr,Feb 25 2014, 11:36 AM]
Yes, MAYBECS did say previously there are more than one offer but unfortunately not the past 2/3 years.

And also Sg seems to dominate the international places.

For other courses, majority will have multiple offers.

[/]

How does MABEC collate the data? do they obtain info from the British High Comm?

[/quote]

I don't know because I did not ask.

As the Sunway College applications went through them, I went to seek more info on the number of places available for internationals, the place of interviews, the preference of Malaysian students and whether certain unis have a preference for Malaysians.

The counsellor was helpful but at the end of the session, we just walk way and she wish us Best of luck!

And for your info, University of Edinburgh used that tag line that you mentioned.

And I dont think British High Comm will provide such details as the college itself would have to get the details from the students.

At best, the counsellor would provide all the info we would already know. I doubt any unis would have a unique preference for Malaysians.. why would they? I doubt nationality makes an iota of difference to them. Maybe the "race advantage" is too ingrained in some of us..

Re tag line, not just Uni of Edinburgh, Liverpool and many others.

I know of cases a typical successful applicant to UK medical schools,say in the last 2 years, only received ONE offer

from among the Ucas choices of 4 Uni's.

Generally it fits in well with what cckkpr says, i.e "that it can be considered as a game of chance" , as far as I am

concerned.

Would be glad to hear from you , if yours is another real life case of receiving ONE offer only .....

This post has been edited by zeng: Feb 25 2014, 08:46 PM

Though I do not come across one personally , I do expect your statement in bold above applies to some , if not the

majority of successful entrants to Oxbridge medical schools .

I don't know where some people have heard that IMU is stopping PMS pathway, but I can tell you that this is definitely not true. This is one of the most deciding factor why many students choose to do medicine in IMU. This credit transfer provides a backdoor into the unis. Stopping PMS = Less Students = Less Money for IMU. (Although, the number of students and fees have been increasing steadily throughout the years) Remember, education is a business.

However, regarding PMS universities pulling out is a fact, and is due to a number of reasons: 1. Those universities have filled up their quota for international students. 2. The quality of IMU students who transfer are appalling(seriously, this is a true) 3. A number of PMS uni have change to graduate pathway(esp. Aussie)

For the UK universities, it's usually the 1st reason. There are a huge number of a 'certain type' of students transferring to UK, thus filling up the quota. It's not that they pulled out. They will reappear again in the PMS list, just not for a year(or maybe, two) to balance their local:international student ratio.

Please clarify "certain type" of students. Also, what do you mean by "balance their local:international student ration". It's not as if the international student population for medicine is anywhere near the local home population. Let's not be vague here.

the reason why many who got into oxbridge only get one offer is because of 2 reasons....

first, they need to do a different exam from the rest, the bmat....which is required by only 4 med schools....oxford, cambridge, imperial and ucl.....so many will just restrict themselves to these 4 top unis....unless they don't mind sitting for the ukcat as well....

the second is that oxford and cambridge has an agreement to NOT consider applicants who have first choiced one of them....so applicants apply either oxford or cambridge, but not both....that narrows down the choices further....