3 REASONS I GOT REJECTED FROM MEDICAL SCHOOL: WHAT NOT TO DO! IGCSE's,UKCAT,Interview | KharmaMedic

Summary

In this video, the speaker, Karma Medic, reflects on the reasons behind his initial rejection from medical schools and shares valuable advice for aspiring medical students. He discusses the importance of strategic university selection, the necessity of taking the UKCAT and BMAT seriously, and the need for thorough interview preparation. The speaker emphasizes the competitive nature of medical school applications and encourages persistence in pursuing a career in medicine, even after setbacks.

Takeaways

• 🏆 Apply strategically to medical schools, not just the most prestigious ones.
• 📚 High school grades are important, but they don't guarantee acceptance in medical school.
• 🔍 Research each university's specific cut-offs and preferences to tailor your application.
• 📉 Avoid applying only to the most competitive universities without considering safety options.
• 🧠 The UKCAT and BMAT are exams that can be prepared for and are crucial for medical school applications.
• 📈 Scores in the UKCAT can significantly impact your application, so dedicate time to prepare for it.
• 🗣️ Practice interviews are essential to build confidence and refine your responses for the actual interview.
• 💡 Focus on showcasing your motivations for medicine, not just your academic achievements during interviews.
• 🌟 Highlighting your personal experiences, volunteering, and shadowing can demonstrate your commitment to medicine.
• 😖 Nervousness can hinder performance in interviews, so practice controlling your nerves and presenting yourself eloquently.
• 🔄 If initial applications are unsuccessful, consider taking a gap year, gaining more experience, or pursuing another degree before reapplying.

Q & A

Why did the speaker feel that they were rejected from medical schools the first time they applied?

The speaker believes they were rejected due to three main reasons: applying only to the most elite and competitive universities without a strategic mix, not taking the UKCAT and BMAT seriously enough, and not being prepared and ready for the interview process.

What was the speaker's academic performance like during high school?

The speaker performed very well academically, achieving 10 A* grades and 1 A grade in their GCSEs, and was predicted 43 points for their IB, which is considered very good.

Why did the speaker apply only to the most prestigious medical schools?

The speaker had a false impression that because they had done exceptionally well in high school, they would continue to do so in the future and therefore applied only to the most elite and competitive universities.

What is the importance of applying strategically to medical schools?

Applying strategically is crucial because medical schools are extremely competitive. It involves considering one's grades, the universities' specific cut-offs, and applying to a mix of schools to increase the chances of acceptance.

What did the speaker do wrong in terms of university selection during their first application?

The speaker only applied to Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial, and King's College London without giving themselves any safety options, which led to not having a mixture of schools with more attainable offers.

How did the speaker's perception of the BMAT exam affect their preparation?

The speaker believed the BMAT was an exam that couldn't be studied for and determined intelligence, leading to insufficient preparation and an average score that didn't help their application.

What is the significance of the UKCAT in medical school applications?

The UKCAT is significant because many medical schools place heavy emphasis on it, using it as an easy way to set a cut-off and filter applications. A good score can help propel an application towards an interview.

What was the speaker's experience with their first medical school interview?

The speaker's first medical school interview at Cambridge was not successful. They discovered they were nervous in interviews, which affected their ability to present themselves eloquently and explain their motivations for pursuing medicine.

Why is it important to practice for medical school interviews?

Practicing for interviews is important to showcase one's motivations for medicine, understand ethics, and handle the pressure of the interview setting. It helps in controlling nerves and presenting oneself confidently.

What advice does the speaker give to those who want to pursue medicine but face initial rejections?

The speaker advises not to be put down by initial rejections. They suggest taking a year off, gaining more experience, doing another degree, and then applying again, emphasizing that medicine is still there when one is ready.

What did the speaker do after their initial rejections from medical schools?

After initial rejections, the speaker went to the University of Toronto in Canada to do an undergraduate degree in Immunology and Microbiology, and later applied to King's as a graduate student, where they were successful.

