Villiers Park - How did it help?

So I have been part of the Villiers Park scholarship programme since Year 10. I feel that being a Villiers Park scholar definitely set me up for my path into Medicine by providing me with the information and support I needed.

As part of the programme, everyone is assigned a learning mentor that will provide this information and support that I have mentioned before. Through one-on-one mentoring sessions, I would meet with my mentor to discuss my recent activities. I would explain to my mentor how stressful I’m finding things, how I’m worried I’m not going to get the grades and how I cannot find a balance. And by talking and development plans of actions, I knew I could cope for another two-three weeks before the next session. Everyone on the programme found the mentoring sessions as an opportunity to vent about our struggles but find solutions to them, whether it be crafting the perfect personal statement or researching different university choices.

The masterclasses allowed all of us to come together as one group and work towards given goals. But the objective wasn’t the task itself, but the personal and interpersonal skills we developed through it. As shown in our last Year 13 residential in March, we could confidently deliver a presentation better than we could in Year 10 residential. Through Villiers Park, we learnt about how to conduct research, how to process the findings and then present to an audience. These are skills important not just for university, but possibly for most of our jobs and careers in the future. I felt I developed and learned more specialised skills through Villiers Park moreso than I did in our normal PSHE lessons at school.

Villiers Park has helped with our career advice, university choices and personal statement construction. I feel my mentor sessions and the masterclasses provided helped me on track to making me a strong candidate for the degree I wanted to read at university, being Medicine. I was also a member of "MedSoc" which was our Medicine Society. Here, I heard guest speakers (such as paramedics and junior doctors etc) who pass on any advice. We also had interview preparation and help, where we learnt how to address our interviewer, how the MMIs are structured and even advice on current medical affairs and how to approach the ethics in medicine.

There was an opportunity as well for a one-week residential in Foxton that specialises in a subject we feel passionate about – whether it’s engineering, biology, English, politics or computing! I attended the course on Cell Biology and Cancer where I learnt about the different stages of cancer (from a genetic mutation in transcription to metastasis around the whole body). On the course I learnt even more skills, but this sparked my interest for oncology which then initiated my project in the EPQ (which was based on the biochemistry and physiology of cancer). These courses can be assessed by following this link: CLICK HERE. I would certainly recommend a biology/medical fuelled course as this will be of great interest and look super attractive on your personal statement to universities!

If you're still not persuaded to get involved, take a look at these photos:

Personal Statement

You will need to construct a personal statement which sells you to the university. It should advertise you as a person, should be written by you and should make the admissions team reading it go “Wow. Give this person a place!”. You have 4,000 characters to sell yourself, so what should you include?

Firstly, check the university course website. Most universities may post personal requirements that they are looking for. For example, some universities might be looking for a confident resilient individual that has strong communication skills. You want to read across your chosen universities’ websites and refine what you should include. Sometimes there will be an overlap, but you want to sound as appealing to the universities as possible!  Merge all the personal qualities from your chosen universities and construct one personal statement. It is the only one you’ll write and all five universities will receive the same statement.

Don’t fixate TOO much on Medicine in your personal statement. You are applying to five universities, but only a maximum of FOUR of these can be Medicine. Therefore, one university has to be non-Medicine. So this could be Biomedical Sciences, Biochemsitry, Human Anatomy etc. If you apply to Art, they are most likely going to reject you as your personal statement will all be about Medicine!

What should you include?

