Bristol vs Dundee

Bristol requires AAA including Chemistry and Biology.

Dundee requires AAA including Chemistry and Biology.

Both demand the same A-Level grade band, so academic prediction is unlikely to differentiate your application between them — provided you meet the required subject combination at each.

GCSE profile matters at both schools — Bristol: Mathematics at grade 7; English Language at grade 4. GCSE resit applicants welcome. Dundee: Biology, English and Maths required at GCSE grade 6/B (if not studied at A-Level). Higher GCSE/National 5 grades essential due to high academic weighting in shortlisting.

Bristol uses MMI (Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)); Dundee uses Traditional (Two-part selection (~1h40m): observed 30-minute group discussion, then a structured traditional one-to-one discussion with an assessor). These two formats reward different skills — MMI emphasises breadth, station-recovery and structured answers under time pressure, while Traditional rewards malleability and intellectual honesty.

If your strengths lie in conversational depth, either may suit you more. If you prefer discrete capsule answers under time pressure, Bristol is the better fit.

Interview windows: Bristol interviews in December - February; Dundee in December - February.

Both schools deliver a Spiral-style curriculum, so day-to-day study habits will feel similar across years 1-3.

Specifics: Five-year MB ChB spiral curriculum - concepts revisited with increasing complexity. Clinical exposure from Year 1. Five-year MBChB spiral curriculum - concepts revisited with increasing complexity. Clinical placements across NHS Tayside, NHS Fife, NHS Highland, and

Intake size: Bristol — ~220 home + ~30 international places per year (A100 Standard Entry Medicine).; Dundee — Home (Scottish + Contextual) ~825 places; RUK ~130; International ~156 (2025 entry).. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Bristol: Total: 650/968 = 67% (2024); A108 Gateway to Medicine: 63/88 = 72%. Dundee: RUK Non-Contextual (2025): 73/130 = 56%; Scottish: 647/825 = 78%; International: 86/156 = 55%.

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.

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.

Dundee: Scottish medical school renowned for anatomy teaching and medical research. Shortlisting weights 60% academic / 40% UCAT for school leavers (40/60 for graduates). Both A-level predictions and GCSEs feed the academic score.