Outlines

00:00

🏥 Applying to Medical School: Lessons Learned

In this paragraph, the speaker, Karma Medic, reflects on their initial application to medical schools and the mistakes they made. They excelled academically in high school, achieving high grades in their exams and assignments. Despite having a predicted score of 43 out of 45 in their IB, they only applied to the most prestigious and competitive universities, such as Cambridge, Edinburgh, Imperial, and King's College London. This strategy, they realized, was flawed as it lacked a strategic approach and safety options. The speaker advises viewers to apply strategically, considering their grades and the specific requirements of each university, and to research each school's preferences and cut-offs to increase their chances of acceptance.

05:00

📚 The Importance of UKCAT and BMAT Preparation

The speaker discusses the second major mistake they made in their medical school application process: underestimating the importance of the UKCAT and BMAT exams. They initially believed that these exams were not something that could be prepared for, thinking that they would naturally perform well due to their high academic achievements. However, they soon realized that this was not the case. The UKCAT, in particular, is an exam that can be significantly improved with practice and dedication. The speaker emphasizes the need to set aside time for focused preparation, suggesting a month or even a few weeks, to ensure a high score. They also highlight the importance of reaching the interview stage, as this is often the most competitive part of the application process.

10:01

🗣️ Interview Preparation and Overcoming Nerves

The final paragraph focuses on the third point: preparing for medical school interviews. The speaker shares their personal experience of feeling nervous during their first interview at Cambridge, which affected their performance. They stress the importance of practicing interviews with friends, family, or even strangers to become comfortable with articulating one's motivations and experiences related to medicine. The speaker also advises against focusing solely on scientific subjects, as the interview is more about understanding the candidate's personal motivations, ethical considerations, and overall fit for the medical profession. They encourage viewers to research past interview questions and practice answering them, emphasizing the need to control nerves and present oneself eloquently during the actual interview.

🎓 Reflecting on Rejections and Future Opportunities

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker wraps up their discussion by encouraging viewers not to be discouraged by initial rejections from medical schools. They share their personal journey of attending the University of Toronto for an undergraduate degree in immunology and microbiology, and then successfully applying to King's College London as a graduate student. The speaker emphasizes that medicine is a field that remains accessible, and advises viewers to consider taking a gap year, gaining more experience, or pursuing another degree to strengthen their application. They end by inviting viewers to like, subscribe, and leave comments if they have any questions or thoughts on the topic.

Keywords

💡Medical School

Medical School refers to an institution that provides education and training for individuals pursuing a career in medicine. In the video, the theme revolves around the challenges and strategies for applying to medical schools, as the speaker shares their personal experience of being rejected and the lessons learned from that process.

💡Rejection

Rejection in this context refers to not being accepted into a medical school after applying. The speaker discusses their initial rejection from medical schools as a high school student, which is a central part of the video's narrative and serves as a cautionary tale for others applying.

💡Academic Performance

Academic Performance denotes the grades and achievements of a student in their studies. The script mentions the speaker's high academic performance in high school, including their GCSE and IB scores, which they initially believed would guarantee acceptance into medical school.

💡UKCAT

UKCAT stands for the United Kingdom Clinical Aptitude Test, a standardized test used in the application process for medical and dental schools in the UK. The video emphasizes the importance of taking the UKCAT seriously and preparing for it, as the speaker did not perform as well as expected, affecting their application outcome.

💡Strategic Application

Strategic Application involves a thoughtful and planned approach to applying to universities, taking into account one's strengths and the specific requirements of each institution. The speaker advises viewers to apply strategically, not just to prestigious schools, but to a range of universities that match their qualifications and increase their chances of acceptance.

💡Interview

An Interview in the context of medical school applications is a critical stage in the selection process where candidates are assessed on their motivations, experiences, and suitability for a career in medicine. The speaker discusses the importance of preparing for interviews and the impact of nerves on their performance.