• Show don’t tell – If the university is looking for a “confident resilient individual that has strong communication skills”, you could use these words but with caution. Don’t use the string of words exactly how they’re written in the prospectus. So instead, show the admissions team what makes you that individual. Maybe you were a head boy? A peer mentor? An adviser for younger pupils? Don’t just say “I work well in a team”, give examples of team led activities you’ve taken part in. 
• All your experience journal entries! Mention BRIEFLY what you did, but what you learnt from it. Don’t dwell too much on certain aspects as interviewers may take them as opportunities for you to elaborate on certain points. I’ll give an example later. Say what you’ve learnt and how it changed you as a person. 
• Your most perfect English, spelling and grammar. Make sure you use spell check! 
• Be passionate without using the word. Do not say “I am very passionate about medicine” because it’s extremely cliché. You want you just put across your passion and strong interests without saying it. 
• Don’t say any cliché terms – it is a complete waste of characters and you only have 4,000 of them so use them wisely. You haven’t wanted to study medicine since you were a child, so don’t waste the energy to type it.  
• Take on board all feedback you receive. Hand your personal statement to anyone that you can! I handed my personal statement to my Villiers Park mentor, two teachers, two doctors and a nurse! I had conflicting feedback, three against three on different parts. One person would say they love one bit where another person would say “Scrap it!”. Personally, it all comes down to you. If you think it should stay, then keep it. If it should go, remove it. You don’t have to take all feedback and act on it – it’s YOUR personal statement. 
• Use short snappy words if you can. Don’t waste characters as “next” uses less characters than “in addition to this”. Remember, conserve those 4,000 characters wisely. 
• Avoid cliché terms like “I am passionate for Medicine”, “I really love Medicine”, “I was born a doctor!” 
• All your own work – do not plagiarise! You will be found and caught out on it. This will affect your opportunity of reading medicine.

Make sure you apply to medical school before the deadline! Then it’s a waiting game….waiting for the university to reply to your application! 

Selecting the Universities

SELECTING

This process will differ person to person. My sixth form was roughly 60 students large and I’m pretty sure everyone approached the university selection process differently. Some people wanted to live on the other side of the UK to their home, some people wanted to stay local. Some people wanted campus universities whereas some people wanted city universities.

I’m not going to write a great amount on this section, because you may choose another path. But think of all the factors that will affect your living and wellbeing in each university. Luckily, you’ve done Step 1 and chosen your course, which I’m hoping is still Medicine and I haven’t put you off!
Now, you need to choose your medical school. The deadline for UCAS will be in October-ish, so take advantage of the summer of Year 12 to visit open days while they’re advertising themselves to prospective medical students.

Take into consideration these factors:

• Cost of living (is it an expensive area?) 
• What’s the medical course like? Spiral curriculum – the university will integrate theory teaching alongside shadowing doctors. Old style of teaching – the university will start with non-clinical years, which is just theory. Then, the university willl end with clinical years, where you will be in the hospital.
• Do you like the city the university is situated within?
• Could you see yourself living here? 
• Distance from home?
• Entry requirements? Are they realistic and achievable for you? 
• Other entry requirements that aren’t grades? Do they have a certain amount of volunteering hours you need? 
• What are the reviews on the university? Are they high in the league table? Are they scoring highly in student pass rate and satisfaction score?
• Is it a Russell Group University?
• Do you enjoy the style of teaching? Like case based learning or problem based learning? I definitely recommend you researching the difference between the two.
• What societies are available? Eg. do they have a pottery club as you’re interested in picking up claywork that you’ve missed since Art GCSE? 

There are many other variables that will determine your chosen universities.

Your FIRM choice will be your #1 choice that you really want to go to. Your INSURANCE choice will be #2 choice. The smart thing to do is be aspiration and aim for the #1 choice as long as it is achievable. If you’re predicted ABB, apply for a medical school with lower grade entry requirements as opposed to a Russell Group university demanding A*A*A. Your INSURANCE choice should back this up. I would recommend your FIRM choice being the university that demands, at maximum, your predicted grades.

If I was predicted ABB, my FIRM would be possibly ABB maximum and my INSURANCE would be BBB. But, you want to manipulate this decision by how much you love the university. If you love Southampton that much but hate the A*AA entry requirement, use it as a fuel motivation to push you to get a place, you might be guessing too harsh so aim higher! With caution though, keep realistic. It’s hard to go from ABB to A*AA if your teachers aren’t predicting it already.


