How I Got Into Medicine With Bad A Levels (My Story) | PostGradMedic

hi everyone oli here and welcome back to the channel now firstly I need to apologize the title of this video is slightly clickbait II and I do apologize for that because I don't think the a-levels that I got were bad or poor as such but the point is I want people who are happy with their a-levels but still want to go to med school to be watching this video so it's you guys if you've fallen for the title as such that I want to speak to today so this video is going to be about how I ended up at medical school in the UK studying to be a doctor eventually despite not having the a-levels that you would normally need to get there that's what this video is going to be about so let's start right at the beginning my GCSEs let's start there this is a long time ago I'm now 22 years old so we're like seven years on six or seven years so my GCSEs I think work were pretty much a clean sweep a sand a stars with a couple of bees in there as well but point was I was doing pretty well at GCSE happy confident all going fine then a levels happened and a couple of things happened to me during a levels firstly I think I wasn't really ready for the the jump in the challenge of the content I was used to kind of being you know top of the class I hate that phrase but but doing pretty well in everything I went to not doing badly in everything I did badly in some things but I was not in that position anymore that I had been used to being in before I was maybe now middling something like that so just to clarify for my a-levels I chose biology physics chemistry maths further maths I wanted the core trifecta and I did maths and further maths on top because it was an option so I was doing five a-levels this was a very bad idea and some things I was doing outright badly and I was struggling was bad asking for help which was more of a pride thing the other major thing that was happening at that time was I was in a what I would call very toxic personal relationship at that time but my then-girlfriend I think there was a lot going on we both did things very wrong that was my first girlfriend though I didn't really know what was normal how to handle situations like that when things went wrong and trying to juggle that around already kind of struggling and not doing as well as I was used to doing this led in my first year to receiving a s levels of a B C C D so I got an A in general studies which considering I wanted to go to medical school was useless I think the B was in biology seeing chemistry D's in maths and physics and I had started with further maths and earlier in the year but I decided to drop it I just couldn't seem to hack it for whatever reason but because I got like an a-star in maths it seemed like a good idea just didn't work out and admittedly I didn't try as hard as I should have but just to repeat that in terms of the AAS levels that I actually received a B C C D now even if I was being really generous and my school was able to predict me to grades higher than than what I had so I could maybe have a a B if they were being super generous that obviously still wasn't enough to apply for medical school I felt really really downhearted at this time I thought the dream had gone and actually because these grades were so poor and again they they're not poor grades I know some people that would have been over the moon to get those grades this is no personal common or slice on anyone I just mean that in terms of what I wanted they were nowhere near close to enough you know you need three A's minimum for medical school in the UK and they just weren't close and I was so kind of devastated by this I decided not to apply to university that's all in that cycle I just thought you know what anything that I actually want to do I'm unlikely to be able to do with these grades that was actually badly thought out I'm sure I could have gotten onto some biology or bio med e-type course at some uni somewhere with the predicted grades I had but I just wasn't feeling it at that time wasn't very happy about it didn't apply to university at all but then somehow I managed to get it all together I had some really good kind of one-to-one conversations with my teachers at my six from school who to be honest should probably have the credit for kind of giving me a kick up the arse and keeping me going you know that they said we do believe in you we're happy for you to to carry on in our subjects and we'll let you do free retakes as well of of your first year but what this essentially meant is that I would carry on into year thirteen I dropped maths so at this point I've now dropped further maths and maths I'm carrying on biology chemistry physics as my three a-levels that I'm going to go forward with I can go into year thirteen studying those but the situation was that when I got to the exam period I would also sit the exams for biology chemistry and physics from the first year from year 12 as well so I'd be taking a double set of exams basically and this actually wasn't a problem for university reset policies because I was doing everything within the two-year period that you had to do your a-levels so I wouldn't fall prey to any rules or regulations on that and in order to to actually do better what I ended up doing was staying at school until about 6 o'clock every single night after school whenever I could do it so school normally let out at about half-past three I was doing another two or three hours at school on top of that just forcing myself to keep working and keep studying and I think this is really where I where I think I developed not the work the work ethic but but the ability to work hard I probably may never have developed that if it weren't for this situation but I was now really really working hard determined to do well not even necessarily to get into medical school but but just to do well and actually prove to myself that it could do it and I could make a difference and I actually have here I have no idea whether you'll be able to see that or not but my a-level certificates and what I have here in this folder this is my portfolio but I have my four a-levels that I achieved I got an A in physics and a in biology and a in general studies but a B in chemistry so was kneecapped right at the end but actually I'm happy with the a-levels I got I remember my teachers being so happy for me when I got those results because it had really gone from not that great to really in the ballpark of what I did want particularly considering where I'd started but what do I do now can't go into med school with those grades you need three A's I was really happy with my results particularly because of how things had gone I was in a really dark place in the first year but what I do now so results day I start frantically ringing around medical schools in the UK saying do you have any spaces left would you consider me with two A's and a B because they don't accept general studies and everywhere of course I've said no no no no no I hadn't done the UK cat either so really it was more a point of desperation for me at that time I wasn't really thinking too carefully but when I rang Newcastle the admissions person but I spoke to their said we don't ever have any places in medicine obviously however we do have a space on the molecular biology program and some students from that course have had look applying to graduate entry medicine before we know this is a route that people have done so would you be interested in applying for that and I said I guess yeah that sounds good because remember I haven't applied to university at all I had no you Cass account no personal statement no references no nothing but this wasn't a problem luckily there was this one space left on molecular biology which I took the woman on the other end then dealt with the whole thing I did have to get a reference written and just they could process my application I ended up going to my head of six forms house on the morning of his wedding anniversary for him to really quickly bash me out of a reference so I got the hole sent off it was all kind of dealt with very quickly I had to sort out accommodation and stuff very very rapidly but I ended up at Newcastle did my molecular biology degree I achieved a first through I mean both look and working hard and I did a load of things while I was there to try and boost my application to med school I did things like Nightline student mentoring volunteering worked a lot with the student newspaper The Courier which was probably the best thing I ever did during my undergrad and then applied for grad entry medicine as I'd finished my second year of the molecular biology degree when for my interview in January found out that I'd got into Warwick and then went in September and here we are a year later and this isn't going to be an overly long video but I just wanted to put it out there and to to kind of make this video to make sure people see it and I just really want to make it clear that even if things don't go to plan everyone has pitfalls you might not get the a-levels you want even if that happens there are always always ways into med school if you have any questions please leave them in the comment section down below please be sure to hit that like button for me subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more videos like this go and check out post-grad medic dot-com and my personal blog of life here at Warwick Medical School take care and I'll see you next time bye

Channel: Dr Ollie Burton

Views: 34,629

Keywords: ollie, burton, ollie burton, warwick medical school, leamington spa, postgradmedic, medicine, medical school, med school, vlog, blog, ollieplays, ollieguitar, graduate entry medicine, university, education, diary, graduate medicine, grad medicine, grad entry medicine, study, revision, neuroscience, anatomy, physiology

Id: 4AfbS154TPc

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 03 2018