What feels easy, what opens doors

Direction is a conversation that runs for years, not a quiz. Pip notices which lessons make time pass quickly, which homework never gets done, and where grades and enjoyment do or do not line up. Then, at each decision point, it says plainly which choices keep which doors open.

What do I need to study for medicine?

Nearly every medical school wants Chemistry and Biology after 16, with Maths or Physics often helping too. That's the pattern across UK med schools (Medical Schools Council: entry requirements).

As a concrete example, Queen's Belfast asks for Chemistry plus one of Biology, Maths or Physics at the grades set out on their own page, with strong passes at 16 in Maths, sciences and English. Just one sample school, others vary.

Worth planning for: the papers you sit at the end of Year 13 already count, so the grades you are aiming at are being built a year before you apply.

Is medicine something you're seriously considering, or one option among a few you're weighing up?

A reply from Pip in mentor mode to a Year 12 student in Northern Ireland, written for this page rather than captured from a real conversation. Entry requirements are illustrative and every course page is linked in the app.

Year 12, thinking about medicine

A student who likes biology asks what medicine would need. Pip answers with the pattern across UK medical schools, links the Medical Schools Council page it came from, gives one real course as a worked example with its published offer, and then asks a question instead of delivering a verdict.

The same conversation in Year 9 starts differently: which lesson does time fly in, which homework do you least want to do, have you ever thought about what you would like to do later. Only then do subjects come up.

Ease, not just grades

From practice, weak spots and what the student says, Pip keeps an ease signal per subject. When "feels easy" and "scores well" disagree, that is the conversation.

Doors, with sources

Which subjects medicine, engineering, economics or law usually need after 16, from the Russell Group's Informed Choices and the Medical Schools Council. Linked every time.

The examined middle year

Here the papers sat at the end of Year 13 already count towards the final grade, so a weak year cannot be quietly written off and repaired later. Pip says that in September of Year 13, not in the spring of Year 14.

Real courses, honestly labelled

Published entry requirements from universities' own pages, shown as examples with the link, never as a complete list. A shortlist the student keeps.

What parents see

You see the subjects, grades and the shortlist a student chooses to share in the weekly report. The conversations about who they want to be stay theirs.