This student applied in the 2019/20 application cycle and therefore the selection process at Southampton may have changed since then. You should read all the information a University sends you about the selection process to get the most up to date details!
Remember to check out the glossary at the bottom of the page for our explanations of all the jargon we medical students like to use!
More about this student
Sometimes students share information with us about their demographics, which may help put their application experience into a bit more perspective.
This student identifies as a white woman who went to a fee-paying school.
Our Summary
Course: Graduate entry
In person panel interview with group task
Admissions Tests: UCAT
Before I made my application…
Choosing to study medicine
When did you decide to apply to medicine?
The year before applying
How did you choose which universities to apply to?
Chose all UCAT grad entry programmes – there weren’t that many!
Completing work experience
What types of work experience did you do?
Hospital shadowing
How much work experience did you do?
1 week pathology placement
How did you find your work experience opportunities?
Through asking someone I knew to take me on
During the application process…
Admissions tests
What admissions test did you sit?
University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT): https://www.ucat.ac.uk/
How did you prepare for your admissions test?
Medify!! And other practice tests online.
Interviews
What type of interview did you do?
Panel: This type of interview is a ‘traditional’ sit down interview where you’ll be interviewed by a group of people, usually academic tutors and doctors. This differs from an MMI interview, which is based around ‘stations’ which have themes or scenarios attached to them.
Group task: At Southampton, most interviews have a group task, where multiple candidates are interviewed together.
How did you prepare for your interview?
Looked at info uni gave and experiences of others. Used Medify interview sheet too!
What happened during your interview?
The panel was like a normal job interview and the group task involved giving us a statement and discussing the ethics/ideas around that (this has now changed to a problem-solving task).
Glossary
Clinical work experience: Not every student will complete clinical work experience before they apply to medical school. Don’t worry, this is not required to be able to apply. You can use non-clinical work experience (e.g. a caring role, like in a care home) or even reflect on paid work you’ve done (e.g. in customer service) in a productive way.
Pathology: Pathology is a branch of medicine that focuses on how disease affects people. Pathologists have lots of different roles but you might know them as the people who diagnose the types of fluids found in blood when you go for a blood test.
Graduate entry medicine: a pathway into medicine for students who have already received an undergraduate/Bachelors degree. Some universities require this previous degree to be related to medicine (E.g. Biomedical sciences or in another science) while others don’t. Graduate entry to medicine is available at less universities and is much more competitive, but is a good option if you don’t get into medicine straight from school, or only decide you want to be a doctor after you’ve already received your degree, or later on in your career.
Medify: Medify is a popular website which provides resources for helping you prepare your medicine application. Medify has some free resources online but some are paid-for. There are good, free alternatives for preparation available online, so check out our subject guides and the university websites for details.
