Medicine
Preparing for medical school
Everything a medical application needs, from Year 9 GCSE choices to an interview in Year 13, taught by people who went through it recently.
The application is five separate things
Families usually discover this in pieces, often late. A medical application is assessed on GCSE grades, predicted A-Level grades, an admissions test score, a personal statement and an interview, and then the final grades have to arrive. They are weighted differently at every medical school, and a strong candidate can be rejected on the one they neglected.
Our work sits squarely on the academic side of that list: the grades, the mocks that decide the predictions, and the decision about where to apply. That is where a tutor can actually move the outcome.
GCSEs count for longer than anyone expects
Several medical schools score GCSE grades directly when deciding who to interview, and some use them as a threshold before anything else is read. A student who treats Year 10 and 11 as unrelated to a medical application is removing options they have not yet realised they want.
In practice that means Maths and the sciences, at 7 and above, with English Language somewhere in the mix. This is the cheapest part of the application to get right, because it only requires doing well at school at the time the student is already there.
A-Level subjects close doors quietly
Chemistry is required by almost every UK medical school. Biology is required or strongly preferred by most. Choosing Chemistry without Biology narrows the list; choosing neither effectively ends it, and that decision is made in Year 11 by students who have not yet looked at an entry requirement.
Typical offers run from AAA to A*AA. The practical endorsement in each science must be passed, and it is reported separately from the grade.
Predicted grades are the gate before the application
Medical schools do not see final A-Level grades when they decide who to interview. They see a prediction, written by the school in the autumn of Year 13, based mostly on mock results and classwork. Almost all set a threshold, usually AAA, and an application predicted below it is often rejected before anyone reads the personal statement.
That makes Year 12 summer exams and Year 13 mocks far more consequential than most students realise at the time. They are not practice. They are the evidence the school uses to decide what to write on the form. More on mocks and predicted grades.
Where you apply decides as much as what you score
There are four medicine choices and one non-medicine choice. Medical schools select very differently: some score GCSEs heavily, some lean on the admissions test, some are interview-led, some run contextual admissions. Four schools chosen by reputation rather than by fit is how a strong candidate collects four rejections.
More on building a shortlist that fits the profile.
The interview is where prepared candidates separate
MMI or panel, from December onwards. Ethical scenarios, role play, questions about the NHS and about why this student rather than the next one. It is the stage that rewards practice most and gets practised least, because it has to be done out loud with someone who will push back. More on interview practice.
What we actually do
Most of our work is subject tutoring: A-Level Chemistry, Biology and Maths, and the GCSE sciences before them. Taught with mocks treated as the real thing, because they are what the prediction is built from.
Application support runs alongside that, as a small group at £30 an hour, on whichever part of the application is live: mock strategy in the spring, the shortlist and the personal statement over the summer, interview practice from November. It can be booked with subject tutoring or on its own. We do not coach admissions tests, and we will say so rather than sell you hours we are not the right people to teach.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number.
- Written progress to parents every month. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and the assessment is yours to keep whether or not you carry on.