Studying for the UCAT requires commitment and months of hard work due to the psychometric nature of UCAT evaluation. Because of this, it is difficult to acquire the core cognitive skills assessed in the UCAT overnight, often taking upto 6 months for most students to perfect these skills.
For those of you aiming to crack the UCAT either by doing solo preparation or undertaking UCAT courses, you need to be mindful that your UCAT study could become monotonous with little room for ideas and improvement without the right people around to support you. Sadly, unless your parents or older siblings are at an undergraduate medical school, your family will be of little help in getting you where you need to be.
It is crucial that your UCAT preparation is overseen by professionals who have both the experience of sitting the UCAT, and of mentoring students from different educational backgrounds.
A UCAT mentor will not only improve your mental endurance for this test, but will also be able to help you strike the right balance between high school exams and UCAT study, which in our experience is a common struggle to most students.
Fraser’s UCAT Tutoring and Mentoring
If you take a look at our UCAT courses, problem-based learning (PBLs) forms the backbone of Fraser’s teaching philosophy. Our courses are designed to cater to a small group of motivated students who partake in skilled workshops and specialised training that improves their theoretical and conceptual frameworks around the UCAT.
The UCAT mentors program complements the PBL sessions and is meant to reinforce and reassure students about what they have learnt within the classrooms, and anything else that involves UCAT preparation. Basically, the role of your assigned mentor is to positively reinforce your overall performance by providing personalised feedback outside the classroom setting.
In recent years we have come to the conclusion that most students have other social commitments alongside preparing for the UCAT, making the study-life balance quite challenging to achieve. Sometimes even peers or parents cannot fully assist you in your UCAT prep and it could be overwhelming to tackle it all by yourself. Hence, we introduced the concept of a ‘Personal Mentor’ to act as a confidant who can back you up in every stage of your UCAT study journey.
Fraser’s UCAT Personal Mentoring Program
For starters do not assume that a personal mentor is the same as an UCAT private tutor.
UCAT Private Tutors vs Mentors
A UCAT private tutor leads the seminars on a one-on-one level and evaluates your progress throughout each session. In contrast to that, a personal mentor should be seen as a guide who walks alongside you in your UCAT preparation, having weekly check-ins to ensure you are not stressed around other commitments, like applying to a medical school. A personal mentor works around your clock and provides practical strategies and study advice to maximise your performance in the UCAT exam.
Unlike other UCAT prep companies that deliver either one-on-one tutoring or the traditional classroom learning service, Fraser’s has a different stance when it comes to a single-mentor-single-student interaction. Our values and teaching ideology is revolutionsed to make the learning experience more personal, which means each student feels heard on a level not possible with larger companies.
The role of a mentor is to facilitate meaningful conversations with their assigned students outside the classroom setting, and help them manage time more effectively across other facets of their life.
Note: The UCAT personal mentoring program under our concentrated and comprehensive course packages. This method of learning is a Fraser’s exclusive that enables growth and productivity as a whole, without restricting to the core of UCAT study.
Personal Mentors Help Achieve a UCAT-School Life Balance
As much as mentors leading the UCAT courses can tailor your skills and track your growth in classrooms, they cannot fully ensure whether you are efficiently managing your school work and other social commitments alongside UCAT study.
In fact, to have a successful UCAT sitting, the time devoted to practice UCAT questions beyond the classroom setting is equally important. The personal mentor assigned to you will provide a great point of contact for study solutions based on your day-to-day schedule.
By consistently being in touch with your personal mentor, you can develop a study plan that allocates adequate time to your UCAT study as well as school commitments. On this basis, you learn to prioritise and balance your other busy commitments.
Most of our mentors are current med students who have had to face a similar situations in the past, such as applying to medical school. Our personal mentors have helped many students in the past to preference a suitable medical school according to their personality and future goals. Considering the fact that the medical school application process can be tedious to put it lightly, our mentors have great insights on how you can overcome stress and maintain your performance across different pre-med assessments.
For instance, if your aim is to pursue medicine at Bond University, we have specialised mentors who have worked closely towards improving skills in the Bond psychometric exam. Whereas, if you have concerns around presentability and communication skills assessed in a medical interview, a personal mentor gives you the necessary advice to perform well in the interview.
Weekly Sessions with a UCAT Personal Mentor
UCAT’s question format is quite unique and fairly new to most students who have only encountered traditional question styles throughout school life. When you have to answer visuo-spatial questions or interpret the appropriateness in Situational Judgment, you have to tap into your problem-solving skills which are nonetheless difficult to demonstrate without constant guidance.
Your personal mentor takes ownership of catching up with their assigned student on a weekly basis for a 30-minute chat. This chat allows you to discuss your struggles across any of the UCAT subsections from your recent seminar or some time that you attempted practice questions at home.
The purpose of the chat is to clear the air of confusion instantly rather than having to wait for your next classroom session, which means you can schedule a talk based on your availability.
Furthermore, weekly discussions are an on-going process that extends throughout the entirety of your course and focuses on your past weeks class performance. Based on the discussion, the personal mentor will set upcoming tasks or ‘homeworks’ for the following week that you are supposed to work on, so you can reflect on your overall learning experience and areas of improvement for your next meeting.
UCAT Mentors Bridge Between Students and Parents
This one’s specifically for parents who are eager to understand the progress of their child’s UCAT study. We understand that it would be difficult for working parents to continuously monitor their child’s preparation every step of the way. That being the case, the personal mentor keeps you informed of your child’s progress and reduces your workload by providing monthly progress reports which highlights your child’s strengths and weaknesses.
Apart from that, the personal mentor can also provide necessary assistance in administrative matters, involving any issues with the LMS or concerns around the course curriculum. UCAT mentors take on the role of a coordinator to allow the smooth flow of messages between the admin team, other UCAT tutors, and your child.
Final Remarks on UCAT Mentors
Since we launched the personal mentor program, our students have been finishing a larger proportion of their question banks in their practice sessions and have become more observant in identifying their areas of growth and weaknesses.
Beyond UCAT preparation, our mentors are continuously reassuring students of their abilities to shape them into confident individuals who are ready to tackle the unforeseen circumstances in the medical field.
In conclusion, if you plan on committing to one of our courses, the UCAT personal mentors program will act as a backbone to your UCAT study, get you thinking in the right headspace for UCAT and beyond in medical studies.
