Applying To Birmingham Medical School

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What this guide to applying to study Medicine at Birmingham Medical School covers

This medical school profile provides key information relevant for applying to study Medicine at Birmingham Medical School. We list the Medicine courses on offer at Birmingham Medical School. We then move onto the entry requirements for studying Medicine at Birmingham Medical School. This includes how Birmingham Medical School uses applicants UKCAT results; the interview process at Birmingham Medical School; how Birmingham Medical School uses Medicine personal statements and other key details and statistics that will help you to apply to study Medicine at Birmingham Medical School. Then, we cover tips on how to write a Medicine personal statement for Birmingham Medical School and tips on how to pass the Birmingham Medical School MMI interview.

Courses on offer at Birmingham Medical School:

  • Standard Entry Medicine (5 years). UCAS course code A100
  • Accelerated Graduate Entry Medicine (4 years) UCAS course code A101

The competition for offers for a place to study Medicine at Birmingham Medical School:

5-year Standard Entry Medicine Course:

Number of applicants per interview: 2 (home/EEA) 4 (international)

Number of applicants per place: 6 (home/EEA) 19 (international)

Birmingham Medical School state that they interview around 1200 applicants and give approximately 850 offers to study their five year Medicine degree. They have approximately 360 places.

4-year Accelerated Graduate Entry Medicine Programme:

Number of applicants per interview: 7 (home/EEA only)

Number of applicants per place: 20 (home/EEA only)

International Applicants to study Medicine at Birmingham Medical School

Birmingham Medical School welcomes applications from international students for its standard five-year Medicine programme. International students cannot apply to Birmingham’s accelerated Graduate Entry Medicine programme. This is only open to applicants from the European Economic Area (EEA) which includes the UK.

Graduate Entry Medicine at Birmingham Medical School:

Birmingham Medical School offer an accelerated four-year Graduate Entry Medicine programme open to home students only. This includes students from the EEA. It is only available to candidates who hold a first or high 2:1 degree in a life science degree and who have achieved a minimum of ABB at A-level. Graduate applicants applying to the standard entry Medicine course have more flexibility in the type of degree that is accepted but the A-level requirements are higher as a result.

You will notice that Birmingham Medical School places a high emphasis on academic criteria and focuses on pre-degree grades more so than many other Graduate Entry Medicine programmes at other medical schools. One of the reasons for this is because Birmingham Medical School does not use an admissions tests for Graduate Entry Medicine applicants. As a result, if you have a strong application and a good degree but weaker A-levels and GCSE results then your application may be more competitive at a different medical school.

See our free guide to applying to Medicine as a graduate for more information on Graduate Entry Medicine. This is a comprehensive guide and includes topics such as fees, funding, deciding on Graduate Entry Medicine, choosing between four-year programmes versus standard entry Medicine programmes and more. We also have a comprehensive and entirely free guide on how to write a Graduate Entry Medicine personal statement.

Course structure at Birmingham Medical School:

The course structure at Birmingham Medical School takes the form of an integrated Medicine curriculum. This is the most common course structure for UK medical schools. It means that clinical concepts and basic Sciences are taught together instead of the traditional (and now rare) approach of separating the teaching of the sciences with the teaching of Clinical Medicine. Integrated curriculums means that medical students can see how the sciences that they learn relate to how patients present.

A wide range of teaching methods and settings are used at Birmingham Medical School. These include lectures, seminars, lab work, bedside teaching, clinical teaching, small tutorials, peer group learning and self-study. Birmingham Medical School employs some use of enquiry-based learning (EBL). EBL shares many similarities with the more widely known, Problem Based Learning (PBL), which Birmingham Medical School also uses. In EBL, instead of just being taught and told what to learn, students set their own learning objectives. This process is well supervised, so it is a common myth that PBL or EBL leaves students alone. This is not the case. Birmingham Medical Schools use of EBL, and PBL develops skills in teamwork, communication, self-directed study and self-reflection.

Contact hours at Birmingham Medical School.

The following is the approximate contact hours for the 5-year Medicine programme at Birmingham Medical School according to them as of 2019. If a student were to intercalate, their contact hours would be different while they are intercalating.

  • In the first-year, Birmingham medical students can expect approximately 10.5 hours of scheduled teaching, 23 hours of independent study and 4 hours of placement per week.
  • In the second-year, Birmingham medical students can expect approximately 13 hours of scheduled teaching, 21 hours of independent study and 4 hours of placement per week.
  • In the third year, Birmingham medical students can expect approximately 4 hours of scheduled teaching, 12 hours of independent study and 20 hours of placement per week.
  • In the fourth year, Birmingham medical students can expect approximately 2 hours of scheduled teaching, 12 hours of independent study and 24 hours of placement per week.
  • In the fifth year, Birmingham medical students can expect approximately 3 hours of scheduled teaching, 9 hours of independent study and 25 hours of placement per week.

Intercalation at Birmingham Medical School

Birmingham Medical School allows students who gain a good standard in their medical school exams the opportunity to intercalate. Many medical schools give their students the chance to intercalate, and it is a popular option. We discuss this further in our free blogs. Intercalation allows students to interrupt their medical studies and gain a degree in a chosen subject and then return to the Medicine degree.

Electives at Birmingham Medical School

As with other medical schools, the Birmingham Medical School course structure incorporates a compulsory elective. A two-month elective is part of the latter stages of the Birmingham Medicine degree where students study Medicine in a different setting. This can be in the medical school, elsewhere in the UK or as most students choose, abroad.

Open days at Birmingham Medical School

Birmingham Medical School open days are a good chance for you to see the medical school yourself and to hear from staff and students. A Birmingham Medical School open day also provides you with a good chance to explore the city for yourself.

