Achieving Medicine

GrabTheCREAM

So I'm going to start Transition Year in September and I really want to get into Medicine. Do you think I should start studying on my own for the next 3 years? Would that give me a great chance to get into medicine? And how is the HPAT scores added? I think it's like if you get 520 and 200 hpat points then it's -20 from the 520 or something. Or is it just added on right away?

pajero12

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

So I'm going to start Transition Year in September and I really want to get into Medicine. Do you think I should start studying on my own for the next 3 years? Would that give me a great chance to get into medicine? And how is the HPAT scores added? I think it's like if you get 520 and 200 hpat points then it's -20 from the 520 or something. Or is it just added on right away?

I don't think you'll find many people that agree you should be studying in T.Y, Id be more inclined to say just pay attention in class and do whatever little homework you have!
No, That would be 720, Im not sure what the cut off may be, but once you hit 550(?) you only get 1 point for every 5 over 550, i.e 555 would give you 551, 580 would give you 556 etc.

GrabTheCREAM

pajero12 wrote: »

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

So I'm going to start Transition Year in September and I really want to get into Medicine. Do you think I should start studying on my own for the next 3 years? Would that give me a great chance to get into medicine? And how is the HPAT scores added? I think it's like if you get 520 and 200 hpat points then it's -20 from the 520 or something. Or is it just added on right away?

I don't think you'll find many people that agree you should be studying in T.Y, Id be more inclined to say just pay attention in class and do whatever little homework you have!
No, That would be 720, Im not sure what the cut off may be, but once you hit 550(?) you only get 1 point for every 5 over 550, i.e 555 would give you 551, 580 would give you 556 etc.

Why would it be a bad idea to study over TY (during free time)? And also would it raise my chances of getting into medicine if I did my last year at The Institute of Education in Dublin? (Sister is repeating there this year)

Canard

I don't think there's any harm studying in TY...I skipped the year, but it's not like you'll be doing much else and you're free to just stop if you get bored studying. In fact, most people I know wish they had because they got out of habit.

And no, the IoE won't raise your points, it's all dependent on how much work you do. They're meant to have good teachers, but unless any of your teachers are awful it won't make an enormous difference - definitely not 7000 euros worth.

GrabTheCREAM

Patchy~ wrote: »

I don't think there's any harm studying in TY...I skipped the year, but it's not like you'll be doing much else and you're free to just stop if you get bored studying. In fact, most people I know wish they had because they got out of habit.

And no, the IoE won't raise your points, it's all dependent on how much work you do. They're meant to have good teachers, but unless any of your teachers are awful it won't make an enormous difference - definitely not 7000 euros worth.

Ok thanks I think I found my answer Just one more thing though, will I be able to repeat at the IoE or elsewhere if I don't get what I wanted?

Canard

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

Ok thanks I think I found my answer Just one more thing though, will I be able to repeat at the IoE or elsewhere if I don't get what I wanted?

Yeah, sure - the IoE would take anyone really, and though not all schools take repeats (mine require medical reasons for having needed to repeat), there's a lot of repeat colleges if you're stuck.

Glee_GG

Personally I wouldn't recommend studying during TY. I mean by all means, work away at little bits every now and then, but I'm a firm believer that TY is meant to develop other sides of you other than your academic side otherwise why do it? Also in my school anyway we didn't actually cover that much of the LC course during fourth year, we did a bit in maths but not a huge amount. Most of the teachers did things that weren't on the course, but things that we would have had interests in such as forensic science and stuff like that.

I'm heading into 6th year this week and trust me, you'll have more than enough time to study in 5th year if you want to. Just pay attention in class, do the homework and do your bits of study.

For the HPAT, your points to 550 are counted and every 5 points after that is made 1 point so the max you can get from your leaving currently is 565 (625 points) and then whatever you get in your HPAT is added onto that

GrabTheCREAM

Thanks I don't mean like studying hard I mean just here and there to get me prepared and not let my brain fry like people say happens after ty lol. Just one more thing, I heard I can get extra bonus points in my LC if I do ty, is that right?

haro124

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

Thanks I don't mean like studying hard I mean just here and there to get me prepared and not let my brain fry like people say happens after ty lol. Just one more thing, I heard I can get extra bonus points in my LC if I do ty, is that right?[/QUOTE

No I never heard that before :P why would you get extra points ?

