Does it work for graduate-entry dentistry?

Yes. Switch the route to graduate and the tool assesses you against the graduate dental pathways — Aberdeen, UCLan and King's among them — using their published graduate UCAT thresholds and minimum degree classes rather than the school-leaver rules. Those programmes are hidden while you are in school-leaver mode, so switching route is what makes them appear.

What happens to the grades and scores I enter?

Nothing leaves your browser. The generator runs entirely on your own device — there is no account, no submission and no server call. Your answers are saved to your browser's local storage so the tool remembers where you were if you close the tab, and clearing your browser data removes them. The Word report is assembled in the browser too, so the only copy of it is the file you download.

Home/Where to apply/Dental

Where to Apply Dentistry · 2027

Where should you applyfor dentistry, on your real numbers.

Enter your UCAT, GCSEs and predictions once. The generator resolves the cut-off that actually applies to you at every UK dental school, runs each school's own admissions rules over your grades, and hands back four choices you can defend — with a replacement for every one you cannot realistically get.

UK dental schools modelled

open to you right now

TrueScore-powered cut-offs

post-interview data points

Build my four

Step 1 of 5

Tell us who is applying

Your route, fee status and contextual position decide which published cut-off every school is scored against — they change more verdicts than any other answer here.

Which route are you applying on?

Fee status

International applicants are scored against the international tier, and a handful of courses are closed to one group entirely.

Postcode (optional)

Detected: Not provided

Your postcode stays in your browser. It is only used to work out your nation and the two local schemes, and it is never sent anywhere.

Contextual and widening participation

I meet a contextual or widening-participation criterionMost schools publish a lower UCAT cut-off, and several a lower offer, for applicants who meet their contextual criteria. Tick this only if you meet a published scheme.

Additional route and school-specific flags

Each of these changes a published threshold, a scoring model or a hard gate at one or more schools. Leave anything you are unsure about unticked.

I meet the Access to Sheffield criteriaSheffield publishes no UCAT reduction for contextual dental applicants, but the flag still records the route on your report.I am on the Newcastle PARTNERS programmeNewcastle dentistry assesses PARTNERS applicants against its lower contextual threshold.I am applying with achieved A-level grades (gap year)Cardiff drops its grade-8 GCSE requirement from nine to eight, and Liverpool models achieved applicants at 12+ GCSE points instead of 15+.I have at least three days of evidenced NHS dental work experienceSeveral dental schools screen the personal statement for dental work experience before the interview stage.

Your name and school (for the downloadable report only)

Both are printed at the top of the Word report and nowhere else. Leave them blank if you would rather not.

Your name (optional)

School or college (optional)

Nothing you type here is sent to us — the report is built in your browser.

Everything on this step is optional except the route — the generator has sensible defaults for the rest.

3 of 14 schools currently open to you

How it works

How the generator decides

Three passes, in order. Nothing is averaged into a single opaque score — every verdict names the rule that produced it, so you can check it against the school's own admissions page before you commit a choice.

1
Your threshold, school by school — the NGMP TrueScore predicted UCAT cut-off for the tier that actually applies to you: home, contextual, Scottish, Rest of UK, international or graduate. Named local routes are applied on top, from the St Andrews contextual discount to ARU's Essex reduction and the Leeds foundation-year offset.
2
Then the school's own rules — SJT band policy, the bespoke GCSE scoring models (Birmingham out of 24, Cardiff out of 27, Nottingham out of 82, Queen's Belfast out of 45), required A-level combinations, resit policies, whether predictions are used at all, and which contextual schemes the school recognises.
3
Four choices, and what unlocks more — the picks that survive are kept, the ones that fail are replaced by the closest comparable school, and the impact panel shows what a higher UCAT or a stronger prediction would actually open up.

What powers it

Built on our own admissions data

The generator is not a lookup table of headline cut-offs. It runs on the same datasets our school guides are written from, refreshed every cycle.

TrueScoreUCAT cut-offs

Every threshold comes from NGMP TrueScore, our tier-aware prediction of the UCAT score each school needs for an interview invitation, built from multi-year Freedom-of-Information data. Where a school publishes no usable tier, the tool falls back to its stated minimum and says so.