EXHIBITIONS

Make sure you make use of the summer and go to as many university open days as possible. Go and explore the accomodation, ask loads of questions and take a notepad. If you’re not impressed, don’t apply! If you are really impressed, then aim high and go for it! You have a choice in line for Year 13 when you apply to university.

At UCAS Exhibit Days, I’m pretty sure it was our head of sixth form that advised, don’t get attracted by free pens. Don’t hand your email address willy nilly to get a free iPad … I’m still getting emails now from one uni to study Economics because I wanted to win the trip to New York. (I didn’t by the way!)

The main underline thing is to answer questions. Be that annoying student with their hand constantly up. You want your parents to turn around and go “Where is he?” and they spot you speaking to another tour guide student. Any question you may have, any doubt or query, ask! I took advantage of this and I felt so prepared knowing all my questions had been answered.

You should visit your university’s website to find details about open days throughout the summer of Year 12 and September-December of Year 13. You can also visit more than once! If you are limited on time and transport, only visit the universities you’re really debating on applying to. I would recommend you visit open days to at least 5 universities during your Year 12 summer.


UNIVERSITY RESIDENTIAL COURSES

Some university courses offer residential courses that can be completed by Year 12 and Year 13 students to explore a subject they may be passionate about studying at university. These are perfect for two reasons: you can find out if the course you’re interested in is really what you want to do and you can get a taste of the university you’re at.

I attended a Biomedical Sciences residential course at the university I'm currently studying at. With this, I was exploring different aspects of Biomedical Science across 9 weeks. The course days ran across 9 Wednesday evenings, which meant I had to catch a train at lunch time and come back to my hometown at 6ish. It wasn’t detrimental massively to my studies, but I defintely needed to spend my free time catching up with work I had missed. In the course, I learnt about what the uni had on offer and in each lesson was a different aspect, so I would do anatomy, then dentistry, then medicine, then cell physiology etc. This did actually help with my EPQ!

As well as this, you can sometimes get advantages for taking part in the university residential courses. Some universities offer special bursaries, possibly a reduced conditional offer or a guaranteed place or interview. For medicine, I was guaranteed an interview at my university for being part of their residential course. If I wasn’t applying for medicine, but say Biomedical Sciences, I would have a guaranteed offer.

Visit your chosen universities’ websites to see what they have on offer! Some universities offer courses in Autumn and Spring of Year 12 and Autumn of Year 13.

Work Experience Tip and Year 12 Wrap-Up!

LITTLE WORK EXPERIENCE TIP

One little thing I came across online was about the comparison of GP surgeries to the hospital. I would definitely read around this topic as it is a common interview question.

My best recommendation – do what I did. Get a feel of it yourself. I completed 5 days work experience at a GP surgery. Here, I shadowed GPs and sat in while they observed and dealt with patients. I completed 5 days work experience the following week at the local Hospital on the cancer ward.

From doing this, I had my own opinion of the differences between GPs and hospitals.


WRAP UP

The main thing I want you to take from the past few posts is that Year 12 may not be your “academically most special” time as you will have no Year 12 summer exams, I would spend this time building up your portfolio of extra-curricular activities and filling in that experience journal.

Before you know it, here comes Year 13. Your deadline will be in October-ish, so make sure you have some universties lined up. Use the summer to take advantage of open days that are being ran by your chosen universities. Remember the deadline for Oxbridge (University of Oxford and University of Cambridge) and Medicine, Vetenary Sciences and Dentistry are all earlier (October-ish) compared to everyone else’s UCAS deadline

MOOCs

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course and I recommend you complete at least one of these! They’re short, they’re fun and they’re interesting. You basically teach yourself something on the side that may be beyond the specification (meaning you are indirectly wider reading!)