GrabTheCREAM

haro124 wrote: »

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

Thanks I don't mean like studying hard I mean just here and there to get me prepared and not let my brain fry like people say happens after ty lol. Just one more thing, I heard I can get extra bonus points in my LC if I do ty, is that right?[/QUOTE

No I never heard that before :P why would you get extra points ?

idk I heard it was like 50 extra lol

Glee_GG

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

haro124 wrote: »

idk I heard it was like 50 extra lol

Thats actually gas :L No, theres no extra points for TY, sure the whole country would be doing it otherwise

spurious

He's probably thinking of LCVP and it's not guaranteed extra marks by any means.

GrabTheCREAM

spurious wrote: »

He's probably thinking of LCVP and it's not guaranteed extra marks by any means.

Just asked my mum she said the teachers told her during the talk or whatever that they're just bringing it in this year

Glee_GG

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

Just asked my mum she said the teachers told her during the talk or whatever that they're just bringing it in this year

Points for TY? Thats defiantly not true as far as I know, there'd be uproar if it was!

I think I know what you talking about, there has been research that says that students who do TY get about 40 points more than those who don't it, if thats what your thinking of?

GrabTheCREAM

Glee_GG wrote: »

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

Just asked my mum she said the teachers told her during the talk or whatever that they're just bringing it in this year

Points for TY? Thats defiantly not true as far as I know, there'd be uproar if it was!

I think I know what you talking about, there has been research that says that students who do TY get about 40 points more than those who don't it, if thats what your thinking of?

I know that and that was what I was originally thinking before she told me, idk lol :P is there any way of confirming?

BarnhallBull

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

I know that and that was what I was originally thinking before she told me, idk lol :P is there any way of confirming?

I believe statistics show that people who do TY generally tend to do better on average than those who go straight from JC into 5th year*, this might have been what was said to your mother and maybe she misinterpreted it?

*I don't actually have anything to back this up other than the fact we were told this when we were starting TY.

partyatmygaff

There's no way that the CAO would award extra points for something that has absolutely nothing to do with merit. Giving 50 points to people who either (Depending on their school) obtained some useful work/life experience or faffed about and did nothing for a year is a crazy idea.

finality

Might be good to keep working at your languages during TY. We did absolutely no work in the language classes in TY and I forgot everything, could barely speak Irish or German at the end of TY. I eventually got back into them but I think it would've been easier if I'd done a bit of work in TY.

For other subjects I don't think there's much point, you'll be doing completely new material from 5th year on and two years is plenty of time to cover the courses.

I kind of think people tend to make out that it's much harder to get into medicine than it is, but I guess I'm just going by my own experience there.

whiteandlight

When you get your JC results you'll have a better idea if there are some areas you need to brush up on from the JC. We can't tell you what they are. For myself, my weakest area was languages so if I had wanted medicine that would have been where I'd have been working in TY. As a maths teacher I'd advise you to keep ticking away at the maths as if you sit back entirely it can be hard to recall methods by LC. In addition you haven't done Project Maths for Junior Cert so a good plan might be to get a copy of a new project maths JC book and work through the new sections particularly stats and probability.

randylonghorn

GrabTheCREAM wrote: »

Just asked my mum she said the teachers told her during the talk or whatever that they're just bringing it in this year

I suspect two things may have been mentioned, and she linked them in her head more than they actually are.

1) the research mentioned above re TY

2) the current discussions about reforming the CAO applications: one of the things mentioned was an American type system with personal statements, a concentration on extra-curricular activities, community involvement, etc.

The teacher may have casually said something like "if they do bring in that kind of system, students participation in TY will stand to them" and gone on to mention the research above, and your mum just linked the two things in her head.

GrabTheCREAM

I think she misheard it, the teacher probably said that you're more likely to get more and she prob thought you get extra points.