Bristol vs Edge Hill

Bristol's published UCAT threshold for home applicants is around 2260, while Edge Hill sits at approximately 2050.

The 210-point spread matters: Edge Hill 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 — Bristol: ~1450+ /2700 (A108 Gateway / WP - lowest invited has reached as low as 1340); Edge Hill: ~1900+ /2700 (Foundation Year). Eligible applicants should weight this heavily when choosing.

Bristol requires AAA including Chemistry and Biology.

Edge Hill 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. Edge Hill: Min 5 GCSEs at grade 6 (B) including Maths, English Language, dual-award Science.

Both Bristol and Edge Hill 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: Bristol interviews in December - February; Edge Hill in December - March.

Bristol runs a Spiral curriculum; Edge Hill runs a PBL curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Bristol delivers more didactic lectures with structured systems-based progression, while Edge Hill centres learning around clinical cases.

Specifics: Five-year MB ChB spiral curriculum - concepts revisited with increasing complexity. Clinical exposure from Year 1. Five-year MBChB with PBL and case-based learning. Clinical placements across Lancashire NHS sites (Southport & Ormskirk, Wirral, Mersey Care).

Intake size: Bristol — ~220 home + ~30 international places per year (A100 Standard Entry Medicine).; Edge Hill — ~100 places per year (small cohort).. 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%. Edge Hill: Home Student (2023): 32/115 = 28% - chances may have improved with 63 places now (vs 30 in 2023, 50 in 2024).

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.

Edge Hill: Significant proportional increase in places - now 63 places, up from 30 in 2023 and 50 in 2024. UCAT thresholds may have softened with growth. International students not accepted. Band 4 SJT auto-rejected.