Pre-clinical medicine: Which college should I apply to?

All colleges are academically strong, and your course (timetabled lectures, practicals, seminars, etc.) will be the same regardless of the college of which you are a member.

The college to which an applicant applies has no bearing on their chances of gaining a place: the ratio of interviews to places is the same across all the colleges (so colleges with large numbers of places see more applicants at interview). Every applicant is interviewed at two colleges, helping to ensure that the strength of each college's cohort of applicants is very similar.

In fact, around a third of the successful applicants are placed at a college other than the one they originally selected on their UCAS form.

If an applicant doesn't have a strong view about a particular college, we encourage them to make an 'open' application that allows us to assign them to a college based on the numbers of available places and the number of applications; around 20% of our applicants choose to do this each year. This is designed to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to compete for the available places. However, if they have decided that one particular college appeals to them - perhaps because of its location or its facilities - then they should specify that college as their college of preference on their application form.