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Mature Entry Medicine 2023

yeehaw123

Hi everyone and anyone,

I’m looking to start the whole application process for mature entry medicine in the 23/24 academic which means applying for CAO in November. If you’re planning on going to college this year or if you’ve just accepted a place, your advice is much appreciated.

1) Does anyone have any tips on how to write a statement? I think I have the gist of it but I don’t know, mine could just be pure waffle.

2) For the HPAT, did you just wing it or did you use a certain course for it?

3) Is there any tips about the interviews which may be of any benefit at all?

Thank you in advance!

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MadMammy1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058252597/mature-entry-medicine-2023

Hi Yeehaw123

I will try and answer your questions in the way it worked for me. Others will probably have a lot more to add. There is absolutely fantastic information already on this site if you go back over the last several years. Sometimes it is a little hard to find but a real treasure trove exists. Look in Non-Traditional section under Education, under Third Level and here in Health Sciences. The process does not seemed to have changed much since they implemented the HPAT.

I spent most of my time on writing and re-writing the personal statement. I had close family read through it and pick it apart line by line. I wrote from the heart. I spanned the time I discovered science, through my college education, volunteerism, any relevant stops along the road and how I arrived at actually sending in the application. Make sure you make it specific for each college you are applying to. I sent it in to CAO as an addendum - one for each college (except RCSI). I will also mention references here. I had three references. Two were relevant to my suitability professionally for medicine and one personal reference regarding my character.

Regarding the HPAT, I purchased all the practice material from ACER. It's probably well worth it. Make sure you practice the tests in timed conditions and make sure you scrutinise the reasons you got a question wrong. It often hinges on reading incorrectly or a nuanced meaning in a word. You need to be aware of the clock and how long you are spending on a question. Move on if you cannot complete it. Section 3 definitely requires knowledge of those types of questions. I found a good few youtube videos on the UMAT which was the HPAT equivalent for Australia until recently. It helped me somewhat but I found the questions on the actual HPAT harder than any of the practices and any questions covered for the UMAT. I cannot comment on professional courses as I did not attend any. Put the time in and you can self teach. I think AccessMed also do a course to help people out.

I interviewed in NUIG and UCC so will limit my comments to those. UCC is a panel interview with 4 or 5 people. Quite straightforward. NUIG is an MMI format - Multiple Mini Interview. a lot of schools in the UK, US and Canada are using this format. There is plenty of information on it if you look on You Tube.

Happy to answer any more questions. I am starting in NUIG in September and I am grateful to all those who have posted in the threads going back years as it has certainly helped me and I suspect it will continue as I move through the course.

Good luck with your application. I wish you much success!!

yeehaw123

Hi MadMammy1,

Thank you so much for your advice. The whole process just seems so dragged. Ill be sure to follow a process something like your own. Can I ask if you went to any college open days to open channels with lecturers or would you recommend it at all?

Your advice is greatly appreciated thank you so much!

MadMammy1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119341937#Comment_119341937

I did go to the virtual open days for RCSI, NUIG and UCC. As they were virtual it was not possible to open channels with anyone. I would absolutely recommend you attend the open days. If they are in person, all the better. Chatting to people about the course and specifically what is so special about that University cannot be a bad thing. You need to be able to explain at interview and/or in your personal statement, how you prepared yourself for this moment and why you chose to apply. It is critical you can articulate that you understand what you are going to be expected to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and why you want to. Hope that helps.

dotnetka

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058252597/mature-entry-medicine-2023

I’m applying this year as well so I don’t have any foolproof tips but this is what I’m doing.

There are tips re:personal statement on RCSI website. I just opened google docs and started writing point by point. Don’t worry about structure, grammar, just write it down. Leave for a while, come back, revise, rewrite. Ask friends for an opinion, search gogle for examples of successfull statements and try to extract what they have in common.
I couldn’t wing the HPAT judging by the test Qs i did. So far I’ve done a fair bit of various psychometric tests from the internet just as a warm up but I will definitely do a course or buy some materials, perhaps **** but don't know for sure
I can't help with this one but I'm going to be as true and honest as possible. If anyone has tips on that I'll love to hear them as well :)

dotnetka

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332788#Comment_119332788

Hi MadMammy, I actually have a question regarding the statement of interest.

How did you go about each personal statement? I'm reluctant to send all of them to CAO as my understanding is each admissions officer will see every document you sent to CAO. I know they realise everyone applies to more than one school but how did you go about it in your statements? Have you made any changes, avoided any specific wording? I imagine they can't be arsed reading documents that are not specific to them but I want to do it right so tips will be appreciated :) Many thanks!

yeehaw123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119600331#Comment_119600331

Hi,

Thank you for your help with this whole thing it can kind of get a bit busy very quickly! There’s a HPAT course which I think I’m going to buy into at the end of the month once I’m finished my PRE for my pharmacy degree. It’s something like €300 at a discount which I was shocked that people are spending that much on courses but I guess if it’s worth it I’ll pay it.

Ive pretty much done my statement for UCC but it’s so difficult to get it down to 1500 words. I think I’ll send that off to my other 2 options, TCD and RCSI.

Have you ever went through this process before or is this your first time too?

dotnetka

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611457#Comment_119611457

I started the process last year but I withdrew even before HPAT as I was not eligible for SUSI grant just yet as I have not been in Ireland for 3 years yet so I decided to wait it out one more year. I have a statement ready but I'll have to update it with more work experience. My first choice is RCSI and I only have a statement ready for them but I think I'll do one for Cork too.

