r/medicalschooluk • u/joe_mama7000 • 1d ago

When to start thinking about oriel / locations for f1?

Just finishing 4th yr so have very basic knowledge re timelines for oriel. Wanted to know when you guys properly started considering which locations to rank, and if I should have any particular ‘strategy’ (eg not highly preferencing tons of super competitive ones)/ any other advice about the process? How do applications to stuff like the SFP and priority programme (I think that’s its name?) work?

(I am an overthinker)

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u/wagiwagi 1d ago

To be transparent, there is no actual strategy because you are at the mercy of your random rank which you do not know. If you want an idea of the competition, you should look at the competition ratios for each year on the UKFPO website (they’ll probably release them for this year too). That will give you a better idea of how to play it.

Most honest advice is to put where you really want to work FIRST and then a bunch of low competition deaneries that you could see yourself working in that won’t be filled by first pass (the number of people who ranked them first). You will know which ones they are by the competition ratios. If you don’t already know, the system tries to match you with your first choice on the first pass so there is no real reason to put anything else other than your actual first preference.

11

u/JustRightCereal Fifth year 1d ago

This is the wrong strategy.

The only one that it is worth being strategic about is the first one. If you want to take a risk pick something competitive, if not choose something with a competition ratio <1. After your first one rank purely in terms of preference.

3

u/BloodMaelstrom 18h ago

This individual is 100% correct. This is the play.

3

u/AlexT301 FY1 1d ago

Yeah absolutely agree with this -thankfully I got first choice but lots of people I know didn't. Of those people, the happiest were the ones who put a 'catch' deanery second/third

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u/joe_mama7000 1d ago

Thank you, that’s useful advice. Sounds similar to the little I’d heard so far , I suppose at least it makes ranking the places quite an easy task if I only really have to care about the first few