Bristol vs Kent and Medway (KMMS)

Bristol's published UCAT threshold for home applicants is around 2260, while Kent and Medway (KMMS) sits at approximately 1840.

That's a 420-point gap — large enough to put the two schools in completely different competitiveness tiers. An applicant scoring in the 2000-2100 band would be competitive at Kent and Medway (KMMS) but borderline at Bristol.

Contextual / widening-participation cut-offs differ — Bristol: ~1450+ /2700 (A108 Gateway / WP - lowest invited has reached as low as 1340); Kent and Medway (KMMS): not separately disclosed. Eligible applicants should weight this heavily when choosing.

Bristol requires AAA including Chemistry and Biology.

Kent and Medway (KMMS) 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. Kent and Medway (KMMS): Min 6 GCSEs at grade 6 (B) including Maths, English Language, dual-award Science.

Both Bristol and Kent and Medway (KMMS) 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; Kent and Medway (KMMS) in December - March.

Bristol runs a Spiral curriculum; Kent and Medway (KMMS) runs a PBL curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — Bristol delivers more didactic lectures with structured systems-based progression, while Kent and Medway (KMMS) centres learning around clinical cases.

Specifics: Five-year MB ChB spiral curriculum - concepts revisited with increasing complexity. Clinical exposure from Year 1. Five-year MBBS jointly run by University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University. Strong rural/community placement strand across Kent and Medw

Intake size: Bristol — ~220 home + ~30 international places per year (A100 Standard Entry Medicine).; Kent and Medway (KMMS) — ~125 home + ~25 international places per year.. 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%. Kent and Medway (KMMS): Home Fee Status: 176/404 = 44%; International: 14/32 = 44% (only 113 applicants); Graduate (2023): 52/83 = 63%.

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.

Kent and Medway (KMMS): Selection by contextualised GCSE 'Attainment 8' score (/90) after UCAT minimum met - strong choice for high-GCSE / low-UCAT applicants. School performance averaged in to contextualise GCSE scoring (national average 45.9; ~25% above school average likely required).