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!!

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.

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!

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?

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 😊

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

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 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 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!

or has anyone heard from rcsi or anyone?

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.

Do any of you guys qualify for GEM?