Thank you for your email.
Please note that due to resources being directed to dealing with the
impact of Covid-19 on the university community, there might be a delay
with completing your request. 
Thank you for your patience, 
Kind regards
Information Compliance

Dear Brandon,

Thank you for your email. We will treat your request for information as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, received by the university 3 August 2020. We will endeavour to respond to your request within the statutory 20 working day time frame. Please note that the university has adopted the Model Publication Scheme and also publishes FOI responses on our Disclosure Log.

Kind regards

Jade Roche
Information Compliance

King’s College London
James Clerk Maxwell Building
57 Waterloo Road
London SE1 8WA

show quoted sections

Dear Brandon,

Please find attached our response to your information request.

Kind regards

Jade Roche
Information Compliance
 
King’s College London
James Clerk Maxwell Building
57 Waterloo Road
London SE1 8WA

show quoted sections

Dear Brandon,

Please see below the responses to your questions.

2. Please could you outline your GCSE requirements in full?

I cannot access the link you have sent me. Reviewing the course page, I
see your GCSE requirements are 'grade 6/B in both English and Mathematics'
- are these your only  GCSE requirement? If not, please can you list any
more in full?

Yes, these are the only GCSE requirements. If an applicant does not have
(or is predicted) these, their application will be rejected.

3. Your website indicates in selecting for interview, you look at academic
attainment and personal statement. Please can you outline very
specifically and in full how you use academic attainment (including A
Levels and GCSEs/subjects/grades) and personal statement, and where UCAT
scores fall into this e.g. are UCAT scores put in deciles then scored/are
A*s at A Level given a score etc? Please can this include any scoring
mechanism or similar in full?

From your response I understand in the most recent cycle, in inviting to
interview, you rank UCAT 50%, GCSEs 40% and widening participation
features 10%. While you have provided the relative contribution of each
component in ranking before interview, I would like to request how you
derive specific scores. In relation to the most recent cycle, I would like
to ask the following (as per the original FOI email)

(1)* How specifically did you score the UCAT? You must have been able to
allocate a specific score to each applicant, with higher scoring
applicants being given a greater score.

Last cycle we used a percentile ranking method for the UCAT scores of
applicants in that cohort; their percentile rank was then used as their
UCAT score.

An additional 10 points were allocated for achieving BAND 1 in the
situational judgement test, and 5 points for BAND 2.

(2) How specifically did you score GCSEs? Again, you must have been able
to allocate a specific score to each applicant. Please could you outline
what scores are allocated for each grade A* to U (or 9 to 1/U), and
whether the allocated score changes with subject (e.g. sciences might
score more)? In addition, how specifically do you quantify school
performance (e.g. percentage A* to C, percentage taking EBacc, value added
- these are hypothetical guesses) and how specifically are scores derived
from these?

Regarding GCSEs, points were awarded according to the number of A*s
achieved at GCSE (subject is not considered). Less than 5 scored 0, 5
scored 10, 6 scored 20, 7 scored 30, 8+ scored 40.

Scores were adjusted according relevant to the quintile GCSE attainment of
the school. If the school performance was one of the lowest two quintiles
then we also counted A grades achieved at GCSE towards the A* count
mentioned above.

For schools in the 3rd quintile each A grade is considered equivalent to
0.5 of an A*. For schools in the top two quintiles, no adjustment is made.

(4) How specifically did you score widening participation features. What
widening factors specifically contribute to the score, and by how much
(e.g. POLAR3, disability, care leaver etc.)? Please could you list the
widening participation factors and associated score in full?

20 points were given to applicants with either a widening participation
flag, or a care leaver flag.

Widening participation flags included:

-              Realising Opportunities

-              K+

-              KCL MedView – King’s Medicine outreach programme

-              KCL DentView – King’s Dentistry outreach programme

-              Sutton Trust

If neither are present but the applicant has an ACORN and POLAR flag, 5
points are allocated.

-              ACORN score 34-59

-              POLAR 3 or POLAR 4 quintile 1 or 2

(5) To reiterate, your website states you look at personal statement. Has
there been a case in the last three cycles (including the current 2019/20
cycle) where you have declined applicants based on their personal
statement, despite ranking high enough to be interviewed? If so, why?

It is possible for applicants to be rejected in such an instance. Due to
the qualitative nature of personal statements it is difficult to provide a
blanket reason for rejections but generally if the personal statement is
not sufficiently relevant to medicine it may result in rejection.

It would exceed the appropriate cost limits as set out in the Act to
determine exactly how many applications had been rejected due to their
personal statement since it would involve checking the notes on each
application manually.

4. After interview, similarly please can you outline very specifically and
in full how you allocate offers? Is it based solely on interview
performance at that stage, or this on conjunction with other factors (in
such a case, and you outline these factors)? Please can this include any
scoring mechanism or similar in full?

Your response says to look 'predominantly' at interview and UCAT in
allocating offers. In exactly the same way as described above under Point
2 (1) [I've placed an asterisk there for clarity - *], please can you
outline how scores are derived for UCAT?

The interview scores from each station are used to give an average
cumulative score, this score is then calculated as a percentage of the
total achievable score.

Applicants are ranked according to their percentage score and offers given
accordingly.

On borderline cases other factors including UCAT score and widening
participation factors may be considered.

5. Please can you provide a copy of your full medicine admissions policy?

I reviewed the Fair Admissions policy on this page, but medicine was only
very briefly mentioned. Please can you provide your medicine-specific
admissions policy?

We do not have a Medicine specific policy. The policy provided applies to
Medicine.

Kind regards

Jade Roche

Information Compliance

King’s College London

James Clerk Maxwell Building

57 Waterloo Road

London SE1 8WA

show quoted sections