Entry Requirements for Birmingham Medical School 5-year Medicine programme:

The Medicine entry requirements at Birmingham Medical School place a high emphasis on academic grades both in the standard and Graduate Entry Medicine courses. In particular, Birmingham Medical School selection process to decide who is offered an interview place a high emphasis on GCSE results. GCSE results make up 60 per cent of the score to determine who is offered an interview at Birmingham Medical School. The UKCAT makes up the other 40 percent. Personal statements are reviewed but not scored. AS and A-levels are not scored either.

You must carefully understand the entry requirements for Birmingham Medical School before you make an application there. Below are some headline details about the entry requirements for Birmingham Medical School for 2019 entry. You can see the full information on their prospectus or website.

A-Level requirements for Birmingham Medical School: The standard offer to study Medicine at Birmingham is A*AA including Chemistry and Biology. The A* can come in any of the accepted subjects. Predicated grades must be AAA at A-level. There are different requirements for candidates who study four A-levels instead of three.

GCSE requirements for Birmingham Medical School: GCSE grades will make up 60 per cent of the number of points to decide which candidates receive an interview at Birmingham Medical School. The other 40 per cent comes from the UKCAT scores. See the medical schools website for details of how Birmingham medical school calculates scores for GCSEs.

Admissions tests – how does Birmingham Medical School use UKCAT scores?

Birmingham Medical School requires the UKCAT from applicants to its five-year standard entry Medicine course. No admissions test is used in the four-year graduate entry Medicine programme at Birmingham Medical School. For 2019 entry the UKCAT scores count for 40 per cent of an applicants score for interview selection. The other 60 per cent comes from GCSE results.

Because A-levels are not scored, and the personal statement is reviewed but not scored, the UKCAT (and GCSE results) are a very important part of an application to Birmingham medical school. For more information about the UKCAT and how to prepare for the UKCAT, see our free comprehisive UKCAT guide and FAQ.

How Does Birmingham Medical School use the Medicine personal statement?

Birmingham Medical School use the Medicine personal statement in their application process. It does not formally score the Medicine personal statement to decide whom to interview, but states candidates’ personal statements must showcase relevant work experience and provide evidence of significant extra-curricular involvement.

Tips on how to write a successful Medicine personal statement for Birmingham Medical School

  • Read our entirely free guide, how to write a Medicine personal statement in 10 steps. This will take you from step 1 – with no plan and nothing written down, all the way to step 10 – a completed excellent personal statement ready for you to submit to UCAS. Read More
  • See our free full analysis of a successful Medicine personal statement which gained offers for an interview from all four medical schools (and subsequently four offers of a place). We analyse why this Medicine personal is effective and how you can learn from this in writing you own Medicine personal statement. Read More
  • Medicine personal statement review services are offered by various companies. They are not essential so do not believe any company that tells you otherwise. However, services by competent providers can add real value to your Medicine application. When looking at providers ensure that they are by experts in Medicine admissions and have professional skills in editing and reviewing. Medicine Answered provide an excellent medical school personal statement review service with a unique level of expertise. A professional editor and then a doctor (who received all four offers to study Medicine) will examine the personal statement line by line and make the appropriate corrections. After making sure the grammar and writing are flawless, they will also comment on the overall strength of the application and make suggestions of things which may be asked at your Medicine interview based on your medical school personal statement. Read More

What type of interview does Birmingham Medical School use?

Birmingham Medical School typically interviews around 1200 students for its five-year Medicine programme and gives approximately 850 offers. For the accelerated Graduate entry Medicine programme, Birmingham Medical School usually interviews around 100 Graduate students. Birmingham Medical School uses MMI interviews. For 2019 entry Birmingham MMI Medicine interviews are comprised of 7 MMI stations each lasting 6 minutes. There is a two minute preparation time outside the station where candidates read information relating to the MMI station. For 2019 entry, the seven MMI stations for Birmingham Medical School interviews are as follows:

  1. Ethics station

  2. Motivation and insight into Medicine: Challenges faced by practitioners

  3. Data interpretation station

  4. Interactive task: engagement with a student

  5. Motivation and insight into Medicine: Personal attributes

  6. Dealing with personal and ethical challenges

  7. Interactive task: role play

Note you will start from any of the MMI stations, not necessarily station one.

Tips for passing a Birmingham Medical School MMI interview

Success at a Birmingham Medical School MMI interview (or at any other medical school interview) is not random. It involves a tried and tested set of steps that you can also follow:

  • A strategic plan on how to prepare for your Medicine interview – This is covered in our free guide on how to prepare for your Medicine interview in seven steps. Read More
  • Learning key Medicine interview strategies – We have plenty of free articles covering Medicine interview strategies as well as a free database of real Medicine interview questions with examples of full competent answers, analysis, and advice on how to approach these Medicine interview questions. Read More
  • We also have a free guide to Medical Ethics and blog articles such as how to deal with hostile interviewers & MMI actors, how to answer opinion questions and more. Read More
  • Avoiding common medical school interview pitfalls – See our free guide on common medical school Interview pitfalls and how to avoid them. Read More
  • Intelligent, reflective medical school interview practice – Use our free exclusive database of medical schhol interview questions and answers. Read More
  • Execution on the interview day – Preparation and practice are one part of success. The other part is peak performance and execution on the day. Read our free article about dealing with nerves before and during your medical school interview. Read More

If you prefer a face to face approach, Medicine Answered also provide excellent doctor delivered one-day medical schhol interview courses as well as one to one private tutoring online or in person. All of our courses and tutoring are delivered only by doctors who passed all four of their Medicine interviews. For more information see our Medicine interview course page.