You login, dedicate 15 minutes or so a day on learning new things, complete an online test and move to the next screen. But there are so many MOOCs available. So if you’re interested in drugs, mental health, paediatric health, oncology or neurology – there is a MOOC out there for you!

I completed a MOOC on cancer biology which was being run by the university I applied to, so I used this to further my knowledge. Not only did it compensate my own knowledge, but it “fuelled that passion for Medicine” and I could use it for research in my EPQ.

EPQ - To do or not to do?

This is your opinion. For me, the EPQ is an exciting opportunity to do something different. It’s not like any other subject, it’s like a really long (few months duration) rewarding essay homework. You explore sources, dissect scientific literature, and evaluate sources to then produce a finished final piece to showcase your dedication and work. But I won’t lie – it’s fairly hard. It’s hard to start but once you’re in, it becomes so much easier.

I’ll give you the EPQ in a nutshell: it’s what you make it. You can dedicate all your time and efforts into it like I did, and it’ll pay off. When I wasn’t volunteering or working, I would sit on my computer, download PDF scientific literature to deduce and write sections of my EPQ. 5,000 words sounds way too much and a long task, but you know you’re doing it right if you end up in the 6,000 mark and need to start cutting paragraphs and concisely chopping your work down to the word limit.

The EPQ is time consuming – no argument there. You will need to be an expert at time management. For me, I got an A* in the EPQ through dedicating practically all my summer and evenings at the beginning of Year 13 to refining material and writing a 5,000 word piece on how two chemotherapy drugs work. I described their mechanism of action in combating colorectal disease that was becoming metastatic before comparing them in terms of effectiveness. I had a 21 page document explaining my findings accompanied by a 50 page sources table that evaluated each source I used. This was OVERBOARD. People get A*s in the EPQ in much less work than this. But the EPQ will reward you with a high grade if you feed it with time and dedication!

So what’s good about the EPQ? It shows which students are commited, dedicated, love a challenge and demonstrate a variety of skills. They can deduce literature into an understanding that makes sense to them – like at uni. They handle primary sourced and secondary sourced data – like at uni. They show which students can work hard and follow a path to create a journey from start, research, refine, produce, finish – like at uni. They show students that have a passion in the subject (eg. Music students may produce a song or write about a particular music style and how it may have developed over time etc).

The EPQ makes your UCAS application even more attractive. It kinda makes you look like the perfect university candidate, so they’ll offer you that interview! It’s very different, so I will recommend it highly! It’s literally the A-Level version of blood, sweat and tears.

It is an A-Level, so an A* is available. Some schools give a small timeframe for the EPQ, so you need to try and craft two years worth of work (similar to an A-Level) into that timeframe to produce a final piece.

The "selling points" of the EPQ (eg. making your UCAS application more attractive etc) is what I have heard from teachers in my sixth forms and speaking to some student tour guides at different university open days.

Experience Journal

Document everything you do! The reason I have found this document fairly easy to put together is all because I documented every experience I did. Villiers Park gave me a template that worked perfectly in crafting my personal statement and discussing in interviews.

So an experience journal, how will that help? I would recommend buying a small notebook that you’ll keep from Year 12 all the way to the end of Year 13. All you got to do is plan something you’ll do, like work experience or an extra-curricular activity and then write a short description about it.

For every experience or work you do, answer the following questions:

• What is the date/time I did it?
• What exactly did I do?
• Where was it?
• What did I learn?
• How did this fuel my passion for Medicine?
• How has it changed me/led me to do?

You wouldn’t believe it, but universities only really care about the final three bullet points of that template. You could go complete work experience in India and observe a baby being delivered. But what did you actually benefit from that? If you can’t explain, you clearly didn’t develop yourself. This is to deal with opportunity that is separate from all medical candidates. Some candidates have family working at the NHS so can get readily available work experience. Some candidates can fundraise the money to go to India to undergo medical shadowing and support. Some candidates live in rural areas where there are no surrounding hospitals or surgeries in reach to volunteer or work at. So they’re primarily interested on what you have learnt, how this has fuelled your passion for studying medicine and how it has changed you (whether you did something else after that experience or learnt something).

