Can You Enter Medicine Without UCAT?
The UCAT, or Universities and Colleges Admissions Test, is a test required for admission into many medical schools in the United Kingdom. However, it is not required for all medical schools.
There are a few schools that do not consider UCAT scores when making their admissions decisions.
1. Can You Enter Medicine Without UCAT?
There are a number of ways to enter medicine, and UCAT is just one of them.
While UCAT may be the most common entry exam used to enter into medicine, there are a number of other ways to do so as well.
There are a number of universities that still use the UCAT but place less weight on the score.
There are also universities that use other entrance exams such as BMAT and GAMSAT in the UK.
A select few universities have no entrance exams and we can explore all of them.
Universities that use UCAT but have a minimal weighting on it
Keele
Applicants are screened academically which includes GCSE or degree classification for HE applicants.
A roles and Responsibilities (R&R) form must be filled as part of the application process.
This form is scored and used to rank applicants for interviews.
UCAT scores will be used in tie-breaker situations, or if the number of interviews slows is exceeded by the number of applicants tied above the R&R threshold.
As such, an R&R threshold is used.
More information is available on the university site.
Hull York
Applicants must meet minimum academic requirements as usual, in addition to taking the UCAT and meeting further requirements.
In the UCAT, applicants are required to achieve bands 1 to 3 in the situational judgement subtest.
A score of band 4 in SJT will result in exclusion from the interview pool.
Applicants are ranked based on GCSE results, UCAT score, Situational Judgement band, and contextual data. The top 800 or so candidates are interviewed.
more information is available on the university website.
Kent and Medway
Applicants are divided into five groups depending on education level or student status, and there are different procedures for entry and selection.
Stage one for all groups involves assessing minimum educational requirements.
Stage 2 involved checking that the minimum UCAT threshold is met.
Thresholds may differ depending on the group.
More detailed information is available on the university website.
Manchester
Manchester university uses a UCAT threshold as part of its selection criteria.
The threshold is based on the standard of scores received that year and is therefore calculated once all applications are received.
Students are likely to be invited for an interview if this threshold is met, and a band 1 or 2 is achieved in the SJT subtest.
If the threshold isn’t met, educational information is used to form a holistic assessment.
More information is available on the manchester website.
3. Universities that use other entrance exams
Liverpool
Graduates applying to the A100 programme are currently required to have taken GAMSAT.
Undergraduate students are still required to do the UCAT.
A UCAT Cut-off is used by Liverpool University, however, this changes every year.
Applicants are then ranked on UCAT scores.
Preference may be given to applicants offering higher GCSE scores if borderline decisions need to be made.
More information is available on the university site.
St George’s
St Georges offers both an undergraduate and graduate entry programme for medicine.
The undergraduate program uses the UCAT, whereas the graduate entry programme requires GAMSAT.
More information can be found on the university website.
Worcester
Worcester offers a 4-year graduate-entry medical program for individuals who already hold undergraduate degrees.
This medical school is known as the Three Counties Medical School as it is intended to serve Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Gloucestershire County.
Student finance is available for home students, however, the applications are primarily open to international applications.
Applicants must take the UCAT and score highly, however, no further details or cut-offs are provided. This likely suggests that applicants should score in the 8th decile or higher.
The GAMSAT and MCAT can be taken in place of the UCAT.
A further CASPer test must be done to assess ethics and situational judgement.
More information can be found on the university website.
Ulster
Ulster university has established a new school of medicine in Northern Ireland.
Entry requirements include a pass in the GAMSAT entrance examination.
More information can be found on the university website.
Swansea
Swansea accepts GAMSAT or MCAT results for international applications and GAMSAT alone for home applications (UK) for their graduate entry medicine program.
There is a minimum acceptable score of 50 in GAMSAT, including a minimum of 50 in paper 3.
More information is available on the Swansea website.
Sunderland
Sunderland has a 5-year MBChB degree targeted at school leavers, however, applications are also open to degree holders.
Applicants not meeting the A-level or GCSE science requirements can take the GAMSAT to satisfy these requirements.
information on the minimum requirements can be found on the university site.
Plymouth
Plymouth accepts a combination of requirements to satisfy selection criteria.
- Either GCSE, A Levels and UCAT
- GAMSAT on its own – previous year minimums
- A Levels and stage 1 of either Biomedical Science or Human Biosciences with the University of Plymouth exclusively
- A degree programme through the University of Plymouth School of Biomedical Sciences exclusively
More information can be found on the university site.
Applicants completing degrees outside of the University of Plymouth are encouraged to sit the GAMSAT.
However applicants taking degrees within Plymouth university can be considered for internal transfer granted they have achieve at least 70% across all modules in first year, or have achieved AAB in A levels.
In such cases, no entrance exam is required.
Nottingham
Nottingham accepts GAMSAT for graduate entry medicine (for degree holders).