67Expert rule sets

One hand-authored rule set per school — 51 medical and 16 dental — covering GCSE models, A-level subject requirements, SJT policy, resits, contextual routes and the quirks that decide borderline applications.

Post-interviewSuccess rates

Clearing the cut-off is only half the question. Each verdict carries the school's published post-interview success rate for your route, so you can tell a school that interviews widely from one that converts.

2027Updated every cycle

Thresholds, policies and rates are refreshed when each cycle's data lands. Pair the verdicts with our NGMP Score rankings to weigh where you are competitive against where you actually want to study.

A shortlisting model, not a decision

Thresholds move between cycles and admissions teams revise their methodology without warning. Use the generator to narrow fifty-plus schools down to a defensible four — then verify every one against the school's current admissions page before your UCAS form goes in.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

You enter your fee status, postcode, contextual status and route, your UCAT cognitive total and SJT band, your GCSEs and your A-level predictions or degree, then pick the four dental schools you were thinking of. The tool resolves the UCAT threshold that applies to you at every UK dental school, runs each school's own eligibility rules over your grades, and returns a verdict per school. It then tells you which of your four survive, what to replace the others with, and what change to your profile would unlock the most additional schools.

No. It is an independent model. UCAT thresholds come from NGMP TrueScore, our prediction of the score each school needed for an interview invitation, built from multi-year Freedom-of-Information data and each school's published selection methodology. Everything else — GCSE scoring models, A-level combinations, SJT policies, resit rules, contextual routes — is read from each school's published admissions guidance. Schools change their thresholds and their methodology between cycles, so treat every verdict as a shortlisting guide and check the school's own page before you commit a UCAS choice.

Yes, and it is one of the biggest levers in the tool. Tick contextual and every school that publishes a contextual threshold switches to it, which is typically 100–250 UCAT points lower and at some schools a percentage discount instead. Named local schemes are handled separately because they do not all work the same way: Sheffield's Access scheme, Newcastle's Partners programme, the Leeds foundation-year route, ARU's Essex and East-of-England reductions and St Andrews' percentage discount each have their own switch under Additional flags. Only tick a scheme if you have confirmed with the school that you are eligible for it.

The shape of the decision is the same but almost none of the numbers are. Dentistry has sixteen UK schools rather than fifty-plus, so a single unusable choice costs you far more of the shortlist. Several dental schools weight GCSEs harder than any medical school does — Cardiff scores seven GCSEs out of twenty-eight, Queen's Belfast scores your best nine out of thirty-six — and evidenced dental work experience matters at schools that screen the personal statement before shortlisting. Every dental rule in the tool is authored from dental admissions guidance; nothing is inherited from the medicine model.

Separately from the rest of the UK, because they fund their places separately. Scottish schools hold most of their places for Scottish-domiciled applicants and run a much higher Rest-of-UK threshold; Cardiff and Bangor do the same for Welsh applicants. The generator reads your postcode to work out which nation you are domiciled in and then applies the tier that actually applies to you — Scottish, Welsh or Rest of UK — rather than the headline figure. If you are applying from England to Scotland, expect the thresholds you see here to be materially higher than the ones quoted on the school's general admissions page.

Treat them as a balanced set rather than four separate bets. The generator labels each one SAFE (your score clears the predicted threshold with room to spare), STRATEGIC (you clear it, but not comfortably) or ASPIRATIONAL (you are close enough to be worth the choice). A sensible final four usually mixes the three: one or two safe choices, one or two strategic, and at most one aspirational. Where a school you picked cannot work on your numbers, the tool names the reason and offers the closest replacement of a similar competitiveness rather than simply deleting it.

You can, but most schools advise against it and several ask about it at interview. UCAS allows four choices across both subjects, and a split application reads as undecided to admissions tutors who are selecting for commitment to a specific profession. If you are genuinely torn, the medicine version of this generator will model the other half of the picture, and each course keeps its own set of four so you can compare the two shortlists before you commit.

Now go and earn the score the model wants

A shortlist is only as good as the UCAT behind it — and the interview that follows it. Our tutors take both.

Book UCAT tutoring Interview preparation Medicine + dentistry generator

Campus photo credits

Campus photographs are used under free Creative Commons or public-domain licences and have been resized and cropped for display.

