Reaching too high for a Medical degree?

“David Willetts, the Universities Minister, has said that there is a “gross excess” of applicants for Medicine degrees.  He said: “There is every summer several thousand very unhappy 18-year-olds, predominately but not exclusively female, who think they will become medics who, sadly, do not get a place despite being very smart and well-qualified.  And this is one of the most dysfunctional features of the English school leaving A-level system.  The truth is that the number of young people, and it does tend to be more girls than boys, with an aspiration to do medicine way exceeds any number of places that the NHS is likely to have.”  Last year around 4,800 students with AAA grades failed to get into university, with the largest number, 1,800, prospective medics.  The number of unplaced medics has risen from 28% to 37% per cent over the last four years.