Medicine 2026 entry - part 1

[rockstuckhardplace]

Starting a new thread for parents of prospective medical students looking to start in 2026.

@bluefineliner glad you got what you wanted. 6 weeks concentrated prep, using Medify/Medicat and UCAT website is perfect. I’m still rubbish at doing it !

Thanks for this thread. I booked DD's at 6am. The site crashed once. We are rural-ish so it was good to get an early date at a local centre.

Beginning to feel very real now!

DD booked hers for mid August, site crashed twice at payment stage but third time lucky.

Glad all good. It always crashes 😂. Gets you ready for UCAS on results day !

DD got hers booked this morning around 6.15am. Thanks to @mumsneedwine for the suggestion of multiple devices. I got through on my laptop first, but it then doom-doughnutted. DD got to payment stage but payment failed three times. Third time lucky with on my phone, whilst the laptops were still doughnutting.

Edited to add: by "doom doughnut" I mean the spinning circle that is apparently known as a throbber. I just googled it as I was worried that I wasn't making any sense.

Oh, re UCAT booking, I also wanted to add (mainly for the benefit of those in future years who might read this) that I was surprised how limited the options were. We were able to check two centres. Neither offered the test on DD's preferred date (Fri 22 Aug). There was only one morning slot on Wed 20 and Thu 21 in each location. I'm not sure to what extent this reflects the experience nationwide, but I was expecting more choice!

Thanks for this feedback! We’re not booking til next year but got a very specific date in mind. I just assumed just log on early and there will be enough options on that day, so good to know to be prepared that might not be the case! We live in quite a densely populated area so plan to have a few venues up our sleeves.

I’m surprised how blasé some parents on Facebook were being about it. I suppose they would argue that if your YP is going to cut it as a doctor they need to cope with being flexible and last minute changes etc. Well I’ll leave them to be blasé and I shall carry on with the plan.

We are in NE England and rural, with three test centre options, none particularly close. I'd be keen to hear if it's different elsewhere!

Only certain dates will do UCAT at each centre. They are also hosting driving tests and other professional exams so only limited slots. More might become available later as things get cancelled.

Blasé is fine if it works. But then you get panic.😁 if not. Better to be prepared and organised 🤷‍♀️

Fully aware that the centres are running other tests but I was still surprised at the lack of choice. Given the short testing window, I was expecting to be able to choose a day at least!

Afraid not enough places free if a centre has already agreed to run MSRA for example. UCAT gets what’s left. Driving tests get what’s off after that !

It does say more slots will be released, so it's worth checking if you didn't get the date you wanted.

"A large number of test appointments are released when booking opens in June. Additional appointments in late August and September are held back and released each morning as Pearson VUE manages demand across test centres.

Morning!

We're off to Manchester open day today and spent last night with DD having an in depth look at different medical schools. DD has finished her 'next steps' week at school this week and it has really fired her up and focused her on all things medical school.

She has started looking at UCAT on Medentry and accepted that applying strategically is the way to go. Even though I advised her this (from reading many posts on the 2025 med thread) she only really took it on board after talking to teachers and presenters at school from different unis who said the same thing. I think she was shocked to learn the head boy at her school has no med offers despite good grades, work exp etc. He did get 3 interviews, just no offers, but applied to where he wanted to go rather than where suited his grades etc.

DD got all 9s in her GCSEs so that is her strong point to start with, obvs won't know UCAT yet, but her predicted are likely to be 2 A stars and A, or 3 A stars. So far we have identified Newcastle, QUB, HYMS as good for GCSEs but are we missing some obvious ones. DD does not want to go to London and we'd rather she avoided it due to living costs.

Any advice welcome please. We looked at QUB which seems fabulous but I'm not sure if I'm understanding they weight GCSEs so heavily?

Does anyone have experience/knowledge of applying to QUB?

@bluefineliner I have a spreadsheet with all Uni info in which happy to send if DM me your email. QUB do score GCSEs, as do several others (Nottingham being one). If the boy got interviews he must have been ok with the strategy but fell down on interview technique. MMIs can be tricky for 17 year olds.

Exeter use predicted grades and UCAT so could look there.

@bluefineliner my DD had a similar profile when applying so she honed in on GCSE-heavy unis too. And Exeter as she got all AStar predictions. She hated UCAT (much preferred BMAT, and did a lot better in it but that’s history now!). She did well enough to get 4 offers so all good! From memory, this was the list she started with (before she knew UCAT result, which ended up around top 25%):
KCL, Aston, Aberdeen, Oxford, Leicester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Nottingham, HYMS, Lancaster, Liverpool, QUB, Leeds. Newcastle now also uses GCSEs (but didn’t when she applied). She also had Manchester on there too but can’t remember if they used GCSEs or not (but you’ll find out today!)

