Medicine 2026 entry - part 1

[rockstuckhardplace]

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

It looks like the 2025 DM 9th decile is lower by 10 than in 2024, VR higher by 10, and QR higher by 50!

So overall not much change. Probably be the same in UK. Anything over 2,100 will be good. 2,300 excellent. 1800 still possible. Nothing much changes.

oh my! does this mean 2240 is not 9th decile? Does this mean we need to reconsider? I think I saw elsewhere (here maybe?) the comparative table for Australia/New Zealand, and UK... does anyone know about that?

2100 in Australia would leave you with literally no options. Unless you were rural (specifically for students with long standing rural living backgrounds).

UK will be different

Here's the comparison of UK and ANZ.

here's the comparison between ANZ and UK

Not all medical schools there use UCAT.

The ones that dont require UCAT require at least 99.95 (the sort of score gained by about 12 kids out of 10,000 in a given year. Unless you get special status for where you live or are indigenous. And that offering is not in every state in Australia.

Hello! Hope all your YP are doing ok and more importantly, us as parents are keeping sane! TGIF.

We managed to swing a Southampton open day pass, so we will be attending that. Hopefully that will help in our decision making for the 4 choices!

KMMS is still vague. I'm still wondering whether to hedge our bets. DS has a good attainment 8 score, way above his school's average, but the school's average is also pretty much above the national average.

Now we are seriously thinking of the 4 choices, I'm having to factor in whether DS will be happy in any of those cities...!

When is Southampton open day @MyGreyBiscuit ? It is interesting hearing about other unis, even though we are much further north for most of DDs favourites.

We are going to Lancaster tomorrow, then Liverpool the following Saturday. I am looking forward to tomorrow as DD is quite keen after looking at it online. It isn't that far from us either. It feels much more real looking at unis now DD has her UCAT result, like she actually will be applying and could end up living there if she gets in!

DD seems settled back in school now and is concentrating on her PS which seems to morph into a different version every time she looks at it. I am leaving her to it as she has had a lot of advice from school on how to write it so I will keep out of it for now.

This weeks has seen a lot of DDs school peers taking their UCAT, time is ticking on, it will be the end of the testing window soon then we will know how the deciles look, I am very curious if there will be a noticeable difference to previous years.

Hiya @bluefineliner southampton’s open day is this Sunday! We got lucky and they responded quickly. So we will be driving there bright and early (no lie in!! 😭)

DS’s school say they need to upload everything last Friday of September. Then the headmaster will have 1-2-1 with them. Don’t get it. Most of his friends who are doing ucat have done it. Think the last one is next week. Postponed several times!

do let us know how the Lancaster one is. It’s just too far for us but it is near enough to grandparents (an hour away…)! Safe journey!

Interim deciles should be out next week.

Just looking for others perspectives please. DDs first choice is Newcastle, according to their scoring on 2026 admissions policy she would score 78/100 (40/40 GCSE, 38/60 UCAT). Last year's cut off was 76. Although the deciles haven't been released yet, this will not change the scoring for DD. The only thing it might tell us is lots of others have scored more highly on the UCAT, meaning Newcastle's cut off may go up.

Would you think this is risky? Her other 3 choices (Leeds, Lancaster and Liverpool for now) seem like safer ones so we are thinking she could take a risk?

Any opinions welcome. I really don't want her to waste a choice, but also don't want her to miss an opportunity either.

TIA

I'm finding all these posts so helpful, thank you! DD sitting UCAT on 22nd so super late given her late decision to apply for medicine and school want UCAS forms in by 26th with PS and choices - so we're not ruling anywhere out yet but data gathering!

For those going to Southampton today, whilst it may have changed in the 20 years since I graduated - there used to be side roads in Highfield with free parking and then the campus could be accessed through the back. My student house was Khartoum Road and free to park there at the time and 7 min walk to campus...

They used to organise a park and ride for open days. Just check if football match on as then avoid trying to get into city !

DD’s UCAT is on Wednesday and she has been utterly foul for the last 10 days. 🤞🤞🤞 it gets better 😭

My daughter is doing hers on Wed too… after rescheduling from early September.
Yikes, it’s been a long summer - and not much chance of a breather afterwards as it will be straight onto applications, PS and all the rest!
Onwards and upwards!

