Applying to medical school can be a daunting process. There are so many universities to choose from that offer different courses and look for different grades, different aptitude test scores, and attributes. This guide will provide step-by-step information on the application process, with extra bits of advice that I wish I’d known when I applied.
What universities look for:
There are lots of steps to applying to medical school. These will be:
- Choosing your A Levels
- Doing work experience
- Doing the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT)
- Making your application
- Doing your interview
- Getting your offers (which I’m sure you will)
While this seems like a lot to do, with some planning, these steps can be tackled in sizable chunks, and you can feel confident that you’ve done everything you need to do on time.
Choosing your A Levels:
This is a very important step that will be made at the beginning of year 12. Different medical schools will require different A-level subjects – all except 5 medical schools will expect you to take chemistry, and most will also want you to take biology. Some top universities (such as Cambridge) will specify that they want you to take chemistry A-level and also ask that you take an A-level in two other sciences – these can be maths, biology, physics, and further maths.
In general, it is probably a good idea to do chemistry and biology A levels to keep your options open when it comes to applying, and to take a subject like maths or physics if one of your target medical schools requires it. However, it is worth noting that medical school offers usually will require upwards of ABB at A-level (with some medical schools requiring A*A*A), and so you should take A-level subjects you find interesting and believe you can do well in. If this is not one of biology and chemistry, you shouldn’t feel you have to take them, but should be aware that this might narrow your options later on down the line. Resources like Medic Paths can help you make informed subject choices and plan your path strategically.
Work experience:
Work experience can be great for a number of reasons:
- It gives you a good idea of whether you want to do medicine
- It shows medical schools that you’re serious about medicine
- It helps you gain insight into medicine, something you can talk about in your interview and personal statement
With this being said, it is probably best to get your work experience organised early on. Getting work experience in year 11 might be useful so that you have an idea whether you’d like to be a doctor before choosing your A levels. However, many hospitals are busy and so will prioritise work experience for year 12s. This is still a very good time to get your work experience, as you will have first-hand ideas of what being a doctor is like to write about in your personal statement.
While there are definite benefits to doing work experience, DO NOT WORRY if you do not get the opportunity to do any. Medical schools will understand that some people find it much more difficult to get work experience than others, based on where they live, when they decided they wanted to study medicine,and whether their parents are doctors or not. If you don’t get work experience, you should still show that you’re proactive by looking for online videos and articles about work experience and being a doctor, and reading books written by doctors.
Doing the UCAT:
The UCAT is a clinical aptitude test that is used by medical schools to judge applications. DO NOT make the mistake of believing this is purely an aptitude test – this should be studied for.
The test:
The test is composed of three time-pressured sections, each scored between 400 and 900. (Note: there were four sections until 2025, so some information online about what constitutes a good score may still reference the old format.) Additionally, there is an ethical component—the Situational Judgment Test (SJT)—scored from Band 4 (lowest) to Band 1 (highest). This section is generally less time-pressured.
The three main sections assess your reading comprehension (Verbal Reasoning), decision-making skills (Decision Making), and numeracy (Quantitative Reasoning). It’s a very challenging exam, with the average total score hovering around 1850 out of 2700.
Resources like Medic Paths can provide up-to-date guidance and preparation strategies to help you navigate this demanding test. The table below shows the average scores in 2024, adjusted for the current three-section format:
What you should aim for:
For 2024, many medical schools had a UCAT cutoff between the 5th and 7th deciles. However, some had a cutoff as high as the 9th centile – meaning only applicants that had scored in the top 10% of test takers were given interviews. Universities such as Oxford and Cambridge historically used a different aptitude test (the biomedical admissions test) and so do not have previous minimum score thresholds for the UCAT. The cutoff scores for these universities will likely be very high.
This highlights the importance of preparing well for the UCAT to get the best score possible.
Preparation:
There are many question banks full of UCAT questions, and these can help massively with preparation. The Medify resource bank is the one that I would recommend – they have thousands of questions, well-constructed mini-mocks, and very good explanations behind the answer to each question they give you. This question bank can give you a good idea of how you’ll do in the actual test and, if you leave yourself enough time, can be excellent for improving your score. If you’re ever stuck, the wonderful tutors at MedicPaths can be a great help.
Different people will start their preparation at different times – most people will start their preparation in the summer and aim to sit the test in late August/early September before school restarts. However, doing regular practice from earlier in the year may suit different learning styles better.
Booking the test:
This is something that didn’t have much emphasis when I applied, but is an important step. Here are the important dates to note in 2025:
- 13th May – UCAT account creation opens
- 17th June – UCAT booking opens
- 7th July – testing starts
- 26th September – testing ends
If you would like a specific date, it is best to create an account before the booking opens – opening an account may take up to 24 hours, meaning the slot you wanted may be taken. Advanced planning of when is best for you to prepare for and do the test can dictate how important it is that you create your account and book your test early.
Making your application:
For 2025, the application deadline is the 15th of October, much before most other university courses. You will have to decide which medical schools to apply to and write a personal statement. Something to note is that you can only apply to 4 medical schools per UCAS cycle – it is up to you whether you want to apply for a 5th non-medicine course or go all in on medicine.
