University of Nottingham

When I first decided that i wanted to apply to Nottingham for a place in the Med School, I was strongly advised against it as my school claimed that they were biased against Northern Students and also students who had applied to Oxbrige. I hadn't however, but I was still a Northern lass. Anyway, I thought I would apply as I didn't have anything to lose.

Despite having sent a decent UCAS statement off, I couldn't help but become haunted by what the teachers had said. I waited for what seemed like ages for the questionnaire to come through. They send all Medical candidates this to 'assess their personality' and based on the results, they select the list for an interview. Personally, I thought that this was very harsh and also fairly pointless. Firstly, every question section in the questionnaire just reitterated what the UCAS statement said. You were also only allowed to write 20 words for each answer which was very tricky. Secondly, there was a section where you had to rate your personality.....such as ur skills at empathising or at studying. This was judged on a scale of 1 -10 and any fool would know never to put 10 all the way down. However, it is very hard to guage abilities like that and I thought to myself, if all the other universities select candidates on interview basis, why can't Nottingham?

Despite panicking me by sending me 3 letters to tell me to complete the questionnaire after i had already sent it, I was shortlisted for an interview. It was sheer relief because i had honestly expected what my teachers had told me to be true. So please follow your instincts. There is a lot of hype in the media about how you can't apply to certain universities if you have applied to Oxbridge or u can't apply to, err...say Edinburgh if you have blonde hair. Although some of it may be fact, theres no harm in trying. At the end of the day, if you are good enough, you'll get in.

The interview was a very scary experience. It was my first one and my head was saturated with thoughts of cloned sheep and test tube babies. Worse still, everyone around me had applied to Oxbridge and that was off-putting. in the interview itself, they operated a nice guy, nasty guy regime. the nice guy asked me some pretty routine questions. then there was a big pause and i thought that was a signal for me to leave. so i got off my seat and walked to the door but the nasty guy called me back! however, it went fairly well.

Medicine in Nottingham is a wonderful course from my point of view as it combines clinical experience from the beginning with basic lecture notes. From basically the first day, you are assigned a GP to attach yourself to (metaphorically!) To me, this is brilliant as I get patient contact from the start. This is essential as Medicine is just as much an Art as it is a Science. Communication is vital.

My point is this......don't let other people's previous experiences put you off from doing what you think is right.