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Medical school comparison

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) vs Bristol

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) and Bristol are both UK medical schools, but the path to an offer at each is meaningfully different. Barts and The London (Queen Mary) is based in London (London) while Bristol sits in Bristol (England), and the regional context shapes everything from fee status to NHS-deanery destination.

Their A-Level requirements (A*AA vs AAA) place them in slightly different academic-strictness tiers.

Side-by-side comparison

Barts and The London (Queen Mary)

London

Quick comparison

Location
London, UK
A-Level offer
A*AA at A-level achieved in one sitting over a study period of no longer than two years
TrueScore
Barts and The London (Queen Mary) TrueScore 2010
UCAT home cut-off
A hard floor at the fourth decile: Queen Mary states your application will not be considered beyond first shortlisting if your total UCAT falls below it. Clearing the fourth decile is no guarantee of an interview.
Interview format
Panel interview with two senior academic or clinical staff, sometimes a lay selector (online)
Post-interview chance
UK Undergrad: 948/1294 = 73% (2025); International: 61/159 = 38%; A101 Graduate Medicine: 55/127 = 43%
Decision date
March onwards

Bristol

Bristol

Quick comparison

Location
Bristol, UK
A-Level offer
AAA at A-level including Chemistry and one of Biology, Physics, Mathematics or Further Mathematics
TrueScore
Bristol TrueScore 2280
UCAT home cut-off
2240+ /2700 - the final threshold to be invited to interview for 2026 entry.
Interview format
Structured online panel interview (Zoom): six stations marked by two panels of three assessors
Post-interview chance
Total: 650/968 = 67% (2024); A108 Gateway to Medicine: 63/88 = 72%
Decision date
March onwards

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) vs Bristol - in detail

A-Level and academic profile

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) requires A*AA at A-level achieved in one sitting over a study period of no longer than two years.

Bristol requires AAA at A-level including Chemistry and one of Biology, Physics, Mathematics or Further Mathematics.

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): At least 6 GCSEs at grades 777666 (AAABBB pre-2017) including Biology, Chemistry, English Language or English Literature, and Mathematics. Science Double Award may substitute all sciences.

GCSEs not… Bristol: Mathematics at minimum grade 7/A and English Language at minimum grade 4/C. GCSE resit applicants welcomed and may apply with results pending. GCSEs and A-levels used only as minimum thresholds -…

Interview formats

Both Barts and The London (Queen Mary) and Bristol use Panel interviews, so the underlying prep approach is the same — practise ethics frameworks, NHS hot-topic answers and (for MMI) structured station responses against a timer.

That said, the specifics differ slightly: Barts and The London (Queen Mary) runs panel interview with two senior academic or clinical staff, sometimes a lay selector (online); Bristol runs structured online panel interview (zoom): six stations marked by two panels of three assessors. Mock practice tailored to each school's exact format is the highest-leverage prep.

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

Curriculum and teaching style

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) — 311 Home places and up to 24 Overseas expected for September 2026 entry on the five-year A100 - one of the larger…; 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.

Post-interview offer rate

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.

What makes each distinctive

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.

Which is right for you?

For applicants with predicted A-Level grades at the lower end of the AAA-A*AA range, Bristol is the lower-risk academic option. Regionally, the choice often comes down to cost of living and NHS-deanery preferences — Barts and The London (Queen Mary) feeds into the London foundation programme network; Bristol into the England network.

If you learn best in small-group case discussion, prefer Barts and The London (Queen Mary); if you prefer lecture-led foundations, the other suits better.

Your firm/insurance choice should ultimately weight: where your UCAT and predicted grades sit relative to each school's threshold, which interview format you can prepare for most credibly, and where you'd actually want to live for five or six years.

Common questions

Barts and The London (Queen Mary): no published UCAT cut-off. Bristol: home applicants — 2240+ /2700 - the final threshold to be invited to interview for 2026 entry. These are the figures on record for 2027-entry applicants. Schools without a fixed cut-off rank UCAT inside a composite shortlisting score, so thresholds move with each year's applicant pool — confirm the latest figure on each school's admissions page.

Where to go next

Barts and The London (Queen Mary)Entry requirements, interview format and key dates in full
BristolEntry requirements, interview format and key dates in full

Other medical school comparisons

School data reviewed by the NextGen MedPrep editorial team — last reviewed .