💡Nerves

Nerves refer to feelings of anxiety or nervousness, which can affect performance, particularly in high-stakes situations like interviews. The speaker shares their personal struggle with nerves during their Cambridge interview, which hindered their ability to present themselves effectively.

💡Graduate Entry

Graduate Entry pertains to a route into medical school for those who have completed an undergraduate degree. The speaker mentions this as an alternative path to consider if initial applications are unsuccessful, as they themselves pursued further education before successfully applying to medical school as a graduate student.

💡Ethics

Ethics in medicine involve the moral principles that guide decisions and conduct in the medical profession. The script suggests that understanding ethics is important for medical school interviews, as it reflects on a candidate's ability to make sound judgments in medical practice.

💡Motivation

Motivation refers to the reasons and desires that drive an individual towards a goal. In the video, the speaker highlights the importance of having a clear and strong motivation for pursuing medicine, which is a key aspect that interviewers look for in medical school candidates.

💡Preparation

Preparation is the act of getting ready for a task or event. The video script repeatedly emphasizes the importance of thorough preparation for both the UKCAT and medical school interviews, as it can significantly influence the outcome of a candidate's application.

Highlights

Karma Medic shares personal experience on medical school application rejections.

Discusses three main reasons for initial rejection from medical schools.

Mistake of only applying to the most competitive universities without a strategic approach.

Importance of applying to a range of universities based on one's academic strengths.

Highlighting the competitive nature of medical school applications and the need for strategic application.

Advice on not applying blindly and considering safety options.

Recommendation to research individual university cut-offs and preferences.

Emphasis on the significance of the UKCAT and BMAT in medical school applications.

Dispelling the myth that the BMAT cannot be studied for and the importance of preparation.

Personal account of underestimating the UKCAT and the consequences on the application.

Advice on dedicating time to prepare for the UKCAT to excel in the exam.

Importance of the interview stage in medical school applications and preparation strategies.

Tips for showcasing motivation and suitability for medicine during interviews.

The challenge of nerves during interviews and techniques to manage them.

Encouragement to not be deterred by initial rejections and to consider alternative paths.

Personal story of attending the University of Toronto and successfully reapplying to medical school.

Final advice on the importance of persistence and preparation in medical school applications.

