Rees, Eliot L;
(2025)
Medical school choice in the United Kingdom.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Widening participation in medical education is critical for fostering a diverse medical workforce that reflects the populations it serves. Despite efforts to increase access, medical schools in the UK vary significantly in the socioeconomic composition of their student cohorts. Understanding how applicants from different socioeconomic backgrounds choose which medical schools to apply to may shed light on these disparities and inform strategies to promote equity. This thesis explores the choice behaviour of medical school applicants through a large-scale national qualitative interview study. Participants, including both applicants and recent entrants, were purposively sampled from eight UK medical schools to ensure representation from a range of socioeconomic and geographical backgrounds. The analyses were sensitised to theories of capital and choice. Participants described seven key priorities when considering medical schools: course style, proximity to home, prestige, medical school culture, geographical location, university resources, and whether they felt they would ‘fit in’. While there were similarities across socioeconomic groups, such as the universal appeal of prestige, differences emerged in how participants prioritised and conceptualised factors. Applicants from non-traditional backgrounds often emphasised practical considerations, such as proximity to home or maximising acceptance chances, over aspirational attributes like prestige and course style. The study identified five types of strategies adopted by applicants: maximising priorities, playing to strengths, the Scottish approach, exhaustive comparison of entry requirements, and contextual admissions. The strategies participants used were shaped by their perceptions of their resources and constraints across four types of capital: economic, intellectual, social, and positive psychological. By offering a detailed exploration of decision-making processes and drawing on established theories of choice, this thesis contributes to the ongoing dialogue on equity in higher education. It concludes with practical recommendations for policymakers and institutions to address disparities and ensure equitable opportunities for aspiring medical students, regardless of their socioeconomic background.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Medical school choice in the United Kingdom |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Primary Care and Population Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212319 |
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