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Academics and course directors offer an insight into Oxford Medical Sciences undergraduate courses

People attending a conference

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Attracting the very best applicants from all parts of the UK remains a high priority for our undergraduate courses. With this in mind, Deputy Director of Pre-clinical Studies Prof. Chris Norbury explained the six-year Medicine and three-year Biomedical Sciences courses to a total of around 1,750 potential applicants at the Oxford-Cambridge Student Conferences, held across the country over two weeks in March. The four-year Biochemistry course was similarly covered by Kathryn Scott and Mark Wormald.

Each conference was a day-long event, with venues ranging from football stadia (St James' Park, Newcastle and the Liberty Stadium, Swansea) to race courses (Epsom and Aintree), and included sessions on student finance and how to make a competitive application, as well as subject-specific presentations and Q&A. Current undergraduates local to each area played key roles as 'student ambassadors', helping the school students attending the Conferences to appreciate that Oxbridge entry is an achievable goal.

Prof. Norbury commented: "The Conferences provide an efficient way of making direct contact with a substantial proportion of those year 12 students who are seriously thinking about applying for our courses. We were able to answer a wide range of questions from students and their teachers, and to offer encouragement to all those with a genuine interest in the science that makes medicine work. These events are organised jointly with Cambridge in a collaborative spirit, but informal feedback from participants suggests the Oxford courses were viewed very positively by comparison with their Cambridge counterparts!".