What A-Level grades do Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) and King's College London (KCL) require?

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) requires AAA including Biology and Chemistry. King's College London (KCL) requires A*AA including Chemistry and Biology. Most successful applicants achieve these grades on first sitting with strong predicted grades from their school.

Where are Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) and King's College London (KCL) located, and how does that affect cost?

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) is in Brighton, UK. King's College London (KCL) is in London, UK. Tuition is £9,250/year at both for UK home applicants; the main cost difference is accommodation (London accommodation typically runs 30-50% above the national average).

When does each school release decisions?

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) typically releases medicine decisions March onwards. King's College London (KCL) releases medicine decisions By the end of May. If one is earlier than the other, you may need to hold a decision while waiting for the second school — be ready to compare in real time.

Medical school comparison

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) vs King's College London (KCL)

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) and King's College London (KCL) are both UK medical schools, but the path to an offer at each is meaningfully different. Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) is based in Brighton (England) while King's College London (KCL) sits in London (London), and the regional context shapes everything from fee status to NHS-deanery destination.

Their A-Level requirements (AAA vs A*AA) place them in slightly different academic-strictness tiers. King's College London (KCL) is the older institution (founded 1829); the other (founded 2002) has shaped its medical school around modern integrated-curriculum thinking.

Side-by-side comparison

Show only differences

Side-by-side comparison: Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) and King's College London (KCL).
Comparison field	Brighton & Sussex (BSMS)Brighton	King's College London (KCL)London
Quick comparison
Location	Brighton, UK	London, UK
A-Level offer	AAA at A-level including Biology and Chemistry	A*AA including grade A in Biology and Chemistry. General Studies, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills and Global Perspectives are not accepted, and a pass in the science practical endorsement is required. The EPQ is not considered at any point in the assessment process.
TrueScore	Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) TrueScore 1990	King's College London (KCL) TrueScore 2150
UCAT home cut-off	~1900+ /2700	No cut-off published. King's states that the minimum scores of interviewees and offer-holders "are not cut-off scores".
Interview format	Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)	Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)
Post-interview chance	Home: 394/737 = 53% (2025); International: 27/72 = 38%	Strong. In the 2024 cycle King's interviewed 982 applicants and made 762 offers (78%) - 609 offers from 796 UK interviews (77%) and 153 from 186 non-UK interviews (82%). The 2023 cycle was tighter at 645 offers from 1,116 interviews (58%).
Decision date	March onwards	By the end of May

A-Level offer	AAA at A-level including Biology and Chemistry	A*AA including grade A in Biology and Chemistry. General Studies, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills and Global Perspectives are not accepted, and a pass in the science practical endorsement is required. The EPQ is not considered at any point in the assessment process.
Contextual A-Level offer	AAB at A-level for UKWPMED-eligible (contextual) applicants, including Biology and Chemistry	-
Required A-Level subjects	Biology and Chemistry both required	Biology and Chemistry both required
A-Level resit policy	Resits considered with one dropped grade (i.e. AAB on first attempt then AAA at resit)	Resits accepted - KCL has clarified via FOI that "a first resit is considered equally to applicants taking their first sittings" (19 resit applicants received an interview in 2024, 16 received offers)
GCSE requirements	Minimum grade 6/B in Mathematics and English Language or English Literature. Grade 5s accepted with contextual data.	Minimum grade 6/B in GCSE English Language and Mathematics
GCSE scoring methodology	Used only as a minimum threshold - not used to rank applicants beyond meeting the floor	GCSEs are one of the four factors King's names in shortlisting, alongside A-level grades, UCAT and the personal statement, and performance is read in the context of your educational background. King's…
Scottish Highers	-	-
Scottish Advanced Highers	-	-
International Baccalaureate	36 points overall, 6,6,6 at Higher Level including Biology and Chemistry	38 points overall (including TOK/EE), or an aggregate of 19 from three Higher Levels, and must include grade 6 in Higher Level Biology and Higher Level Chemistry
Graduate-entry degree requirement	-	Graduate applicants typically hold 2:1 or above in any honours degree, plus required A-level Chemistry and Biology grades. KCL accepts graduates onto the standard 6-year MBBS A100.
Alternative qualifications	-	-

