Bristol vs North Wales (Bangor)

Bristol's published UCAT threshold for home applicants is around 2260, while North Wales (Bangor) sits at approximately 1700.

That's a 560-point gap — large enough to put the two schools in completely different competitiveness tiers. An applicant scoring in the 1900-2100 band would be competitive at North Wales (Bangor) but borderline at Bristol.

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

Bristol requires AAA including Chemistry and Biology.

North Wales (Bangor) 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. North Wales (Bangor): Min 5 GCSEs at grade 6 including Maths, English Language, dual-award Science. Welsh-language ability welcomed but not required.

Both Bristol and North Wales (Bangor) 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; North Wales (Bangor) in December - March.

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

Specifics: Five-year MB ChB spiral curriculum - concepts revisited with increasing complexity. Clinical exposure from Year 1. Four-year accelerated MBBCh (Cardiff) for graduates, or 5-year route. Strong rural/community placement strand across North Wales (Betsi Cadwaladr UHB)

Intake size: Bristol — ~220 home + ~30 international places per year (A100 Standard Entry Medicine).; North Wales (Bangor) — ~30 places per year (small cohort, designed for local retention).. 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%. North Wales (Bangor): Refused to disclose. New medical school, has been in clearing in past years.

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.

North Wales (Bangor): Refused to disclose UCAT cut-offs or shortlisting weighting. Anecdotally lower thresholds, particularly for Welsh applicants. Has entered clearing in past years.