Supporting a young person through applying for medical school

If you’re a parent or supporter of a young person who dreams of becoming a doctor, you may be wondering what the best way would be to support them.

We’re here to help you, help them navigate each part of the application process with confidence.

Extracurricular activities

Encourage a wide range of extracurricular activities from Year 10 onwards

Sports, school clubs or artistic activities - having a broad range of interests isn’t just great for talking about on their personal statement, it is also helpful for encouraging your young person to unwind during the stressful exam and interview period, too. Encourage them to follow their interests and passions, and to pick activities that could develop leadership and teamworking skills to boost their application. Doctors need to be able to work as part of a team, communicate well and be disciplined, all of which can be demonstrated by participating in activities outside of their schoolwork.

Choosing a medical school

Start thinking about which medical schools they may want to apply to in Year 11 or 12.

Your young person may have a good idea already about where they would like to study – or they may just be passionate about medicine and becoming a doctor. You can support them by helping them make a shortlist of possible universities to apply to. Look at websites and Admissions policies, go to Open Days, speak to current students (Unibuddy is a great tool for this) and attend any webinars that each University may be hosting. Take a look at the Medical Schools Council website, which is very helpful for creating a shortlist of schools to look at in more detail.

At Open Days, it can be helpful to go in with a list of questions before your visit, based on what you and your young person have seen on the University website. After your visit, you could write down some notes about what your young person thought about the course, the student experience or the location, to look back on later.

Work experience

Start helping to arrange work experience as early as possible (before Year 12 if you can), to help support their application in Year 13.

Our advice for applicants is to find experience in a caring or service role, either paid or voluntarily, in health or a related field. Ideally your young person would gain work experience with the chance to observe patients or other health care professionals. A variety of different experience can be helpful.

Your young person’s Head of Sixth Form or careers advisor may have contacts who can help secure work experience. Alternatively, your local health board or hospital may have an Education Department who are best placed to help with this kind of request.

Work experience in health care settings can be tricky to find, so it’s worth thinking about any contacts you might have who work in health-related places including care homes, GP surgeries or hospitals and seeing if they would be willing to have your child shadow them.

Think creatively – hospitals are often oversubscribed with work experience requests, but volunteering in a local care home, hospice or pharmacy could offer just as many opportunities to gain evidence of empathy and professionalism. If they are keen to gain hospital experience, they’ll need to organise it extra early, as these popular placements get booked up well in advance.

After each period of work experience, it may be helpful to chat about what your young person learned from it and encourage them to make notes on their reflections. These will come in handy when writing their personal statement, and in medical school interviews.

UCAT

If your young person is intending on going straight from A levels to University, they’ll need to sit their UCAT in the summer between Years 12 and 13.

This medicine aptitude test is an admissions requirement for almost all UK medical schools. Your young person can only take it once per admissions cycle. They won’t be able to carry it over from one year to the next, so if they don’t get into medical school for whatever reason and want to reapply, they’ll have to take the test again. Every medical school uses the UCAT in a different way. You can find out how Cardiff University School of Medicine uses UCAT scores in our admissions process on our Admissions FAQ page and Admissions Policy. Researching how their chosen medical schools use the UCAT in their processes could help them apply strategically, depending on how well your young person performed in the test. Remind your young person that they’ll need to book the test – their school won’t do it for them!

You can help your young person to prepare for the test by helping them research the exam content and decide on an approach for revision, and how far in advance of the test to start revising. Helping them to find practice questions online and researching what the test is likely to cover together can be very helpful.

You will know how they best deal with stress – giving them plenty of opportunities to relax and do things they like to do outside of studying is really important, too. If they struggle to unwind, remind them of the importance of taking breaks for their mental health. Perhaps take them out for the weekend, or suggest a film to watch together to take their mind off studying.

MMIs

Start practising for MMIs as early as possible – especially after being invited for interview

The Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) is a key part of the application process for many UK medical schools.

MMIs may be held online or in person, and will consist of a number of timed stations where your young person will need to demonstrate their knowledge and aptitude for a range of different qualities and topics. Some stations may be written tests.

The best way you can help your young person with MMIs is to help them make time to prepare – list out their accomplishments and what their experience has taught them, as well as researching the kind of questions they may be asked. As the MMIs involve speaking, you can also help them by practising answering questions and timing them so that they become comfortable with answering questions within the time limit. It’s very normal to be nervous before the interviews, so encouraging them to take regular breaks and time for themselves to help manage their stress is also very important.

Keep trying

Medicine is a very popular subject throughout the UK, and there are often far more applications than places. Because of this, many successful medical students will have had to apply for a place more than once, even with a perfect academic record. Have a plan in place for the possibility that your young person may not make it into medical school on the first try. Having discussions about a Plan B can be very helpful – whether that’s looking at a different degree, trying for graduate entry, or taking a gap year before applying again.