Contextual cut-off	~1810+ /2700 (UK WP)	-
Scottish (where applicable)	-	-
Rest of UK (where applicable)	-	-
International cut-off	~2030+ /2700	No separate cut-off published.
Graduate cut-off	-	-
SJT band	Band 4 autorejected - 1, 2, 3 are fine	Band 4 automatically rejected. Band 3 riskier - only 37/360 band 3 applicants received interview in 2024.
UCAT notes	Wholly UCAT-based shortlisting (50th centile or above considered, then ranked downwards). Offers made on interview performance. Band 4 SJT auto-rejected.	King's shortlists on A-level grades, UCAT, personal statement and GCSE grades together, and says exam results and UCAT are "perhaps the most important factors". Its published UCAT statistics stop at t…

Degree awarded	BM BS	MBBS
Course length	5 years	5 years (6 with intercalation)
Teaching style	Integrated	Integrated
Anatomy teaching	-	-
First patient contact	Year 3	-
Placement geography	Sussex	London and the south east of England
Named placement sites	Royal Sussex County Hospital	Guy's Hospital, King's College Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital
Intercalation	Optional. Numbers are capped at 40% of the cohort, with priority given to those without a prior degree.	Optional one-year BSc between Stages 2 and 3, spanning clinical and biomedical sciences and the humanities.
Course highlight	The degree is awarded jointly by the Universities of Brighton and Sussex.	Twinned with medical schools around the world, offering clinical exchanges.

Interview window	December - March	November - May
Interview details	MMI format. Questions feel closer to a typical job interview than a clinical viva - personal attributes feature heavily. There is usually time to spare in each station, so pace yourself.	MMI format with stations covering ethical scenarios, communication and clinical problem-solving. No offer is made without an interview, and King's runs them across an unusually long window - November…

Specialities	Medicine, Medical Education	Medicine, Dentistry, Biomedical Sciences
Established	2002	1829
Course type	Undergraduate	Undergraduate
What makes it different	Wholly UCAT-based shortlisting. Offers made primarily on interview performance - UCAT is only used post-interview for borderline cases. Band 4 SJT auto-rejected; bands 1-3 are fine.	Strong clinical focus with emphasis on London healthcare system.
Official course page	https://www.bsms.ac.uk/undergraduate/our-course/index.aspx	https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/medicine-mbbs

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS)

Brighton

Quick comparison

Location: Brighton, UK
A-Level offer: AAA at A-level including Biology and Chemistry
TrueScore: Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) TrueScore 1990
UCAT home cut-off: ~1900+ /2700
Interview format: Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)
Post-interview chance: Home: 394/737 = 53% (2025); International: 27/72 = 38%
Decision date: March onwards

King's College London (KCL)

London

Quick comparison

Location: London, UK
A-Level offer: A*AA including grade A in Biology and Chemistry. General Studies, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills and Global Perspectives are not accepted, and a pass in the science practical endorsement is required. The EPQ is not considered at any point in the assessment process.
TrueScore: King's College London (KCL) TrueScore 2150
UCAT home cut-off: No cut-off published. King's states that the minimum scores of interviewees and offer-holders "are not cut-off scores".
Interview format: Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)
Post-interview chance: Strong. In the 2024 cycle King's interviewed 982 applicants and made 762 offers (78%) - 609 offers from 796 UK interviews (77%) and 153 from 186 non-UK interviews (82%). The 2023 cycle was tighter at 645 offers from 1,116 interviews (58%).
Decision date: By the end of May

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) vs King's College London (KCL) - in detail

A-Level and academic profile

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) requires AAA at A-level including Biology and Chemistry.

King's College London (KCL) requires A*AA including grade A in Biology and Chemistry. General Studies, Critical Thinking, Thinking Skills and Global Perspectives are not accepted, and a pass in the science practical endorsement is required. The EPQ is not considered at any point in the assessment process.

