Barts and The London (Queen Mary) vs Bristol

Barts and The London (Queen Mary)'s published UCAT threshold for home applicants is around 2000, while Bristol sits at approximately 2260.

The 260-point spread matters: Barts and The London (Queen Mary) offers slightly more headroom for an average-strong UCAT, while Bristol expects performance closer to the national 75th-90th percentile.

Contextual / widening-participation cut-offs differ — Barts and The London (Queen Mary): not separately disclosed; Bristol: ~1450+ /2700 (A108 Gateway / WP - lowest invited has reached as low as 1340). Eligible applicants should weight this heavily when choosing.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) requires A*AA including Chemistry and Biology/Physics/Mathematics.

Bristol requires AAA including Chemistry and Biology.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) is the stricter A-Level offer; Bristol is slightly more forgiving. If your predicted grades are borderline, Bristol carries the lower academic-rejection risk pre-interview.

GCSE profile matters at both schools — Barts and The London (Queen Mary): Min 6 GCSEs at grade 6 (B) including Maths, English Language, dual-award Science. Bristol: Mathematics at grade 7; English Language at grade 4. GCSE resit applicants welcome.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) uses Panel (Panel interview with two senior academic or clinical staff, sometimes a lay selector (online)); Bristol uses MMI (Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)). These two formats reward different skills — Panel emphasises narrative coherence and the ability to develop a thread under follow-up questioning, while MMI rewards breadth and quick recovery.

If your strengths lie in conversational depth, Barts and The London (Queen Mary) may suit you more. If you prefer discrete capsule answers under time pressure, Bristol is the better fit.

Interview windows: Barts and The London (Queen Mary) interviews in December - February; Bristol in December - February.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) runs a Integrated curriculum; Bristol runs a Spiral curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Barts and The London (Queen Mary) delivers more didactic lectures with structured systems-based progression, while Bristol uses a more traditional lecture-led structure.

Specifics: Five-year MBBS with integrated theory and clinical practice. Strong East London NHS placement network (Royal London, Whipps Cross, Newham, Mile End). Five-year MB ChB spiral curriculum - concepts revisited with increasing complexity. Clinical exposure from Year 1.

Intake size: Barts and The London (Queen Mary) — ~290 home + ~30 international places per year (one of the larger UK medical schools).; Bristol — ~220 home + ~30 international places per year (A100 Standard Entry Medicine).. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary): UK Undergrad: 948/1294 = 73% (2025); International: 61/159 = 38%; A101 Graduate Medicine: 55/127 = 43%. Bristol: Total: 650/968 = 67% (2024); A108 Gateway to Medicine: 63/88 = 72%.

Post-interview odds give you the clearest signal of how competitive each school is at the final stage — a school with a 60% post-interview success rate is structurally easier to convert than one at 25%, even if the interview thresholds look identical on paper.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary): No longer 50:50 weighted on A-level predictions and UCAT - anyone who exceeds the UCAT cut-off generally gets an interview regardless of predictions. SJT band adds bonus points to interview score post-interview (Band 1 = +2, Band 2 = +1, Band 3 = 0).

Bristol: Russell Group university with strong medical and dental programmes. Shortlisting is wholly UCAT-based - neither personal statement nor SJT is used in selection. Bristol has the highest UCAT cut-off of the major English schools.