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Medical school comparison

North Wales (Bangor) vs Nottingham

North Wales (Bangor) and Nottingham are both UK medical schools, but the path to an offer at each is meaningfully different. Both sit in England, so location and clinical-placement breadth are similar — the differentiation comes from selection methodology, interview style and curriculum philosophy.

Side-by-side comparison

North Wales (Bangor)

Bangor

Quick comparison

Location
Bangor, UK
A-Level offer
AAA at A-level including Biology and one further science.
TrueScore
North Wales (Bangor) TrueScore 1700
UCAT home cut-off
-
Interview format
Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)
Post-interview chance
Refused to disclose. New medical school, has been in clearing in past years.
Decision date
March onwards

Nottingham

Nottingham

Quick comparison

Location
Nottingham, UK
A-Level offer
AAA at A-level including Biology (or Human Biology) and Chemistry. No use of predicted grades - Nottingham considers achieved grades only.
TrueScore
Nottingham TrueScore 1850
UCAT home cut-off
No fixed score. Nottingham states that the threshold varies year by year, cannot be predicted in advance, and that it does not share previous years' thresholds.
Interview format
Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI)
Post-interview chance
All Students (2024): 519/913 = 57% (or 336/911 = 37% from another source); A108 WP Foundation Year: 61/188 = 32%
Decision date
March onwards

North Wales (Bangor) vs Nottingham - in detail

A-Level and academic profile

North Wales (Bangor) requires AAA at A-level including Biology and one further science.

Nottingham requires AAA at A-level including Biology (or Human Biology) and Chemistry. No use of predicted grades - Nottingham considers achieved grades only.

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 — North Wales (Bangor): English or Welsh Language at grade B/6, and Double Science at BB/66. Nottingham: Minimum six GCSEs at grade 7/A including both Biology and Chemistry, plus at least grade 6/B in Mathematics and English Language (English and Maths do NOT need to be at grade 7). GCSEs feed the…

Interview formats

Both North Wales (Bangor) and Nottingham 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: North Wales (Bangor) interviews in December - March; Nottingham in December - March.

Curriculum and teaching style

North Wales (Bangor) runs a PBL curriculum; Nottingham runs a Integrated curriculum. The teaching philosophies are different — North Wales (Bangor) leans on small-group case-based learning from year 1, while Nottingham uses a more traditional lecture-led structure.

Specifics: Four-year accelerated MBBCh (Cardiff) for graduates, or 5-year route. Strong rural/community placement strand across North Wales (Betsi Cadwaladr UHB) Five-year MBChB with compulsory intercalated BMedSci built into the course (one of few UK schools to embed BMedSci as standard).

Intake size: North Wales (Bangor) — ~30 places per year (small cohort, designed for local retention).; Nottingham — ~250 home + ~30 international places per year.. A larger cohort means more peer breadth; a smaller cohort means more tutor contact.

Post-interview offer rate

North Wales (Bangor): Refused to disclose. New medical school, has been in clearing in past years. Nottingham: All Students (2024): 519/913 = 57% (or 336/911 = 37% from another source); A108 WP Foundation Year: 61/188 = 32%.

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

North Wales (Bangor): Bangor publishes no UCAT threshold and has declined FOI requests on its shortlisting weighting, so no cut-off can be quoted. A-level resits are not accepted. Welsh-speaking applicants (with a first-language Welsh GCSE) and other contextual applicants may receive an AAB offer.

Nottingham: Scoring system is now distinct from Lincoln's, weighting GCSE (/32), UCAT (/40) and SJT (/10) - band 4 SJT auto-rejected. No use of predicted A-level grades.

Which is right for you?

Both schools sit in the same England foundation-programme catchment, so post-graduation training paths overlap heavily. If you learn best in small-group case discussion, prefer North Wales (Bangor); if you prefer lecture-led foundations, the other suits better.

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. North Wales (Bangor) guidance: Bangor requires the UCAT but publishes NO minimum threshold - it states only that the score is used in selection. No cut-off should be inferred or estimated.. Nottingham guidance: No fixed score. Nottingham states that the threshold varies year by year, cannot be predicted in advance, and that it does not share previous years' thresholds..

Where to go next

North Wales (Bangor)Entry requirements, interview format and key dates in full
NottinghamEntry requirements, interview format and key dates in full

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