King's College London (KCL) is the stricter A-Level offer; Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) is slightly more forgiving. If your predicted grades are borderline, Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) carries the lower academic-rejection risk pre-interview.

GCSE profile matters at both schools — Brighton & Sussex (BSMS): Minimum grade 6/B in Mathematics and English Language or English Literature. Grade 5s accepted with contextual data. Used only as a minimum threshold - not used to rank applicants beyond meeting the… King's College London (KCL): Minimum grade 6/B in GCSE English Language and Mathematics.

GCSEs are one of the four factors King's names in shortlisting, alongside A-level grades, UCAT and the personal statement, and performance…

Interview formats

Both Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) and King's College London (KCL) use MMI 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.

Interview windows: Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) interviews in December - March; King's College London (KCL) in November - May.

Curriculum and teaching style

Intake size: Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) — ~165 home + ~25 international places per year.; King's College London (KCL) — Around 300 places on A100, within roughly 410 across all of King's medicine programmes.. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Post-interview offer rate

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

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS): Wholly UCAT-based shortlisting. Offers made primarily on interview performance - UCAT is only used post-interview for borderline cases. Band 4 SJT auto-rejected; bands 1-3 are fine.

King's College London (KCL): Strong clinical focus with emphasis on London healthcare system.

Which is right for you?

For applicants with predicted A-Level grades at the lower end of the AAA-A*AA range, Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) is the lower-risk academic option. Regionally, the choice often comes down to cost of living and NHS-deanery preferences — Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) feeds into the England foundation programme network; King's College London (KCL) into the London network.

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. Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) guidance: ~1900+ /2700. King's College London (KCL) guidance: No cut-off published. King's states that the minimum scores of interviewees and offer-holders "are not cut-off scores"..

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) uses Multiple Mini Interviews: Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI). King's College London (KCL) uses Multiple Mini Interviews: Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI). The format is the same, so the same prep approach applies — practise ethics frameworks, NHS hot topics, and (for MMI) structured 5-7 minute station answers. Interview windows: December - March (Brighton & Sussex (BSMS)); November - May (King's College London (KCL)).

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS) — Minimum grade 6/B in Mathematics and English Language or English Literature. Grade 5s accepted with contextual data. Used only as a minimum threshold - not used to rank applicants beyond meeting the floor King's College London (KCL) — Minimum grade 6/B in GCSE English Language and Mathematics. GCSEs are one of the four factors King's names in shortlisting, alongside A-level grades, UCAT and the personal statement, and performance is read in the context of your educational background. King's does not publish a points tariff for GCSEs.

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS)'s selection methodology: Joint programme between University of Brighton and University of Sussex. UCAT + academic + Multiple Mini Interview. SJT used post-interview. King's College London (KCL)'s selection methodology: shortlisting weight not fully disclosed; check the official admissions page. Understanding each school's exact algorithm is the single highest-leverage piece of pre-application research — it tells you whether your profile is competitive before you spend an application choice.

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS): Home: 394/737 = 53% (2025); International: 27/72 = 38%. King's College London (KCL): Strong. In the 2024 cycle King's interviewed 982 applicants and made 762 offers (78%) - 609 offers from 796 UK interviews (77%) and 153 from 186 non-UK interviews (82%). The 2023 cycle was tighter at 645 offers from 1,116 interviews (58%).. Post-interview odds tell you how competitive each school is at the final stage. Two schools with similar UCAT thresholds can have very different post-interview rates — a school with a 60% post-interview success rate is structurally easier to convert than one at 25%.

You can — UCAS allows 4 medicine/dentistry choices in total, so listing both is feasible if your profile fits each school's selection algorithm. Apply to both only if your UCAT, GCSE and predicted-grade profile is competitive against each school's published weighting. A common mistake is using two of your four slots on similar schools when a more spread-out portfolio (one safe + one stretch) would maximise overall offer probability.

Where to go next

Brighton & Sussex (BSMS)Entry requirements, interview format and key dates in full

King's College London (KCL)Entry requirements, interview format and key dates in full

Other medical school comparisons

School data reviewed by the NextGen MedPrep editorial team — last reviewed 19 September 2026.