UCAS…? – Holly L

To the year 7s through to year 11s, you probably think year 13 is all about the ultimate freedom. You see us strolling through the corridors in study periods, going to the café and early mess, looking as if we have conquered the school. Do not be deceived. That coffee we are buying is not a luxury; it is the sole chemical battery keeping us awake and upright after trying to explain why a weekend work experience placement made us ‘passionately fascinated by law’ in not nearly enough words.

If you want to spot the Medicine and Dentistry applicants around the school, look for the ones rocking back and forth muttering something about pattern recognition.

Before even applying, medics must take the UCAT – an exam designed by people who believe 30 seconds is enough time to solve four maths equations and ethically triage a simulated emergency room. Year 13 medics spent their summer staring at screens, trying to decide if Shape A belong in Set 1 because it has and even number of curved edges, or Set 2 because the circle is shaded grey. Ask a medic how they are, and they won’t answer in words – they will just give you a percentile.

A thought ought to be spared for the Oxbridge applicants and prospective Vet Meds. Oxbridge candidates are currently submitting themselves to admissions tests designed by sadists, where you are asked to analyse an obscure 14th century poem or solve physics problems that defy the law of gravity – all while an interviewer with three PHDs quietly judges your blinking rate.

Meanwhile, Vet Med applicants face Panel Interviews and Multiple Mini Interviews, a speed dating nightmare where you bounce between stations attempting to perform a clinical assessment on a stuffed animals, handle and actor playing a furious sheep farmer, and ethically debate chicken welfare – all in seven-minute increments. By the end one is not sure if a university place is secured or if one has just qualified to run an animal psychiatric ward.

For the rest of the Year 13s, the real monster is the Personal Statement – a 4000-character work of pure fiction where you convince an admissions tutor that you’ve wanted to study your course since the womb. Did you manage to not burn the kitchen down whilst making toast? Congratulations, you possess exceptional project management skills under pressure!

Lower schoolers, enjoy the days when your biggest worry is forgetting your PE kit, or not wearing trackies in the DH, because one day you too will sit in a UCAS assembly, calculating how many marks you need on your A-Levels in order to avoid living with your parents forever.

To my fellow Year 13s on Draft 13, my character count was above 4000 for months. Time to start deleting adverbs and just hit submit.

May offers role in and grade boundaries be nice!