Pre-clinical medicine: I performed badly at GCSEs - am I eligible to apply?

If you have performed badly at GCSE, our website should help you to determine whether you might have a realistic chance of a place. 

Our average applicant has 80% of GCSE grades at grades 8 or 9 (or A*) and 8.5 grades at grades 8 or 9 (or A*); although there is no cut-off, and we will look at your performance within the context of your school, this should give you a good idea of what is expected (mostly 8s or 9s). In general terms, you will need a strong performance in both the UCAT and GCSEs in order to be short-listed automatically.  

All applicants who do not make the initial short-list are reviewed in detail by our tutors, taking into account any individual circumstances that might indicate that GCSE performance is likely to underestimate their potential. So, if you feel that you underperformed at GCSE because of extreme circumstances beyond your control (examples could be that your school set a tight limit on the number of GCSEs you were allowed to take, or you only started learning English only a few years before taking your GCSEs, or you were ill during much of year 10), it is important that these circumstances are brought to our attention via our dedicated process for this purpose. Read more about how to notify us of circumstances which negatively impacted your GCSEs. We will not be able to accept submissions outside of this procedure.

Note that in the most recent round no applicant with fewer than 6 passes at grade 8 or 9 was shortlisted, and no applicant with fewer than 6 such passes was offered a place (find out more about these statistics). This may be useful in  helping you to decide whether or not you are in a position to make a competitive application