How I Got Into Oxford Medicine as an International Student | My Oxford Story

hi there in today's video i'll be sharing how i got into oxford medicine as an international student so if you've watched my previous videos you may know that i'm a first year medical student at the university of oxford and i'm from singapore so that's quite unconventional and a lot of people have been asking me how i did it how i got in and why i chose oxford medicine instead of staying in singapore so first i would like to start off with my goals my dreams and my aspirations personally the reason why i chose oxford medicine is because i really wanted a different university experience i've always wanted to go overseas for university and i really enjoy the academic rigor and the intellectual stimulation that oxford offers oxford has ranked the best university in the world for medicine according to most rankings in most years i was just really hoping to aim for something higher to aim for something that seemed perhaps impossible or out of my reach but something that would make me very happy will make me feel like i really achieved something great of course this is very much a personal choice if you actually want to just be a good doctor no matter where you study medicine no matter which medical school you go to you will be able to become a good doctor as long as you have the knowledge and skills that allow you to practice medicine so it's really not something that a lot of people would recommend although people would do especially if you're very sure that you want to practice in singapore in the future it's much easier if you stay in a local medical school because you get early exposure to the healthcare system the reason why i think i chose to go overseas is really just for the experience a unique experience a different experience to me what matters most in life is not just becoming a good doctor it's not just medicine although that is my primary goal i want my life to reflect something that is more exciting that is broader and with a wider range of experiences and i think an overseas education will offer me that different experience so if you look at previous year's statistics first of all there is a crow tower for a maximum of 14 international students every year for oxford medicine that is 14 out of about 150 that they accept every year so that is a very very small proportion a very small percentage that get in as international students i'm talking about medicine here so this may not apply to other subjects and if you look at past year's admissions data usually about five or six people from international backgrounds get in touch with medicine every year which means that it's really really difficult no matter how good your application is no matter how strong of an applicant you are there will be some parts that depend on luck that depend on just how things go during the application itself for me it was always a dream like an oxford dream perhaps it was influenced by my personal experiences i came to the uk on an inversion trip when i was 16 and that really had a huge impact on me i really really fell in love with oxford the first time i came here and also just the reputation itself was a pull factor i'm someone who when i decide to do something i will just go for it with all of my heart and with all of the willpower and the ability that i have without looking back when i set my mind on something there is no looking back and that is how it was for me when i decided to apply to oxford of course i did have my fair share of fears and doubts as well but during the application process there is literally nothing to lose it's very easy for you to just apply because the applications are open to anyone and everyone you just need to submit an application online and whether or not you get invited to the interviews it's up to the admissions offices to decide but for you there is nothing to lose except maybe several pounds in the application fees but that is really nothing compared to what you have the potential to gain and so for me what i thought was that i have nothing to lose so i might as well just try and see whether i can get it and at the end of the day i don't it's just another experience in my life but if at the end of the day i do then i have the power to decide whether or not i want to accept my offer one more thing that's unique to oxford when submitting your ucas application is that you have to choose a college so as some of you may know oxford university is not just a whole big campus by itself it is actually split into many many different colleges and each of the colleges have their own campus their own buildings and that's something that's very cool about oxford is that it's like spread out throughout the whole city and you have to choose a college when you apply the main consideration i had when choosing college was because i wanted to apply for one of the only scholarships that exist for certain oxford and cambridge colleges for people from certain countries that scholarship is called the jardine scholarship which i didn't end up getting so there were four oxford colleges i believe that were possible choices but i chose iceland mostly from just my impression of it online because there was no other way that i could have known which would be the best college for me i know that when other people choose they may take into consideration a lot of other factors like the tutors that teach your subject you can actually google it and you can find their profiles online or there are other considerations as well the cost of recommendation is very different across each college the facilities can be very different like whether they have a kitchen whether they have on-site accommodation for all years of your study and of course there's also the location how close or far is to the city center which college is easier to get into i believe that it doesn't really make a difference at the end of the day it still depends a lot more on how you perform in your interviews and in your application rather than which college you choose but when i was choosing exeter i didn't actually think so much the main reason i chose it was because i liked its crest the design of his crest i like the colors and i just like the vibe that it gave me when i visited his website and when i looked at photographs online i just liked the vibe that it gave me and i guess i made the right choice it doesn't really matter at the end of the day i would say because you will grow to love your college you will come to love your college no matter which college you get into and at the end of the day you are getting into oxford which is such a good thing in itself so now i'll move on to the important part which is understanding the application process the medicine application process or the oxford medicine application process is fairly straightforward although it is a long process but it's mainly just composed of three components the first is the ucas application which includes your personal statement the second is the bmats the biomedical admissions test which is an admissions test that a lot of medical schools require especially medical schools in the uk and the third part is the interviews i do have a range of more specific videos and blog posts with tips and my experience of the application process of each component of the application process so if you're applying you may want to check that out for today i'm just going to do a very brief review and a very quick summary the first part is ucas that is where you submit your grades or your predicted grades and your portfolio and your achievements online and it also includes a personal statement so everything is done online it's very straightforward the ucas website has a step to step guide and even video guides for you to follow some schools also have their own guides for their students to follow the personal statement has a character limit of 4 000 characters or a line limit of 47 lines which is not much i think it's about 600 to 700 words they just want you to be succinct and to be selective to focus on the most important things that you want to include usually for the uk medical schools they would have expected you to have done some work experience or volunteering