Undergraduate medicine

Competition for places for undergraduate medicine degrees at UK universities is extremely high. The UK government limits the number of places on the medicine programme for international students. Each UK University has approximately 15-20 places for international students per year. In total there are 400 places in UK Universities each year for international medical students. In 2007 there were over 11,000 applications for the 400 places available in UK Universities medical schools. The application deadline for medicine for all UK universities is around middle of October of each academic year.

British Universities teaching medicine prefer students to have completed a 2-year A-level programme at an accredited UK college in the UK. The average minimum requirement by UK universities to apply for a medical degree is 3 A-level subjects at grades AAB with grade A in Chemistry and one other Science subject such as biology, mathematics or physics. UK universities do not tech A-Levels, therefore the best preparation for a UK medical degree would be to come to a UK private tutorial college in the UK to do a 2-year A-level programme. The A-level subjects recommended for students wishing to study medicine are biology, Physics, mathematics, chemistry.

However, given the very limited places at medical schools, there is no guarantee that your final application to medicine will be successful. Students with excellent A-Level grads stand better chance of entry to a medical degree at a British University. The application to medicine must be through UCAS and the deadline is 15th October of the year before proposed entry year to the medical degree. For example the medical degree application deadline for September 2008 medical degree entry is October 15th 2007. Your fully completed UCAS form must arrive at UCAS in the UK before this date. Applications received after this date will not be forwarded to the UK Universities.

All students applying to any UK universities? medical schools in the UK have very good grades and very good references. Therefore you need to write a very good personal statement on your UCAS application form that will make you stand out from the rest of the medical applicants and will improve your chances of receiving an offer. UK medical schools select students for interviews on the basis of the UCAS form. If your UCAS application is successful the university medical school may ask you to attend an interview. The medical degree at any UK university medical school is 5 years in length. For the first two years (pre clinical studies) the tuition fee is approximately 14000 UK pounds per year (Sep2007 intake). For the final 3 years (clinical studies) the tuition fee is approximately 24000 UK pounds per year (Sep 2007 intake). Including living expenses and medical degree tuition fees for the 5 years full duration of the medicine course at a UK university medical school it is recommend that students budget for 150,000 UK pounds. This is excluding the cost of completing the 2-year A-Level programme at a UK College. Preparation for entry to a medical degree Applying to study bachelor degree in medicine in the UK is different from applying to any other specialisation. The admissions criteria for medicine is a lot tougher

The admissions criteria and requirements for studying medicine in the UK is the same for British students and International students.

All students are required to complete the A-Level programme where the student must study 3 subjects in which one subject must be chemistry and biology is recommended as a second subject, students can choose a third subject from a wide range of A-Level subjects

The A-Level programme is 2 years in duration. Students wishing to study medicine need to do minimum 3 A-level subjects for example Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. Students can choose to take other A-Level subjects but A-Level chemistry is compulsory requirement by UK medical schools.

To be accepted onto the A-Level programme students must have a good grade at their 11 grade or 12th grade schooling and have minimum of 5.5 IELTS score or equivalent TOEFL score or grade C at GCSE English. Al-level programmes start in September of every year and set their A-Level exams in June of every year, A-Level exams results come out in August of every year.

To stand a better chance to be accepted into medicine at a UK university students need to achieve grade A in all of their 3 chosen A-Level subjects although some universities may accept students with AAB A-Level grades. The A-level subjects exams results are graded from A to E. The percentage equivalent for the A to E grades is outlined below:

Grade Percentage
Grade A 80% - 100%
Grade B 70% - 79%
Grade C 60% - 69%
Grade D 50% - 59%
Grade E 40% - 49%

In other words students need to achieve 80% or more in their A-Level exams to able to have a god chance of being made an offer for medical degree at a K university.

Until the A-Level final exams results come out in August students can’t be sure whether they can enrol on the bachelor degree in medicine.

Document required for applying The following documents are generally required from students who wish to apply to join the A-Level programme in the K to lead them to do medicine