Make sure you fill this out closer to when you have completed or doing the experience. The purpose of this is to make sure every detail is retained for later recall in your personal statement building or interview practice.

If you write this, you’ve basically got the skeleton to your personal statement and the answers to those questions in your interviews.

Year 12 - Where to begin?

WHAT SHOULD I DO DURING YEAR 12?

1. Do not waste this valuable time! I spent it as a “toedipping into A-Level, I’m not doing any real exams this year so I can revise and pick up definitely next year and smash those exams”. Yeah that doesn’t happen. Work mounts up pretty fast. My tips would include:
a. Complete homework pretty much as soon as possible. It’s so relaxing doing one piece of work a night rather than four that are all due tomorrow. Breaking it up helps. I’m not saying “Do it the night it’s set” because you do that once and can never repeat … so just make sure you complete every homework and keep on top.
b. Pretty notes are good, but do they really benefit you? This differs person to person. One girl in my class would write scrap notes in class to then copy out neatly when she got home. Her folder was the best in the class, but you want to spend this time valuable doing past paper questions and/or applying your notes to answers.
c. Literally use class time to jot notes. Get into practise of writing quickly and concisely as I’ve been recommended to develop this skill in preparation for university.
d. Definitely read around topics. It’ll wow your teacher and fill in any knowledge gaps. You learn about stereoisomers in Chemistry and chiral carbons and it makes no sense why biological catalysts are better than lab experiments in synthesising drugs. You WIDER READ online and find this the reason Thalidomide was responsible for causing mutations in Thalidomide babies. It really does help reading around a subject.

2. Volunteer. But volunteer in a medical or care setting. Some people volunteer in a care home or some people volunteer on hospital wards. Volunteering is a lot easier than you think. You’re not being unpaid to save lives or clean bodily liquids. It’s mainly an opportunity to observe how the hospital environment works, the hierarchy of the staff on the ward and how patients are cared for. Your main role really is serving hot drinks and dinners from the ward kitchen. Mainly prospective med students will volunteer, so take it is an opportunity to make friends! I had no friends at sixth form interested in studying Medicine, but through volunteering I found myself in a small group where we’d keep each other updated on what we learnt, interviews etc. I would definitely recommend doing this upwards from 6 months – 12 months. I volunteered at my local Hospital on the ward dedicated to caring for dementia patients. Here I learned how doctors and nurses communicate with dementia patients as well as how dementia patients communicate themselves with me. My main responsibilities were serving hot drinks, dinners and making beds for new patients.

3. Next, attend some kind of residential course which will deepen your knowledge in your interest. Let it be related, like biology, cell biology, drug physiology etc. I attended a Villiers Park Residential Course on Biology in Foxton. I really enjoyed this experience because I learnt about cancer in terms of its biological side as opposed to the emotional side. In this residential, I developed interpersonal skills, how to work in a team of people I haven’t worked with before with a task I’m not familiar with and dissecting an understanding from research journals and papers that I will be doing in university.

4. Summer of Year 11-Year 12 is a perfect time for work experience. Make sure it is relevant again, so maybe explore a particular field of medicine you’re most interested in. Apply online by contacting the hospital or surgery directly. I completed work experience at my local Hospital on the ward dedicated for the treatment and care of cancer patients because of my passion for cancer that had stemmed from completing the Villiers Park residential. Here I shadowed doctors and understood everything from treatment to care to admin in dealing with cancer patients.


WHAT EXTRA THINGS SHOULD I COMPLETE?

1. Maybe a first aid course? I did first aid training at the hospital and at my school to understand and learn basic lifesaving procedures.

2. Fundraise? My school didn’t have an AED (defibrillator) which I thought was very dangerous, so I fundraised for one and raised £1400 at school which now means someone’s life could be saved at my school if they were to experience a cardiac arrest.