Choosing medical schools:
By this point, you will have predicted grades for your A levels and have your UCAT score. These will be important factors in which medical schools you apply to as they can determine whether some medical schools will see you as eligible to interview. Other factors to consider when applying to medical schools are:
- Whether the course is traditional (such as Oxford and Cambridge, the first two years are lecture-based while learning biomedical sciences) or more case-based (such as Cardiff Medical School, where you learn through discussing cases and doing independent research)
- Whether there is early patient contact or little patient exposure in your first couple of years
- Whether there is an opportunity for an intercalated degree (a year where you do another degree outside of medicine) and whether it is mandatory (such as at Oxford and Cambridge). It is also worth considering the scope of courses that you can intercalate in – some medical schools will make you intercalate in a course related to medicine, whereas others will let you study a wide range of degrees
- Whether you’d like to go to a city or a campus university
- Whether the medical school is easy to get to from wherever you live
It can be very useful to visit universities to make sure you’d like to study there!
Personal statement:
From 2025, the personal statement will change slightly to have a structure around 3 key questions:
- Question 1: Why do you want to study this course or subject?
- Question 2: How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare for this course or subject?
- Question 3: What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?
Despite these changes, the personal statement will be very similar to previous years, and so a good starting point is to look at examples online. In your personal statement, you should aim to talk about:
- Why did you initially want to study medicine
- What reinforced your desire to study medicine, e.g., work experience, reading medical literature, human biology in A-level
- Your academic achievements
- Achievements outside of academic, e.g,. musical instruments, sports teams, Duke of Edinburgh awards – tell the medical school about anything you’re proud of And remember, good personal statements are:
- Authentic
- Well-written
- Compelling
- Focused on your motivation
Medical school interviews:
Medical school interviews take place between December and March. Some medical schools will give you a lot of notice, while others will give you a week or less. It can be good to start preparing for your interview as soon as you put your application i,n so that you can make sure to ace it.
Different styles of interview:
Interviews will generally either be given by a panel or as an MMI (Multiple Mini Interviews). Interview questions will usually be about you (most UK universities) or more scientifically based (mostly just Oxford and Cambridge).
MMIs:
These are becoming more popular for medical school interviews. In these interviews, you will rotate around different stations that will ask you different questions. The advantage of these interviews is that each station is a clean slate, and so a bad answer will only affect your subsequent answers as much as you let it. These stations will ask questions that are more related to you than your scientific knowledge.
Panel interviews:
As the name suggests, you will be interviewed by a panel of people. These can be a mixture of: professors, doctors, medical students, and laypeople. This style of interview may seem intimidating, but there are more people to interact with and more of a chance to build a rapport with your interviewers. The questions asked by panels can be about you or about your scientific knowledge.
Questions about you:
Most medical schools will just ask questions of this sort. I use this as an umbrella term as questions in this category can be about:
- Your motivation for medicine e.g., “why would you like to study medicine?”
- Why did you choose that particular medical school?
- Your personal qualitie,s e.g, “give an example of a time where you showed resilience”
- Your insight into medicine, e.g., “What do you think is the biggest challenge to doctors?”
- Your insight into the NHS
- How would you react to difficult situations, e.g, “how would you react if you saw a fellow doctor stealing prescription drugs?”
- Your views on ethical dilemmas, e.g,“who should be given liver transplants?”
- Your creativity
Scientifically-based questions:
These can be different – sometimes you will be allowed to explore ways to answer a broad question, and sometimes you will be asked for pieces of knowledge. It is important not to worry if you don’t know the answer – the purpose of this interview is to determine whether supervision style teaching suits you, not to determine what you know. Therefore, you will be assessed more on how you think and whether you can use new information, such as ‘medic paths reviews,’ to give answers.
Group interviews:
These aren’t very common but are run by some medical schools. These will present a task for your group to complete together, with interviewers assessing your interpersonal skills and, in many tasks, the ideas that the group comes up with. Some strategies for these interviews are:
- Try to keep your group on track with a good structure, this makes discussion easier
- Learn the names of the other people in your group
- Build on others’ points and summarise them if you feel they’re not entirely clear
Preparing for interviews:
Practicing lots of questions before your interview is important – you should have practiced a range of questions so that you have a coherent structure to your answers during your interview. For most question types, a robust answer structure can be learned and applied to any other similar questions – these can be learned on your own but would be expedited with the help of an experienced tutor.
To practice, you can find plenty of questions online and practice with lots of different people. Some of the best people to practice with are any other friends applying to medical school and any medical professionals that you happen to know as they will likely have strong opinions on what makes a good answer. However, anyone you know can be an interviewer – family and friends will all have ideas on whether an answer was clear, answered the question properly, had good points, and came across well. My top tips for the interview are:
- Practice answering questions confidently
- Have ideas on how to structure a range of answers
- Dress formally, and make a good first impression!
- Take your time, it doesn’t matter if you need time to think – don’t try to answer too quickly and become flustered
What to do if the medicine doesn’t work out the first time:
Medicine is very competitive, and so it doesn’t work out for everyone the first time. If your heart is set on medicine, this is not the end of the line. If you’re confident that you were close to getting an offer this year, it may be worth taking a gap year and reapplying the next year. Taking a gap year can be a great experience in itself! Alternatively, many universities offer graduate entry medicine from degrees such as biomedical sciences and biochemistry – you may want to do this first and try to go into medicine from there.
Remember, you will be a doctor for 40+ years – don’t worry if it takes you an extra year or so to get into medical school.
Conclusion:
Applying to medicine can be daunting, but hopefully this guide can help with the process. If you still have questions, get in touch with a tutor who can help guide you further.
Best of luck with your applications. I look forward to seeing you on the wards, future doctor!