related medicine which you can write about in your personal statement you can also include stuff about reading beyond the syllabus or anything that is related to your subject why you want to do medicine what motivated you how you came to want to apply for medicine in the first place just keep in mind that there's an early deadline for medicine and oxbridge it's usually 15 october which is earlier than all the other schools and all the other deadlines and some schools may also have earlier internal deadlines so just be aware of that the next component is the bmat or the biomedical admissions test this is basically a test that all applicants will have to do it has three sections section one is thinking skills section two is scientific knowledge and application and section 3 is writing task so sections 1 and 2 are all multiple choice questions mcqs whereas section 3 is a short essay these sections are very straightforward if you want to know how they look like there are sample papers there are past papers on the vmail website which you can also practice with it's very easy to understand once you understand the format you just have to practice a lot and it's fairly straightforward as well i think for most students the tricky part would be about balancing studying for the bmat with your other schoolwork and your other exams especially for students from other countries international students like singapore where your exams may kind of be around the same time as the bmat for me the bmat was around the same time as my a levels so that was a bit of a problem having to balance revising for bmat with revising for my a levels so you have to know how to manage your time well and if i didn't remember wrongly oxford only accepts the later bmat so they're usually two bmat tests per year there's one in september and one in late october or november and oxford usually only accepts the later ones so if you want to apply to offset just make sure that you take the october or november bmet and the final stage is the interviews which is only upon invitation so you will receive an invitation for interview if you've passed the other stages if they've looked at your application and they think that you're a suitable candidate this invitation will usually come around end of november the actual interviews are around mid-december in the past you have to fly to the uk to be interviewed at oxford i'm not really sure why that's the case maybe it's just because medicine is so competitive and they want to make it as fair as possible for everyone and you will usually be interviewed at two colleges one would be the college of your choice that you have indicated on ucas and the other one will be randomly allocated unless you did an open offer in which case they will randomly allocate you to two colleges of course the interview format has changed slightly because of covet this year they did it online but i'm not very sure whether in the future they will revert back to the old format so in terms of my personal experience how i managed my time during this application period i would say that i only really started to really think about applications around april in my last year at junior college in singapore because for us the school year is from january to the end of the year so i only really started thinking about it around april may and i only started writing my personal statement around august because we had a lot of commitments in school a lot of other things to think about so i didn't really have a lot of time to spare so for personal statement i did a few drafts got feedback and then submitted on first of october which was my school's internal deadline and the final deadline for ucas if you're just applying by yourself is 15th of october for the bmat as i mentioned previously i had to balance it with my a level revision so it was a very intense period it was around the same time as my a-level practical exams and then just before my a-level written papers at the start it seems very daunting but when the time actually came you were just so immersed in studying that you just forget about everything else maybe i would allocate about two to three hours a day to do bmat revision after i've done the revision from my other subject and just keeping that up over like a month was very helpful so the month before the actual bmat test i would perhaps study for two to three hours a day just for the bmat because just like any other test just like any other exam is a test that you can prepare for especially if you've set your mind on applying to oxford a good bme score or a very high bmed score will give you an advantage since everyone who's applying will have very good grades everyone's applying will have brilliant portfolios anything that can help you to stand out will be helpful finally moving on to the interviews my personal experience was very exciting was very unique because i flew to the uk from my interviews and i came to oxford for my interviews stayed in oxford for my interviews so about two weeks after my exams ended would be my actual interviews and during those two weeks i spent my time planning for the trip i just spent the rest of my time reading about medicine keeping up with the news preparing for my interviews talking to myself just thinking about all the issues that might come up at the interviews thinking about the questions that might come up and just talking to myself and just trying to answer the questions during those few days of my interviews usually it's only across two days i actually stayed at pembroke college overnight and i really really liked it because when i came there were student helpers who welcomed me and who brought me to my room and there were some activities in the jcr which is the junior common room that they organized for everyone who was coming for the interviews that is something that makes the oxford application process a bit more exciting especially if you're an international student and it's your first time coming to the uk or is your first time coming to oxford the day that i received my application of 14th of january it's it's just basically an email saying congratulations you've received a conditional offer it's not a guaranteed place until you receive your exam results for us in singapore the condition is three a's in your a level h2 subjects so three h2as in the uk i believe is three a stars there's a bit of a difference there depending on which exam you're taking which country you're from and you can find the application requirements on their website and if you're an international student if you're wondering whether your exam is recognized by oxford you can look at the international qualifications page which i will link in the description below which i've replied to some of you i think you can just refer to that and most international exams will be recognized by oxford they will just have slightly different conditions depending on how your exam calculates the grades i received my exam results my a-level results in february if you're an international student if you're not in the uk they won't automatically receive your results via ucas you just have to send in a proof of your results and then you have to go into ucas and choose oxford as your first choice as your firm choice i've always been someone who's not very confident in myself and receiving that offer was kind of an affirmation so i knew that even if in the end i didn't choose to go or if in the end something happened that made me not able to go like financial difficulties to me it was an achievement in itself i was grateful that i chose to apply so for those of you who are thinking of applying i would say that it's really for yourself just ask yourself whether this is something that you want this is something that will make you happy this is something that will make you proud and if it is then you should just try and go for it and you wouldn't leave with any regrets because even if you don't get in you wouldn't regret having tried in the first place what we regret is always what we don't try the chances that we fail to take

Channel: ZQ

Views: 73,275

Keywords: Oxford, Medicine, Application

Id: 9WQ-CHtSu04

Length: 14min 55sec (895 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021