3. Duke of Edinburgh Award? This is quite a good topic to write about in your personal statement and you can say about how you’ve learnt a variety of skills whilst completing the award.

4. EPQ? This is debatable … see later post.

5. Keep an experience journal… see later post.

6. MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses … see later post.

7. If you see something on your work experience, research more into it! Produce a small paper or document on it! When I completed my work experience on paediatrics, I was amazed to meet a patient with tracheoesophageal fistula (TOF). I then went home, researched more about it and produced a document that I took with me to my interviews.

Subjects - What A-Levels do I choose?

SUBJECTS - WHAT DID I CHOOSE AND WHY?

So I began at my secondary school's sixth form where I decided to study Psychology, Maths, Biology and Chemistry. The standard university offer for Medicine is Chemistry and usually two other sciences that includes Maths – they essentially won’t accept Critical Thinking or General Studies. Check any universities you may be interested in and mould your options around them.

It is also important that at GCSE you have aimed to get mostly A*s or As (now 7-9 in the new GCSE Grading System from 2017). It is vital you get the minimum GCSEs to study the A-Levels listed above. For example, you may require to get a B (or equivalent) in Biology GCSE to study Biology A-Level.

I chose Psychology because you study memory and case studies into dementia and have a beginning “foot-in-the-door” to understanding mental health issues. You also learn biological processes like synapses and neurones which you met at GCSE but will need to understand a little bit more (…which definitely goes hand-inhand with Biology A-Level). I chose Maths because I enjoyed it and Biology because I found it more interesting than Physics.

My word of advice: do not choose Biology A-Level if you are going to regard it as an "easier" subject compared to the other sciences. Don't learn this the hard way...


WHY HAVE I GOT TO DO A-LEVEL CHEMISTRY TO BE A DOCTOR?

You might be reacting how I first did reading uni prospectuses. Why Chemistry? Surely body anatomy and physiology outweighs the effects of temperature on the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide in a lab? Surely Biology is more important than Chemistry for a doctor? Well yeah I guess it is, but I have asked a doctor about this question.

She told me that it’s all about the skills you learn whilst studying Chemistry A-Level. I will dwell on this in the science subject section, but you learn a lot about logical working, critical thinking and investigations. The doctor said this is a perfect representation of Medicine. Someone comes in with a problem showing symptom A, B and C – you will diagnose their condition based on visual symptoms and results from tests. This is similar to Chemistry. If you have four beakers on a workbench containing clear liquids that all look and smell the same, you can work out which one is an iodide by adding silver nitrate and observing a yellow precipitate forming – you ‘diagnose’ it as an iodide.


SCIENCE A-LEVELS - WHAT'S INVOLVED EXACTLY?

So that explains choosing A-Levels… but I didn’t go into too much detail about the sciences, just that word of warning about Biology. You will hear it in the science department as banter that "Biology consists of respiration, photosynthesis and more on plants." Biology is the WHAT, Chemistry is the HOW and Physics is the WHY. They are all as hard as each other.

I can’t speak on behalf of Physics as I didn’t do it. But from what I hear from my physicist friends, Physics sounds similar to Chemistry in the way there is complicated theory endorsed by mathematical elements. This is very similar to Chemistry. If you like Maths, I would definitely recommend Chemistry and Physics. You will be taught things in both subjects that cross-link, eg. you’ll be taught logarithms in Maths and made to use logarithms in Arrhenius’ Equation questions in Chemistry.

Biology is not easy. You could say most of the content is easy as you may be familiar with parts. For example, closed keeping of chickens to conserve energy so they produce more meat. Or that all your genetic code is kept in a double strand of DNA. But the difference is quantity. There is sooo much to learn for Biology which makes it more challenging. My Year 2 Biology A-Level textbook was the same size as Year 1, whereas Year 2 Chemistry ALevel textbook was half the size of Year 1!