A GAMSAT score is calculated by Nottingham using the mean average of the 3 constituent sections of the exam.
To meet the minimum requirements, students must score 55 or above in section 2, 55 or above in either section 1 or 3, and 50 or above in the remaining section.
Once this is met, candidates are placed in a potential pool of interview holders and ranked for those in the top percentage of GAMSAT scores.
More information is available on the university website.
Keele
Keele accepts the GAMSAT for graduate applicants who don’t meet the A level or GCSE requirements for entry onto their 5-year undergraduate program.
Keele does not have a specific graduate entry program and as such, you will be competing for entry against graduates, and also school leavers.
This means degree holder candidates will also need to take UCAT as well to be ranked against school leavers.
International students must take the BMAT.
More information is available in detail on the university site.
The next set of schools are BMAT rather than GAMSAT universities.
Brighton and Sussex
Brighton and Sussex medical school accepts BMAT.
To select for interviews, applicants are ranked on BMAT score and invited to fill out the spots.
There are some BMAT cutoffs implemented with a slightly different criteria for calculating than the BMAT already does.
Visit the website to make sure you are above the cut-off before applying.
Imperial
Imperial accepts the BMAT.
Threshold scores are calculated and applicants are rejected immediately if this is not met.
Threshold scores are slightly lower for home students (UK) than international students.
As with most universities, widening participation is available to further lower the cut-off.
Read more on the website.
Lancaster University
Lancaster accepts BMAT for all applicants.
Applicants are ranked according to the sum of their scores in sections 1-3 and this list is used to fill interview spots from top-ranking applicants.
Further information on selection is available on the university site.
UCL
The BMAT is used by UCL.
Information about the exact selection process isn’t featured prominently online, however, it appears that the BMAT is used alongside other information to help select candidates for interviews.
Information on the average score of UCL applicants is available on the website.
Cambridge
Cambridge offers both an undergraduate and graduate entry program.
Applicants for the Graduate Course in Medicine (A101) are not required to take any exams, however, if you wish to apply to both the Standard Course (A100) and Graduate Course (A101), you’re required to take the Biomedical Admission Test (BMAT).
More information about which colleges to apply to can be found on the university website.
Leeds
Leeds uses the BMAT as part of its selection criteria.
Top-ranking candidates are selected for interviews (roughly 750).
More information is available on the university site.
Oxford
Oxford university uses the BMAT in its shortlisting process for graduate entry into medicine (A101) and also undergraduate (A100).
More information on the undergraduate requirements and graduate entry requirements can be found on the site.
4. Universities that have no entrance exams
Cambridge
Cambridge offers both an undergraduate and graduate entry program.
Applicants for the Graduate Course in Medicine (A101) are not required to take any exams, however, if you wish to apply to both the Standard Course (A100) and Graduate Course (A101), you’re required to take the Biomedical Admission Test (BMAT).
More information about which colleges to apply to can be found on the university website.
UCLAN
UCLAN has no entrance exam requirements to be met.
Instead, applications are encouraged largely from international students with limited places available for UK students.
Home (UK) students must live in the North West of England (i.e Lancashire, Cumbria, Cheshire, Merseyside, and Greater Manchester) to be eligible.
Widening participation is also available.
Further in-depth information on selection and eligibility can be found on the university site.
Buckingham
Buckingham university is a private university offering accelerated undergraduate degrees to primarily overseas students.
The school has GMC accreditation (from 2019) and is therefore qualified to train students eligible for registry as junior doctors after graduating.
As it is an independent medical school, there is no cap on international student places, and therefore this tends to be the majority of the cohort.
Applicants need not take any entrance exams to be eligible, however, they must attend assessment days consisting of MMIs and interviews to determine eligibility and suitability.
As the university receives no government subsidies, yearly fees are currently £38,496 for all students.
Student finance is not available for the full cost of tuition.
More information is available on the university site.
Plymouth
Plymouth accepts a combination of requirements to satisfy selection criteria.
- Either GCSE, A Levels and UCAT
- GAMSAT on its own – previous year minimums
- A Levels and stage 1 of either Biomedical Science or Human Biosciences with the University of Plymouth exclusively
- A degree programme through the University of Plymouth School of Biomedical Sciences exclusively
Applicants completing degrees outside of the University of Plymouth are encouraged to sit the GAMSAT.
However applicants taking degrees within Plymouth university can be considered for internal transfer granted they have achieve at least 70% across all modules in first year, or have achieved AAB in A levels.
In such cases, no entrance exam is required.
More information can be found on the university site.
Summary
While the UCAT is a very popular avenue for entry to medicine, there are other alternatives that you can choose from.
The BMAT or GAMSAT may be a better fit for you and provide you with a better chance of securing a place especially if you meet the educational requirements of those universities.
Lastly, there are other options for individuals who don’t want to do any entrance exams.
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