KneeSchool/Junior Academy/Widening Participation
Widening Participation
Page 0.4.5 · Getting Into Medical School · study_skills page
The schemes that exist for students from backgrounds under represented in medicine, what they change about an application, and how to find them.
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Widening Participation
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What This Is
Medicine in the United Kingdom draws disproportionately from a narrow set of schools and backgrounds. Every medical school now runs schemes intended to change that, and they are collectively called widening participation.
These are not lower standards. They are adjustments that take account of the circumstances in which grades were achieved, plus a lot of practical support that other applicants get from their schools or families by default.
Two applicants with the same grades have not necessarily done the same amount of work. One may have had a school with a medicine application programme, a family member who could arrange a placement and a tutor for the admissions test. The other may have had none of that.
Contextual admissions exist because selecting on raw grades alone rewards advantage and misses capable people.
How It Works
Support tends to take four forms.
Contextual offers. A school may make a lower offer to an applicant from a qualifying background, school or postcode. Each school sets its own criteria and publishes them.
Access and foundation years. An extra year before the medical degree proper, for applicants who qualify under those criteria. Chapter 0.4.6 covers these.
Outreach programmes. Summer schools, mentoring, application support and guaranteed interview schemes, often run with named partner schools.
Financial support. Bursaries, fee waivers for admissions tests, and travel costs for interviews. Several of these are easy to miss because nobody mentions them.
Eligibility is usually assessed on things like being the first in your family to apply to university, having been eligible for free school meals, having been in care, or living in an area with low progression to higher education.
How to Prepare
Check eligibility early, ideally two years before applying, because some schemes require you to have taken part in a programme before you apply.
Check it even if you are unsure you qualify. The criteria are broader than most students assume, and the schemes are routinely under subscribed for that reason.
Keep evidence. Free school meal eligibility, care status and similar criteria usually need documenting, and it is easier to collect that at the time.
Apply to a mix of schools, because contextual criteria differ between them and you may qualify at one and not at another.
Common Mistakes
Assuming you do not qualify without reading the criteria.
Finding the scheme in the application year, after the deadline for the programme that would have helped.
Treating a contextual offer as something to be embarrassed about. It is an adjustment for circumstance, and the degree that follows is the same degree.
Missing the financial support. Test fee waivers and interview travel costs exist and go unclaimed every year.
Where to Find Out More
The Medical Schools Council publishes information on widening participation across United Kingdom medical schools, including which run which schemes.
Each university publishes its own contextual admissions criteria, and these are the ones that count.
The UCAT Consortium publishes its bursary scheme for the admissions test fee.
A school careers adviser or head of sixth form can usually confirm whether your school is a partner school for a nearby university's programme.
Key Learning Points
- Widening participation adjusts for circumstance; it does not lower the standard of the degree.
- Support comes as contextual offers, foundation years, outreach programmes and financial help.
- Criteria are broader than most students assume and the schemes are often under subscribed.
- Some programmes must be joined before the application year, so check two years ahead.
- Each university publishes its own criteria and they differ.
If any of this sounds like something happening to you, speak to a parent, teacher, coach or doctor.
Explore Further
Where this topic came from and where it goes next in the spiral.
References
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