GCSE requirements for medicine and dentistry

In England, GCSEs have been graded 9 to 1 since 2017, and 9 is the highest grade. Ofqual, the exams regulator, says the number scale is not directly equivalent to the old A* to G letters, but it fixed three anchor points: the bottom of a grade 7 is comparable to the bottom of an old A, the bottom of a 4 to the bottom of an old C, and the bottom of a 1 to the bottom of an old G. The Department for Education calls grade 4 a "standard pass" and tells universities that the nearest equivalent to an old grade C requirement is a 4.

You will see requirements written as "6/B" or "7/A" throughout the tables below: the number grade and the letter grade side by side.

Wales and Northern Ireland use different scales. GCSEs designed for Wales are graded A* to G, and Qualifications Wales has confirmed that the new Made-for-Wales GCSEs, the first of which are due to be awarded in 2027, keep that scale. Because the Welsh and English scales don't directly align, Qualifications Wales says that combined results for the two are published only at the key grades A/7, C/4 and G/1. In Northern Ireland, CCEA GCSEs use nine letter grades from A* to G, including a C*.

Scottish qualifications work differently again. If you are taking them, look for the National 5 line in each school's requirements; Qualifications Scotland, which replaced the SQA, grades National 5 courses A to D. Glasgow's medicine page asks applicants with Scottish qualifications for National 5 English at grade B where it asks A-level applicants for GCSE English at 6/B, and Aberdeen asks for National 5 English and Maths at B or above.

Combined science is awarded as two equal or adjacent grades, such as 9-9, 9-8 or 8-8, down to 1-1, and counts as two GCSEs when you apply to university. You study biology, chemistry and physics, but not as much content as students taking the separate sciences.

We have sorted every course in the tables below into four groups by how its GCSE rule is worded: in the school's own words where they differed from our profile when we checked on 7 October 2026, otherwise in our school profile. These are the totals for courses that take school leavers.

Where GCSEs are scored, the detail matters: which subjects count, how many, and what each grade is worth. These five medical schools publish the points each GCSE grade earns.

At these schools GCSEs are a gate. Imperial says there are no GCSE requirements for its MBBS beyond English, where it asks for grade 6 in GCSE English Language, and that it invites applicants to interview on the basis of predicted grades and UCAT scores. Bristol asks for grade 7 in Maths and grade 4 in English (applicants whose first language is not English must also meet a separate English language requirement). Its 2027 admissions statement says it does not weight A-levels or GCSEs: applicants who meet the minimum are scored with a 100% weighting on UCAT to select for interview. Manchester screens every application against its academic threshold, which includes at least seven GCSEs at grade 7 or above, and applications that don't meet it go no further.

A minimum is not a target. Sheffield asks for five GCSEs at grade 7 plus grade 6 in Maths, English Language and a science, but its course page adds that candidates selected for interview usually far exceed the minimum requirements.

In 2025, Oxford's first shortlisting stage combined a GCSE score with UCAT and, where school performance data were available, used them to judge whether an applicant's GCSEs were above or below what their school typically achieves. Cambridge produces an "adjusted GCSE score" for each applicant, most often a count of A*/8/9 grades, and also counts 7/A grades, on a sliding scale, for pupils from schools whose average GCSE results fall below a set level. (Cambridge notes that its school GCSE data covers schools in England only.) Kent and Medway compares the GCSE and A-level results of applicants from schools in England with their school's average, and uses that relative attainment for shortlisting instead of absolute grades.

Some schools that score GCSEs add context on top. Leeds allocates extra shortlisting points if you meet one of its contextual criteria, which include attending a school with a below-average Attainment 8 score at GCSE. Leicester counts the same kind of school as a contextual marker, and an applicant with two or more markers may be favoured over one with the same score and fewer.

King's College London ranks dentistry applications on GCSE performance, UCAT score and contextual information. Birmingham's dental school checks its academic criteria first, including grade 8/A* in Biology and Chemistry (or dual award science), and then uses the total UCAT score in shortlisting for interview. Plymouth's dental school asks for seven GCSEs at grade 4/C or above, including English Language, Maths and two sciences. The dentistry table below shows each school's rule.

Counting the wording of each rule in our tables: of the 40 medicine courses that state a GCSE minimum, all 40 mention English, 37 mention Maths and 31 mention at least one science. For dentistry it is 13, 12 and 9 of 13.

Check which English. Manchester will not accept English Literature in place of English Language. Glasgow's medical school accepts either at grade 6/B, and Birmingham's dental school asks for Language or Literature at grade 7/A.

Maths minimums differ. Newcastle's dental school asks for grade 4/C, the medical schools at Leeds and UCL for 6/B, and Bristol's medical school for 7/A.

Some schools count top grades. Rather than naming every subject, they ask for a number of high grades: at least seven GCSEs at grade 7 or above at Manchester, five at Sheffield and Sunderland, and six at the dental schools in Glasgow and Sheffield.

Have the grades in hand. Leeds says all Level 2 qualifications must be achieved by the time you apply, and Sheffield that its GCSE requirements should be met by the point of application.

English, maths and science are core subjects in England's national curriculum at key stage 4 (Years 10 and 11), so the real choices for a future doctor or dentist are how you take science and what you add around it.

Combined science (also called double award) gives you two GCSE grades; triple science means separate GCSEs in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. On their own admissions pages, Birmingham (medicine and dentistry), Cardiff (medicine and dentistry), Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield (medicine and dentistry), Southampton, Aston, Kent and Medway, Queen's University Belfast and Plymouth's dental school all name combined or double award science as meeting their science requirement, sometimes at a set grade: Manchester asks for at least 6-6 and Cardiff's medical school for 7-7.

Watch out for named sciences. Sunderland asks for grade 6 in Biology, Chemistry and Physics and lists no combined science alternative. Keele also asks for Physics: it accepts combined science at 6-6, but not Biology and Chemistry without Physics. Kent and Medway asks for Physics alongside Biology and Chemistry (or double science plus one other GCSE), and says applicants with only two separate sciences need an extenuating circumstances application. St Andrews does not accept dual award or combined science in place of GCSE Biology.

At points-scoring schools only a set number of GCSEs count: seven at Birmingham's medical school, eight at Cardiff's, your best eight at Newcastle and Leeds, and your best nine at Liverpool and Queen's University Belfast. Oxford's 2025 shortlisting measure looked at the number of GCSEs taken, the number at A*/9/8 and the proportion at those grades.

Don't take too few, either. Liverpool asks for nine GCSEs attained by the end of Year 11, Cardiff for at least eight, and in 2025 Oxford used a GCSE score only for applicants who had sat more than five.

Resit rules differ from school to school. Here is what 15 schools' own pages said when this guide was checked.

A resit can also change how your grades are scored. Newcastle scores the most recent grade, and Manchester uses your most recent result even if it is lower. Leicester scores first sittings only, and Queen's University Belfast counts only GCSEs completed in Years 10 and 11 for scoring (for students in England and Wales), so check how it would treat a later resit. Before you book one, check how each school on your list treats it: a resit that clears one school's minimum may not be accepted, or scored, at another.

Lower GCSEs change which schools make sense for you. Five ways to work with them:

Each row starts from that school's profile on this site, and every row was checked against the school's own current pages on 7 October 2026. Where the school's page differed from our profile, or our profile gave detail the school does not publish, the row shows the school's own wording and links the source. Dundee's pages could not be read, so its unconfirmed wording is not shown. Select a school for its full profile. Three courses are currently open to international applicants only, and marked as such.

The same table for dentistry, built and checked the same way. Dundee's pages could not be read, so its unconfirmed wording is not shown. Select a school for its full profile.