Plan with surgical precision

Last week, we looked at the first three steps in Kings Education's excellent guide on preparing to apply and interview for a place in highly-competitive UK medical schools.

This week, we examine the final three.

Step four: take exams for UK medical school entrance. Once students have conducted their research into the various medical schools in the United Kingdom and begun their decision-making process about which to apply to, it's time to start thinking about, preparing for and taking exams such as the UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) and BMAT (BioMedical Admissions Test).

The UCAT and BMAT are two standardized tests that are commonly found among UK institutions' entry requirements for a medical qualification. Some will accept either while others just one and not the other. For this reason, many students take both exams so they have a greater choice of universities to apply to.

The UCAT is the aptitude test that most universities use.

Students receive their results straight after the test, which means they can use the score to decide if certain universities are more suitable for them - some medical schools have higher UCAT requirements than others.

A digital test, it focuses on candidates answering questions of varying difficulty in short spaces of time and is composed of five categories: abstract reasoning, situational judgement, verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and decision making.

The onus is on students to book their exams of their own accord prior to university. The tests can only be taken once and are valid for only one registration period.

The BMAT ascertains students' critical and logical-thinking skills alongside knowledge they should have retained from school.

It is required by Oxbridge and some of the UK's other top medical schools.

While it does present plenty of the more abstract or IQ-like questions, it has been designed to rigorously test intellect, skills and knowledge and does so via three areas: aptitude and skills, scientific knowledge as well as applications and writing task.

Step five: write a compelling personal statement. Students must focus on what they have learned about working in the health-care profession from work or voluntary experience, and include information on any areas of medicine that interest them personally.

Medical school admission teams also want to learn about what students like to do in their spare time and how these hobbies have developed them as people.

Step six: prepare for the interview. Medical school interviews take one of three forms - traditional, Oxbridge and multiple mini-interviews.

The traditional form resembles job interviews and will most likely involve questions about your background, personal interests and goals - including why you want to study medicine.

The interviewer will want to discuss medicine itself, including medical ethics, advancements and current affairs surrounding the national health service. You'll also be asked about ways in which you've applied problem-solving techniques to work through challenges.

Oxbridge medical courses tend to have a more distinct focus on research. This means that their interviews are far more focused on assessing your cognitive abilities.

That said, they'll want to get an idea of how you approach tricky ethical subjects and more general areas of medicine, so some of the interview questions will be along these lines.

The MMI approach is a contemporary method of interviewing in which students face a number of interviewers in relatively quick succession.

Each one will either give you a task or ask you questions. These different stations are designed to assess your skills in areas such as communication, self-awareness, maturity, critical thinking and empathy.

The MMI also measures teamwork and oral communication skills.

Students will literally move from one room or space to another.

In some stations, there will be actors and a student has to step into that scenario and act as if they are doctors.

Each part of the interview is designed to last for less than 10 minutes but the overall interview process may take up to two hours.

Our thanks to Kings Education for allowing us to reference its guide to applying for medicine to inform this article.

Its website at www.kingseducation.com/kings-life/how-to-get-into-medical-school allows access to the whole document for those who wish for more information.

Pat Moores is the director of UK Education Guide, an independent source of advice and information about UK Education providers.

Website: www.ukeducationguide.com