Leeds are (unhelpfully) opaque in their assessment of GCSE and UCAT, especially when you compare to QUB and Leicester for example, who are very transparent with admission statistics data.

Some of the above will have different contextual flags so worth checking that. And Cardiff often throws up unusual outcomes - I personally know 3 who got offers in the last 2 years from private SW London schools, so it is possible, even though data suggests that it prioritises Welsh applicants (which it may well do overall)

DD got an offer from QUB - they said at the open day (something along the lines of) that they valued prior academic attainment (GCSE performance in this case) above UCAT. Which I think seems to just act as an additional filter in a world where most are applying pre-A Levels, and with high predictions. They scored 9s separately (if I remember correctly) so very helpful if that’s what you have. Lovely academic staff and medical school, and Belfast is great for students (cheap!). Interview was in Belfast in early December, offer in Feb.

But things have changed so be aware. Every year several Unis will tweak their criteria (Exeter now use a grid of predicted and UCAT). Cardiff give preference to Welsh candidates - state this v openly now.

Lots of good info.

This is a snapshot of my spreadsheet. Can send if anyone is interested.
Lots of v useful posters on here. But please always check any information for yourselves (including mine !).

Leicester and Nottingham both rate GCSEs equal to UCAT score, and I think 9s get a higher scoring than 8s so your daughter would get 50% of the available marks before even adding her UCAT score! I think Leicester looks amazing - they have fairly new medical facilities and they look amazing, they seem to score highly from student satisfaction too. Their typical offer is A star AA though, as opposed to AAA which is Nottingham's standard offer.

I love the look of the Nottingham campus - it was my first choice uni 30 years ago, but I missed the grades and went to Manchester instead (for Maths not medicine). My daughter wants to stay close to home (Surrey) so Nottingham is the furthest away we're goin to see (in September) but I think Brighton & Sussex would be a really good match for her. She's actually 2027 intake so still awaiting GCSEs (which will not be all 9s!). We're off to Southampton tomorrow to take a look. Not a preferred uni (needs a high UCAT!) but it's fairly close and the first open day advertised since her exams finished.

Enjoy Manchester! :-)

Nottingham score each GCSe, then give a score for each section of UCAT with double for verbal reasoning. And then score SJT. Simple !

@SuperSue77 Soton not that high, but they interview in UCAT order so have to wait if 2600ish.

Soton looks like 2710 this year. But may have gone down as later interviews were held. I’ll ask them in Sept.

Hello I’m gonna jump in and join you. DD has got her UCAT booked and we’ve been to open days in Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield. We have Hull York tomorrow and Newcastle next weekend.
She is part of WP schemes due to our postcode, her high school and household income so that has been encouraging.
She’s predicted A star, A star A and got all 8s and 9s at GCSE.
She is worried that her background will go against her but I keep telling her it won’t!!

@Curlyshabtree will not go against her at all ! Mine was comp educated and did have a bit of imposter syndrome for a while. But quickly realised she was just as good as everyone else. WP is a fantastic thing but is used differently at each Uni. Some use postcode, some a selection of criteria and some for just local candidates. Newcastle Partners is the best if she can get that - BBB offer if completed the summer school

Another early start for HYMS today (might see you there @Curlyshabtree 😁).

DD liked Manchester as a uni, it was a well organised open day and their visit UoM app was really good for organising where and when you needed to attend talks etc. It was far far too busy in the med dept though, worsened by the awful heat. DD attended the med talk for an hour which was useful but covered a lot of what she had already found out and then we queued for half an hour to look round the med dept facilities (well students only as too many visitors). DD was a bit underwhelmed by that bit which I don't think was helped by being shown around by a 3rd yr med student who told them it was awful and they would get no work life balance (which I sort of expected being a med student?).

As Manchester was not a favourite anyway we are looking forward to HYMS today to see if it is a different feel for DD. I think DDs general impression was that Manchester were so oversubscribed they didn't put much effort in to persuading you to apply. This was our first open day though so nothing to compare to yet.

Thanks @mumsneedwine I've PMd you. Now I don't know if it is just me but I can't find information on Nottingham's website on entry requirements and how they assess applications, it just gives generic lists of qualifications but I wanted to see how they score etc. Am I missing something? Nottingham would be a possibility so would like to look more into it with DD.

Thanks for all the advice so far it is very useful.

Can't seem to edit previous post but I've found the info on Nottingham now!