Skip to main content
NextGen MedPrep logoNextGenMedPrep
Medical school comparison

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) vs Manchester

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) and Manchester 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 Manchester sits in Manchester (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. The interview formats diverge — Panel vs MMI — and the prep approaches for the two are fundamentally different.

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

Manchester

Manchester

Quick comparison

Location
Manchester, UK
A-Level offer
AAA at A-level including Chemistry or Biology, plus one of Biology / Chemistry / Maths / Further Maths / Physics / Psychology. No use of predicted grades.
TrueScore
Manchester TrueScore 2060
UCAT home cut-off
2060+ /2700 with Band 1 or 2 SJT (2026 entry threshold, A106)
Interview format
Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)
Post-interview chance
2026 entry: home 985 offers from 1,667 interviews (59%); overseas 40 from 191 (21%); A101 home 91 from 157 (58%) and A101 overseas 6 from 10. Overseas applicants face a far harder run at both stages than home applicants.
Decision date
March onwards

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) vs Manchester - 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.

Manchester requires AAA at A-level including Chemistry or Biology, plus one of Biology / Chemistry / Maths / Further Maths / Physics / Psychology. No use of predicted grades.

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) is the stricter A-Level offer; Manchester is slightly more forgiving. If your predicted grades are borderline, Manchester 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… Manchester: At least 7 GCSEs at grade 7, 8 or 9.

English Language or Literature, Mathematics, and 2 Science subjects must be at grade 6 or above. WP+/WP++: 6 GCSEs at grade 7+ accepted. GCSE resits permitted; up…

Interview formats

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) uses Panel (Panel interview with two senior academic or clinical staff, sometimes a lay selector (online)); Manchester 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, Manchester is the better fit.

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

Curriculum and teaching style

Barts and The London (Queen Mary) runs a Integrated curriculum; Manchester runs a PBL curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Barts and The London (Queen Mary) delivers more didactic lectures with structured systems-based progression, while Manchester centres learning around clinical cases.

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 MBChB built around problem-based learning. Clinical placements distributed across Greater Manchester NHS sector hospitals from Year 3.

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 UK medical schools.; Manchester — Manchester publishes 401 funded places across its medicine courses - the majority for home students and 28 for international students - plus a small number of additional self-funded or government-sponsored places on the graduate-entry programme..

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%. Manchester: 2026 entry: home 985 offers from 1,667 interviews (59%); overseas 40 from 191 (21%); A101 home 91 from 157 (58%) and A101 overseas 6 from 10.

Overseas applicants face a far harder run at both stages than home applicants.

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).

Manchester: The UK's largest medical school, with over 2,200 undergraduate medical students and strong research links. Thresholds are met-or-not rather than ranked, so clearing the UCAT bar with an SJT of Band 1 or 2 usually earns an interview; Bands 3 and 4 are not currently considered.

Which is right for you?

For applicants with predicted A-Level grades at the lower end of the AAA-A*AA range, Manchester 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; Manchester into the England network.

If you learn best in small-group case discussion, prefer Manchester; 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

Neither school publishes a single fixed UCAT cut-off; both use UCAT as part of a composite shortlisting score alongside GCSE and personal-statement weighting. Barts and The London (Queen Mary) guidance: 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.. Manchester guidance: 2060+ /2700 with Band 1 or 2 SJT (2026 entry threshold, A106).

Where to go next

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

Other medical school comparisons

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