Transcripts

what is up guys karma medic here and

welcome back to another dose Oh almost

episode without teeth much better what

is up guys karma medic here and welcome

back to another dose today I want to

talk about the three reasons why I

believe I was rejected from medical

schools the first time I applied when I

was leaving high school hopefully you

can hear what I have to say and take my

advice that you don't make the same

mistakes that I did when I was applying

and hopefully that helps in getting you

guys and acceptance to medical school

okay so when I was in high school I

always did really well on all of my

exams all of my assignments my homework

whatever the rest of it I was pretty

studious and I always strive to perform

the best that I could academically and

so when I finished my GCSEs I think I

had 10 a stars and 1 a and that a was in

biology surprisingly enough but even

with my IB I was predicted 43 points

when I went to apply for medical school

now 43 points out of 45 as I'm sure a

lot of you know is pretty good

so with those grades I felt like I could

apply to all the most prestigious you

needs all the most difficult unions to

get into and that I would totally be

fine so that's the first thing that I

did wrong I only applied to the most

elite the most difficult the most

competitive universities that I could

think of and the reason I did that was

because I was under a false impression

of having done super well in my high

school years that I thought if I had

applied to these great unions that since

I've been doing so on the past I'll

probably still do well in the future and

I'm gonna be fine now the thing when it

comes to applying to medical schools

after high school is that they're

extremely extremely competitive as I'm

sure you already know and because of

that you really need to apply

strategically you can't just apply to

whatever schools you feel like whatever

you think is the coolest school

unfortunately you need to look at your

grades you need to look at the

universities and apply strategically you

apply to your own strengths to increase

your chances of getting accepted so when

I applied out of high school I applied

to Cambridge Edinburgh Imperial and

King's College London now the stupid

thing about that was that I didn't give

myself any safety options I only applied

to schools that would give me offers

which were extremely extremely high and

I didn't have a mixture of other schools

that would give me more safe offers in

case the future didn't go so well make a

list of all the medical schools in the

UK and really there aren't that many

there's something somewhere between 20

and 30

schools I believe just make a list of

all the medical schools and you can

start eliminating with them one by one

logically and strategically once you

know what your own grades are or what

your predicted grades will be you need

to go to each individual University and

look at their specific cut-offs if they

state that you need a UK account of at

least 700 to apply then don't apply if

you have less than 700 and if they state

that you need two a's and one a star in

your predicted grades you have anything

less than that then don't apply you want

to make sure that you apply to schools

where your grades on your background is

most strategic and is most applicable

for example if you don't end up with

such a great UK cats war then you

haven't watched my videos but you turn

end up with such a great UK cat score

then you want to apply to medical

schools that don't put huge emphasis on

the UK cap as you do research you'll

find that some schools prefer some parts

of the application over others for

example some schools will say that the

Dookie cat is a very important part of

their application I'm more specifically

in the situation the situational

judgment section whereas other schools

will say we don't really care about the

situational judgment section we care

more about the other three scores and if

you look even further you might find

that some schools place heavy emphasis

on GCSE grades whereas other schools

just use them as a baseline cutoff the

point I'm trying to make here is that

every school is different I can't sit

here and tell you one blanket statement

that will help you choose which you need

to apply to every single University has

their own preferences their own cut-offs

and you need to do that research to

figure out what is best for you if

you're a mature student or someone who's

how to previous degree so you're gonna

enter medicine through graduate entry

then that's something you also want to

look into there are some medical schools

that will take in more graduate entry

medicine students than others you can

also look at the previous year's

admissions data this should all be

publicly available information and if

you do your research well enough you'll

find it other things you can do to help

are look online on forums for people

talking about the school itself from

previous years maybe they have

information to share about the interview

process or something that they like or

dislike about the school and that can

help you make your choices - so anyways

I feel like I'm rambling the first point

is don't apply blindly to schools I

ended up getting three straight

rejections and then one interview from

Cambridge I went to my Cambridge

interview but it didn't really go so

well and so I ended up with

or total rejections now moving on to

point number two point number two is

that I didn't take the UK cat and the B

map seriously enough now you might have

heard from a lot of people that you kick

on the Bema is an exam that you can't

really study for it's an exam that you

just have to take and it determines how

clever you are that is not the case at

all the UK cat most especially is an

exam that you can learn how to do it's

an exam that you can absolutely excel at

to practice and through exposure to

questions and just time dedication a lot

of medical schools place heavy emphasis

on the UK count and they do that because

it's very easy for them to set a cut-off

and get rid of any applications that

place below that cutoff so the UK cap

when it came to study for the UK count

in 2013 when I was applying to medical

schools late 2012 or early 2013 I

definitely didn't take it as seriously

as I should have

I just thought that since I had been

doing so one in high school again I had

43 prediction for IB I felt like I knew

all of my academic stuff very well I

thought that I would just spend some

time practicing for the UK can do a

couple practice questions and I would do

