Pre-Med Fees Loophole

Goin90

Hi all,

Just curious as to the fees I'd be eligible to pay next year. I'll finish my first year at college in a few weeks and if I get a good enough HPAT score (fingers crossed) I'll be transferring across to medicine.

However, the course I'm in is a very intensive health sciences course so I wonder would I be eligible (along with honours LC chemistry and biology) to skip the pre-med year in UCD?

And if I was to skip the pre-med year, would I be eligible to pay only the student contribution, seeing as techincally I'm going into second year and not doing first year again?

Cheers

jumpguy

That's usually the case (as in, you can count a year in another relevant course of a scientific persuasion as premed and not lose out on free tuition fees), I know a lot of people who transferred like that. Best to ask the department of medicine in UCD to get the full story.

Goin90

Cheers for that. I emailed them, but no joy. Guess I'll have to get onto them on the phone so

conradmurph

I'm finishing my first year of Biological and chemical sciences in UCC in three weeks and hopefully will get the HPAT score to get me into medicine in UCC. I have applied through the CAO. I don't think there is a premed year in UCC as it is a five year course so I'm curious as to what the deal with fees is? I wish to avoid forking out 8k for another first year at all costs! All help/advice greatly appreciated.

Goin90

As far as I know, you will have to fork out the full med-school fees because the government will only subsidise you for one attempt at each year.

That's why I'm trying to skip pre-med in UCD. Don't really want to put it first on the CAO and then only get offered the 6 year course though.

conradmurph

Ah cool and do you know is the final year of medicine paid for under free fees or will that be another 8K?!
Just asking because I thought the free fees criteria was only for four years of college but medicine is five years whatever way you look at it

Taco Chips

Premed applies to 6 year courses. The criteria for skipping it varies between universities. The 5 year course will not let you skip any years and your first year (of the 5) will be counted the same as the first year of any degree course. So if you've already completed a year of a different degree with the fees covered by the government you will have to pay for first year again (8k or whatever it is). But if you progress to second year then the government will go back to paying for the rest of your degree.

Joolet

You'll definitely be allowed skip Pre-Med, far as I know they're encouraging people to do the 5 year course if they can as places in pre-med are limited and many people coming straight from leaving cert want to do it rather than going straight into first med.

Best thing to do regarding fees to ring the admissions office of the college, they'll have a better idea than the school of Medicine. It varies depending on the college, as far as I know UCD do allow you to count a year in a previous course as "pre-med" and continue on into "second year" (first med) Galway don't make you pay, I don't think Cork do either. RCSI make you pay fees as would Trinity because theirs is a 5 year programme, there's no premed!

caroline1111

UCD are funny about letting you skip it, they won't confirm with you one way or another until you've started, it depends on the other applicants and the course you were doing.
NUIG will let you skip
TCD, UCC no premed
RCSI will probably let you skip but I didn't really look into this.