Just back from Lancaster open day which was a great success. DD loved the campus, the medical school was very well presented to us, it felt very welcoming and accessible. The current students were lovely and informative and enjoyed the course which was good news to DD.

She got to play in the clinical skills room and we were shown how a PBL session is run which was interesting. The clinical skills tutor spent time with DD showing her how to listen to cardiac sounds. In the talk there were quite a few kids who hadn't yet taken their UCAT so you are not alone @PurryGrowls , @AlphaApple , @Peanuts79 .

So overall campus lovely and we and DD could really envisage her studying there (she was delighted with the huge library). Fingers crossed for an interview as she will definitely apply. And the good news is they said they are making more offers this year than last!

Good luck to the UCAT takers this week.

We went to Leicester open day today, as we were in the area for a different reason, and it was a big positive surprise. It wasn't even on our long list initially, because of best 8 GCSE scoring scheme, but we realised it might be safe to get an interview with an 82/96 score. Their scoring is 50-50 GCSE and UCAT (not based on deciles though, they have a ucat points scale with max 48 points, similar to Newcastle.

I was really impressed with their medical programme and all offerings. Integrated, good clinical placement, good intercalation options (MSc and Bsc), great medical society, medical students union, etc. We got to talk to a lot of med students and a couple of admission tutors. My DD loved that they do cadaver dissection 😂. Campus vibe and accomodation were great as well. So we've added it to our long list.

We are going to Exeter and Southampton open days on the same weekend (4th and 5th), then will tour Sheffield with a family friend who studies there, and that's pretty much it for uni visits. DD visited some the London ones in yr 12. BSMS would be good to visit as well but at the moment it's at the bottom of our long list so maybe not... These visits are soo expensive.

Has anyone finalized the selection of 4? We are waiting for UCAT deciles to come out so even though the school is pushing us to apply early, realistically we won't submit the 4 choices before the week commencing 6th of Oct.

Does anyone know the date when the final UCAT deciles are out?

@inae i have a DC at Leicester med school so if you have any more questions about it, feel free to DM me. My DC got 4 offers back when applying and it was their firm choice. Has been very happy there and loves the course, placements etc Academic support is exceptional. Couldn’t recommend it enough.
And rent is super cheap for really lovely accommodation!

@Millaiss Thank you so much, we might take you up on your offer! DD loved every single conversation she got into - with students not only from med school but also from other subjects. They were so helpful and she asked about everything and anything.

We both loved the undergrad med talks and offering, there were absolutely no red flags and it seemed to be ticking a lot of boxes for DD. We did try to ask if 82/96 was enough for interview selection, but as expected we got no assurances at the medical Q&A after the talk. However, one of the admission officers we chatted a lot with did say 82 was competitive, and that she would be surprised if no interview offer...

Accomodation didn't seem cheap to me, but that's probably because we first visited one of those premium studio flat options at £260pw. The shared bathroom ones at £165 were a bit better though 😂 we only visited the City accomodation, not the Village one, as we didn't have much time left and wanted to get a feel for the city as well.

It will be interesting to see how the others (Exeter, Sheffield, etc) compare. The London ones are sooo, so different!

Thanks all for this info. Lancaster and Leicester both of interest to us - obviously ucat depending!
Any insight to the likely cutoff at Lancaster @bluefineliner?
@inae - is there any advantage to applying early?

@PurryGrowls I think there is an advantage for our 6th form to apply early, as I think we have about 25 early applicants this year (mostly oxbdrige, only 3 aspiring med students). We're a small 6th form. I'm not entirely sure if there is any direct advantage for our DCs, apart from being able to start working on the next steps - mocks and interview prep 😂

Yes @inae those lovely Freemans student halls aren’t the cheapest but once they past first year and get into private rentals, it gets so much cheaper, I promise!!
But lots of first year med students do stay in Freemans for their first year, so you were right to focus on that - it’s so handy for getting to the daily 9am lectures (rather than relying on the bus up from the Village, or walking). But the Village is great too - and does have some under £100pw options, if budget is a priority. (Or it did a few years back so hopefully still does)