just fine and that's not what happened

at all so please take the time to

prepare for the UK cat set-aside a good

chunk of time you only really need a

month maybe a month in a week a month in

two weeks if you want to be extra safe

but set aside that time and work hard

during is that you can perform really

well I ended up scoring pretty much

exactly average on the UK cap and so

that didn't really help my application

in any way it didn't exclude me from any

of the cuddles

but it also didn't propel me and make me

more likely to get an interview and

really the hardest part about these

medical school applications is getting

to the interview the interview I find is

the most competitive part once you reach

the interview you're out of like 30 40

or even sometimes 50% chance of getting

accepted so getting to the interview is

the hardest part in my opinion yes

moving onto number three number three is

talking about how to prepare for and be

ready for the interview so once you've

already applied for TG CLE to schools

based on your strengths once you've

already studied for and taken the UK car

and hopefully smashed it now you've

gotten an interview and you need to

prepare for that now interviews

especially at the young age of 1718 can

seem like a really really scary thing

and trust me I know but that doesn't

mean that you shouldn't take the

to prepare for and be as ready as you

can the interview is an absolutely great

way to showcase to all of the medical

admissions people how much you care

about medicine how motivated you are and

how much you want to get in and you can

do this in a multitude of ways you'll

mostly be talking about your past

experiences you'll talk about any

volunteering and care work or shadowing

that you've done and these will all

bring out of you your motivations for

medicine and why you are a perfect

candidate to get admitted to their

school now for some people talking in

front of others or explaining themselves

their motivations their justifications

comes very easily and they have no

problem doing that for others it's gonna

be a little bit more difficult and

something that you can definitely

improve upon with practice now for me I

like to think of myself as a really

social person I have no problem getting

along with others I've know from talking

to and meeting new people but it's

something about the interview setting

that gets me really really nervous and

puts me in a different headspace since I

haven't done an interview before when I

went to my first medical school

interview at Cambridge this all kind of

hit me like a bus and all in one go and

I sort of discovered that I'm a nervous

person in interviews I discovered that I

tend to swell law I get really shaky my

voice starts to crack and these were all

very bad things to discover for the

first time during my interview when you

want to do to avoid this is get as much

practice interview as you can afford the

real one at your medical school you want

to practice with friends you want to

practice with family you want to

practice with even strangers who are

also doing the medicals qualification

who also have interviews you guys can

sit down and practice together and you

can go through these experiences and see

what you do before you're actually in

the interview room also don't do what I

did and just study biology and chemistry

and like scientific subjects the

interview for the most part is about you

who you are as a person and your

motivations to pursue medicine also your

understanding of ethics and the

different factors that come in to

certain medical procedures or decisions

yes you need to know your biology in

your chemistry but that's not the most

important thing because that's something

you can easily learn when you're at

university however your motivations to

pursue medicine the reasons why you want

to do medicine those are things that are

innate to you and those are things that

they can teach you once around medical

school so that's something they really

want to focus on and they want to

make sure that you're in it for the

right reasons so before you go to your

interview do a lot of googling do a lot

of searching for past example questions

things that can start getting you to

think about your reasons for wanting to

do medicine and if you do all that

practice when it comes to interview day

you should be ready for any questions

thrown at you and don't worry guys I'm

gonna make a whole separate video about

the interview process how to tackle

certain questions I'm trying to answer

them to the best of your abilities and

last but not least for the interview

something that's really important to me

and I know that it might be important to

some of you guys watching as well but

it's so so so important to learn to

control your nerves to learn to retain

your composure and be able to eloquently

present yourself when you're in

interview for me when I stepped into the

interview room my honesty I became a

different person I was incapable of

explaining myself properly I wasn't

capable of getting my thoughts across

and that's something that really

hindered me long term so yeah that's my

little bit about nerves it's the worst

thing when you actually feel confident

you feel like you know your stuff but

then nerves get in the way if you can

practice that and try and eliminate that

from one of the problems during

interviews not be absolutely amazing I

just wanted to get that out there talk

about the three things that I thought

led to me getting rejections when I

applied to medical school as a school

leaver of course after that I went to

the University of Toronto in Canada to

do my undergraduate degree in immunology

and microbiology and then I applied to

King's again as a graduate student and I

ended up getting in so if you really

want to do medicine don't be put down by

the first round of applications if it's

something you really want to do you can

always take a year off you can always

gain more experience you can always do

another degree and then you can still

apply medicine isn't going anywhere

it's still there when you apply and you

can still get in alright and I think

that's it if you enjoyed this video feel

free to leave a like if you want to see

more videos from me feel free to

subscribe to this channel and yeah I

hope to you guys in the next one you

have any questions if you have any

comments leave them down below I'll be

having a great day and happy preparing

for your UK cat and your applications

and all the rest of it alright guys I'll

see you in the next one peace