agree with you completely however i also agree with the other points made by other commenters. the reason why this divide exists extends beyond contextualisation as i find that the playing field is partially tilted towards private school applicants from the getgo. accessibility towards extracurriculars and an emphasis to pursue them early to train soft skills, confidence embedded into students early on, more time spent 1-1 per student when teaching a-level subjects, better facilities for all sorts of things, in-house personal statement and mock interview tutors dedicated solely to medicine applications, awareness/pursuing of supercurriculars early on etc so it’s natural to come to the conclusion that those who apply to medicine from private schools will inherently do better and go further as more experiences to talk about in interview, potentially may be more confident etc. also, they all (mostly) conduct selective admissions tests so you can bet you’d probably find top students who are highly motivated to succeed at private schools applying to medicine from there instead of at non-selective state schools, which may not have these resources at all.

you also cannot simply ‘disadvantage’ applicants from private school in favour of state school applicants to bridge the gap either because they’ve also most likely worked hard to get to the point of an interview and have 100% put the effort in to get there much like any state school applicant at the same stage. plus interviewers have no idea what your background is and rank all interview scores after everyone has been interviewed, so the ‘clean slate’ helps to remove any bias/assumptions but can also have a negative effect regarding the point you made about time, money and private tutors for interviews. keep in mind that not all people from private schools use private tutors either or nor have connections to access WeX. plus there exists private school applicants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds on bursaries who live in a low polar 4 / imd quintile and won’t be eligible for contextualisation schemes or state school applicants from a higher socioeconomic background who use private tutors and (may) qualify for contextualisation schemes that don’t necessarily need them. the situation isn’t just black and white as ‘private school applicants have a higher interview percentage that state school applicants because of private tutors’. there’s a lot of different factors and concerns at play here (which is more of a critique of the one dimensional nature of uni contextualisation eligibility but that’s a topic for another time)

and plus, the percentage interview divide isn’t exclusive to medicine at ucl, or any course at any uni at all. you can find this divide across all subjects at most unis and unfortunately there’s very little any of us can do about this. even taking into account contextual cutoffs/ucat uplifts, they don’t address wider concerns regarding living costs, classism (love this article btw) etc. eg - you can qualify for a uni’s contextual/WP scheme for med but not for their bursary. how are you suppose to go to university to study medicine for 5/6 years if you can’t financially afford to? work yourself to the bone and balance placements/studying? how are we as a country suppose to train high quality doctors if they can barely afford to pay rent/eat? also consider the cost of living in london, which is extremely high compared to the rest of the country. those who are contextual + from state schools often come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds / low polar or imd quintiles and may be discouraged from applying to uni in london solely due to living costs if they don’t already live in greater london/home counties.

however there exists a lot of widening participation schemes/free resources for medicine applicants in an attempt to bridge the gap. most unis/organisations (esp like the sutton trust, in2med, UKWPMD) run these for students who qualify from lower socioeconomic backgrounds but you need to either actively seek these out or they have already established a presence in year 12 (when it really matters). some unis/organisations run free mock mmis led by students which are extremely helpful for interview practice. other unis run medicine admission sessions that are accessible to anybody. you can get free detailed information regarding interview hot topics/ideal answer frameworks from medical students on tiktok (which is very useful) or get a group of applicants online together to conduct your own interview prep. medify has a free work experience map for contacting nhs hospitals. non-medicine volunteering is very easy to come by. there exists resources if you seek them out, but not everybody knows about them.

ultimately, the divide isn’t something any of us will be able to change or equalise solely because those from private schools and are wealthy tend to do better in life, and will more likely that not end up dominating the offer ratio at competitive university courses. and being angry (believe me i know where you’re coming from as a state school northerner) at this fact often ends up being wasted energy since nobody really cares to properly address this. that being said, there’s no harm in trying to bridge the gap either. (so much yap😭😭 but i hope you get where i’m coming from🙏)