Aberdeen: photograph by Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Aberdeen (Graduate Dentistry): photograph by Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Anglia Ruskin (ARU): photograph by ARU — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Aston University: photograph by Tony Hisgett — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Barts and The London (Queen Mary): photograph by Paul the Archivist / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Birmingham: photograph by mattbuck — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Brighton & Sussex (BSMS): photograph by Hassocks5489 / Wikimedia Commons — CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Bristol: photograph by Suicasmo — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Brunel Medical School: photograph by Matt Brown — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Buckingham: photograph by Nilo775 / Wikimedia Commons — CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Cambridge: photograph by Dmitry Tonkonog (User:Heuschrecke) — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Cardiff: photograph by Jeremy Segrott (from Cardiff, Wales, UK) / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Chester Medical School (GEM): photograph by secretlondon123 — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dundee: photograph by Ydam / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Edge Hill: photograph by Bryan Pready / geograph.org.uk — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Edinburgh: photograph by AlasdairW / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Exeter: photograph by Benjamin Evans — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Glasgow: photograph by Clem_nat — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hertfordshire: photograph by CybJubal / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hull York (HYMS): photograph by Tadeusz Hare — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Imperial College London: photograph by Cheller0425 / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Keele: photograph by Jonathan Hutchins / Geograph Britain and Ireland — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Kent and Medway (KMMS): photograph by St BC / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
King's College London (KCL): photograph by K Ulysses-Ono — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
King's College London (KCL): photograph by K Ulysses-Ono — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lancaster: photograph by SideLong / Flickr — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Leeds: photograph by Chemical Engineer / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Leicester: photograph by NotFromUtrecht — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lincoln Medical School: photograph by Oliver Mills / Geograph Britain and Ireland — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Liverpool: photograph by Rodhullandemu / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Manchester: photograph by Happytree9527 / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Newcastle: photograph by Sarah Cossom — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
North Wales (Bangor): photograph by Tilman2007 — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Norwich (UEA): photograph by Bryn Holmes / Geograph Britain and Ireland — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Nottingham: photograph by Clem Rutter, Rochester, Kent (www.clemrutter.net) — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Oxford: photograph by Julian Herzog — CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Pears Cumbria (GEM): photograph by Tom Edwards — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Peninsula (Plymouth): photograph by Ebitart / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Plymouth: photograph by Mutney — CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Queen Mary (QMUL): photograph by Paul the Archivist — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Queen's University Belfast: photograph by Nick Birse — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Queen's University Belfast (QUB): photograph by Nick Birse — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sheffield: photograph by Chanpeter — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Southampton: photograph by Roger Davies / Geograph Britain and Ireland — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
St Andrews: photograph by Daytrick / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
St George's: photograph by Peter Trimming / Geograph Britain and Ireland — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
St Mary's Twickenham: photograph by Peter Trimming / Geograph (via Wikimedia Commons) — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sunderland: photograph by Komusar — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Surrey (GEM): photograph by Geographer / Geograph Britain and Ireland — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Swansea (GEM): photograph by Vexald / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UCL: photograph by Diliff (David Iliff) — CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UCLan (Graduate Dentistry): photograph by Galatas — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ulster University Medical School: photograph by Conradder / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
University of Central Lancashire (UCLan): photograph by Adam C Snape / Geograph — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
University of Greater Manchester: photograph by BoltonUni — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Warwick (GEM): photograph by Mike1024 / Wikimedia Commons — Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Worcester Medical School: photograph by Elliott Brown (Birmingham, UK) / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Reviewed by Isaac Butler-King, medical student at the University of Glasgow. Last reviewed: 30 August 2026 · Editorial policy

Where should you applyfor dentistry, on your real numbers.

How the generator decides

Built on our own admissions data

A shortlisting model, not a decision

Frequently asked questions

How does the dental Where to Apply generator work?

Is this an official prediction of whether I will get an interview?

Does it handle contextual and widening-participation routes?

Does it work for graduate-entry dentistry?

How is dentistry different from medicine here?

How are Scottish and Welsh schools handled?

What happens to the grades and scores I enter?

How should I use the four recommendations?

Can I mix medicine and dentistry in the same UCAS application?

Now go and earn the score the model wants