Are you applying for grad entry or undergrad?

yeehaw123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119612254#Comment_119612254

Oh ok I get you. No I’m going for undergrad as a mature student.

Paramayo

Hey guys! 👋 Jumping on the bandwagon here, hoping for nuig under grad next year as a mature student. Just wondering what's everyone's background in? I don't have a degree or anything and spent most of my twenties working hospitality jobs. I'm a Paramedic now for a the last few years so hoping that will help my case but worried the lack of previous third level education will go against me. I have some volunteering experience with civil defence and years ago with special Olympics and did some caring in the past. Anyone any tips for what else I could do between now and interviews (if I get that far🤞) to bolster my application? Look forward to hearing from you all, hope the process is going good for everyone 😊

yeehaw123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119788467#Comment_119788467

Hi! Whooo fair play that’ll be unreal to get it! I am qualifying as a pharmacist tomorrow but that means I’m just 23 so obviously I haven’t got a scratch on the amount of absolutely amazing work you’ve done in hospitality and your volunteering work!! Between now and interviews, I’ve just emailed the mature students office of all the colleges and honestly they’re so helpful with your statement. I asked the mature students office in UCC to have a read of mine and they’ve just made it look much better. Other than that, I just got sent out my HPAT stuff from Career Services there this morning to start studying- I think if I got done 20-30 mins per evening after work if I could magic up that time somewhere or like an hour or two on my days off or both that’d be fantastic. Also as I’m still only 23 I don’t have much interview experience so I suppose I’ll get onto career services in UCC, tell them I just graduated and need interview help.

So that’s what I’m looking to do before interviews if I even get that far! Before I even started the statement, I talked to every doctor possible I worked with about doing medicine because it looks ok in the statement that I’m not going into this blind folded and doing it because I said era feck it I’ll do medicine!

Hope this helps. I’m all over the shop here so I’d say take everything I say with a pinch of salt 😂

tooth_n_nail

Hey hey! Just applying to Trinity and RCSI for Mature Entry Medicine and was wondering if anyone has some advice on what Trinity specifically wants you to include in your personal statement?

Anyone who got an interview for Trinity (my aim), any specifics on what you included in your Personal Statement that got you the interview?

They have this info on their website but it's quite general and a lot of it relates to prospective Phd students

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

tooth_n_nail

Hey hey! Just applying to Trinity and RCSI for Mature Entry Medicine and was wondering if anyone has some advice on what Trinity specifically wants you to include in your personal statement?

Anyone who got an interview for Trinity (my aim), any specifics on what you included in your Personal Statement that got you the interview?

They have this info here but it's quite general and a lot of it relates to prosp

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Paramayo

Good luck everyone doing hpat! Just finished mine, have no idea how I did to be honest so will just stay positive until results come out! 🙂

yeehaw123

Same to you, hopefully everything goes ok! It was rough trying to get it done in time but thank god it’s done now

Paramayo

@yeehaw123 Yeah it sure was. So hard to tell how I did put hopefully did enough! The connection dropped out 3 times so was a bit of a pain but kind of nice to get a few minutes breather at the same time. Now for the dreaded waiting game!! Where have you applied to?

yeehaw123

Hey! I know and it can get so stressful when the connection dips! It’s really hard to know how we’ve got on but sure there’s no point in stressing now! I’ve applied to UCC, TCD and RCSI. I’m based in cork for work and studied in UCC so it would just be ideal to get UCC. What about you?

Paramayo

@yeehaw123 Exactly... Gonna keep telling myself I did enough until I find out otherwise!

Oh lovely, well fingers crossed you get Cork. I have only applied to NUIG as geographically it's the only place I could go at the moment. If it doesn't happen this year I will look at other options for next year!

rogerroger22

How did HPAT go guys?

rogerroger22

or has anyone heard from rcsi or anyone?

dotnetka

I only got 145 and haven't heard from rcsi as of now :(

yeehaw123

HPAT went ok, happyish with 165 but no email from anywhere yet. Really just hoping I’be done enough for UCC but I don’t know 😔 hope it went well for everyone- really rooting for you guys!!

dotnetka

Just got an e-mail from RCSI asking to submit CV and other documents. Good luck guys!

yeehaw123

Emails for RCSI are out

rogerroger22

Guys are you sticking strictly to the the 2 page double line spacing for RCSI? That’s so few words, very difficult to say anything worthwhile.

yeehaw123

I’m just going to give them the double spacing, I’m not going to bother with 2 pages. They can have one or the other- we’ve already done so well to bring it down to 1500 words, they can’t just change the goalposts again!

rogerroger22

@yeehaw123 But youre sticking to max two pages yeah?

also, where did you get the 1500 word max limit?

dotnetka

I’m sticking to two pages double spaced, it’s very hard but they stressed on the open day not to exceed that.

I moved some of what I had in my statement to the CV. Some of the experience is outlined in my references too so I managed to get rid of some PS content.

yeehaw123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120482612#Comment_120482612

Yeah I’m sticking to max 2 pages. The 1500 word limit is from CAO and I think UCC and TCD have the same. I did a lot of reading through past forums and it seems that it’s what they’ve done in the past so I’ll stick to it

dotnetka

Do any of you guys qualify for GEM?

Paramayo

Best of luck everyone, very shocked and happy with my result of 86th percentile! Still waiting on Galway , hopefully will get called for interview! Anyone else out there hoping for nuig?

Exciting times ahead for everyone! 😊