Table 3.

Shortlisting candidates for interview at medical school

Criteria	Details
Who assesses the UCAS form?	Pool of assessors ranged from one to two to over 30 in each school. All schools have assessors drawn from clinical and academic staff. Three schools have lay assessors, with a fourth having lay people as part of the admissions committee which oversees the selection process
Training of assessors	11 schools offer training: for seven this involved in-house briefing sessions with the marking of sample forms; two held informal sessions when assessors discussed processes; one an external two day course; and one had a formal training manual
No of assessors per form	Nine schools ask two assessors to score each form independently with discrepancies resolved by a third; four refer UCAS forms to second assessor if first assessor has rejected candidate. At five schools forms are single marked but with either sample of each assessor's forms checked and if discrepancies are found, the entire set of forms are second marked (three schools) or then reviewed by admissions tutor or subdean (two schools). At one other school forms are single marked with range of marks awarded by each of assessors “eyeballed” by senior admissions tutor to check on range of marks awarded. One school would not reveal details on number of assessors