Pre-clinical medicine: How do you short-list for interview?

Around 425 applicants are invited to interview each year.

As part of the process to decide which applicants are called to interview, we establish a numerical ranking on the basis of GCSE performance and UCAT results.

For GCSE performance, we will look at the number of and proportion of GCSE passes at the top grades (8/9) and relate those to the performance of all students at the school where the GCSEs were taken. For UCAT results, we will look at an applicant’s overall cognitive subtest score. We will not use an applicant’s situational judgement score at this stage of the process.

For applicants with GCSEs, we will give equal weight in the first stage of shortlisting to GCSEs and UCAT. For those without GCSEs, who took 5 or less GCSEs, or who took GCSEs between summer 2020 – summer 2021, we will give double weight to the UCAT. For applicants who did not complete the majority of their GCSEs between summer 2020 – summer 2021, any individual GCSEs taken during this period will be discounted from our measure of overall GCSEs taken, number of A*/9/8s achieved and mean proportion of A*/9/8s achieved used in the automatic shortlisting stage.

You should bear in mind that as we short-list the same number of people every year, and we use two variables (which carry the same weight), there is no actual cut-off for either variable. It is therefore impossible to advise on the number of 8/9 grades or the exact UCAT score that an applicant would ‘need’ to be short-listed. An applicant with fewer 8/9s at GCSE could compensate by achieving a stronger UCAT score, and an applicant with a lower UCAT score than average could compensate by having more 8/9s at GCSE in order to be short-listed automatically. Therefore amongst those selected for interview there will be a spread of performance in both of these variables.

You may be interested in looking at the admissions statistics relating to GCSE and UCAT performance.

All applicants who do not make the initial short-list are then reviewed in detail, taking into account any individual circumstances that might indicate that their academic performance is likely to underestimate their potential. If you feel that you underperformed at GCSE because of extreme circumstances beyond your control, it is imperative that these extenuating circumstances are brought to our attention. See: https://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine/pre-clinical/applying/mit-circs

Please do note that candidates who attend the UCAT are declaring they are fit to test. Candidates aware of anything that might affect their performance on the day should not sit the test. For full details about UCAT’s Fitness to Test policy, please see: https://www.ucat.ac.uk/sit/fitness-to-test-policy/.