Primrose Kitten

If you didn't get any offers in medicine, or if on results day, you didn't get the grades that you need to take up your place in medicine, then do not despair.

There are five different things you can think about doing if you don't get your place to study medicine. It's a little bit different from other degrees because you can't go through clearing, you can't really go through adjustment. There's not a lot of changes you can make after you apply, because there just aren't the number of medical places out there.

Firstly, you do have that fifth choice on your UCAS application, of course. So, you can take that up if you want to. If you don't want to take up that fifth choice, then there are a few other things that you can do.

Think about if medicine is really the right career for you. Why didn't you get a place? Was it something that happened in interview, did you get any feedback from the interview? Or if you didn't get your grades, are you so far below that even if you apply next year, you are not going to get the place? You can apply through clearing to do something different. There are a large number of medically related degrees that might be better suited, that might give you a better quality of life afterwards, that could be less stressful, and where there will be places available through clearing.

If you want to continue on the medical path, then there are a few different things you can think about. You can think about going to study abroad. These are going to have different application deadlines. Europe isn't that far away. Ireland is very close. These have different application deadlines, and the majority of the medical schools teach in English. So not being able to speak a foreign language shouldn't be a problem.

You can consider doing an undergraduate, and then go for medicine as a graduate entry. You'll be there a little bit older, you'll have a little bit more life experience, you'll be much more certain that you want to be a doctor, but you'll have this massive background, this massive wealth of experience behind you, which will make you in a much better position when you apply as a graduate.

You could take a gap year. I don't mean a gap year to go and work in the supermarket, or go and work cleaning things. I mean a proper gap year, where you go off and get some amazing work experience, go and volunteer in a hospital in a different country. Use this gap year to really, really make your personal statements, make your UCAS form, make your medical school application really shine. And then you can apply for the next year. The advantage of doing this is that you'll know what your grades are, you'll know what your BMAT, your UKCAT score is, and you can apply to universities which are more likely to accept you based on your grades.

If your grades aren't quite high enough to go straight on to a medical degree, then you can have a look at doing medicine with a foundation year. This is just another year at the beginning which kind of like fixes all the little bits that maybe you didn't understand in your A-levels, and then you can progress straight on to the normal medical degree. In some cases, but not in all cases, the entry requirements for this are lower, so you got like all B's instead of all A's. The other thing you can still do is an access course, a year-long access course either at college or at a university, which is linked to the medical degree. So if you are determined to follow a place in medicine, if you are determined to become a doctor, but haven't got a place or haven't quite got the grades, then there are lots of other options out there for you.