How to apply
The deadline for applications to study MBChB Medicine and Surgery (A100) and MBChB Medicine and Surgery with a Gateway Year (A104) for 2025 entry is 15th October 2024. Applications should be made through UCAS.
Selection process
All applicants to Lancaster Medical School are considered using a four-stage selection process.
In addition to demonstrating an excellent academic track record (see below), you must have engaged in some relevant work experience and undertaken voluntary work, preferably in a caring environment. You must write about these experiences in your personal statement and reflect on what you learned, both about being a doctor and about yourself from these experiences.
Changes to 2025 applications
All 2024 entry applicants for the MBChB course will undertake the BMAT aptitude test, but from 2025 Lancaster Medical School will be using the UCAT as part of our application process. This test must be taken in the year of application. More information on how this will be used in our selection processes can be found in the UCAT tab below.
1. Eligibility Screening
Stage One: Programme Eligibility
Domicile: When you first apply to Lancaster Medical School, your application will be assessed to determine whether you are considered home/UK or internationally domiciled. You can declare your nationality and residential status on your UCAS form however, the admissions team often requires additional information to fully determine this accurately. You can provide additional information about your residential history through the Initial Applicant Survey (IAS) or by email. If the information you have provided on your UCAS application form (e.g. nationality) is incorrect and leads to your being incorrectly categorised, we reserve the right to withdraw any offer that has been made to you.
English Language Requirements: Applicants who are applying from outside the UK or who have lived in the UK for less than 5 years at the point of application (exemptions listed below) may need to demonstrate proficiency in English through one of the following recognised English Language qualifications:
- IELTS Academic (a minimum score of 7.0 with no component less than 7.0) or
- Pearson PTE Academic qualification (at least 70 overall and at least 70 in each communicative skill sub-test).
This is in addition to the academic entry requirements outlined below.
Academic Aptitude: Applications are assessed against our entry requirements, considering prior academic achievement and predicted grades. Only those who meet our academic entry requirements or are predicted at least AAB at A Level (or equivalent in other qualifications) alongside sufficient GCSE qualifications will progress to Stage 2.
Contextual information: All applicants who meet our academic entry requirements will be asked to provide contextual information about their background. Specifically, applicants who are Local Authority care experienced, care leavers, or a refugee OR who meet two or more of our widening participation criteria, (full details can be found at this webpage) may have this information taken into account at two stage 2 and 3 of the admissions process. Your UCAS application will be used to validate criteria based on your postcode and previous/current school/college, all other criteria must be indicated through completion of the Initial Applicant Survey (IAS), and the supplementary information form (SIF) and evidenced by providing the appropriate supporting documentation via email. We are unable to consider information received after offers have been made; applicants who do not complete the SIF before shortlisting or who cannot provide supporting evidence will not be considered for a contextual offer apart from in rare circumstances where the applicant can evidence that this is beyond their control.
2. UCAT
Stage Two: University Clinical Aptitude Test
For 2025 entry onwards, all applicants must take the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) to be eligible for consideration at Lancaster Medical School. This must be taken in the summer testing window prior to application. More information about UCAT, how to register, and how to prepare for the test can be found on the UCAT website.
Registration and taking the test
You must register to be able to take UCAT. Registration is separate from the UCAS application process. Account creation opens on 14th May 2024, with tests available to book from 18th June. The testing window will run from 8th July to 26th September 2024.
You can find a timeline of key dates on the UCAT website.
Preparing for UCAT
The UCAT consists of five separately timed subtests in multiple-choice format:
Verbal Reasoning: assesses your ability to critically evaluate information presented in a written form
Decision Making: assess your ability to make sound decisions and judgements using complex information
Quantitative Reasoning: assesses your ability to critically evaluate information presented in a numerical form
Abstract Reasoning: assesses your use of convergent and divergent thinking to infer relationships from information
Situational Judgement: measures your capacity to understand real world situations and to identify critical factors and appropriate behaviour in dealing with them
UCAT has produced a number of resources aimed at helping you to prepare for the test, including tutorials for the different subtests as well as question banks to practice and familiarise yourself with the test.
UCAT recommends that candidates should "use the free official preparation materials to support their test preparation". All of the resources on the UCAT webpages are free to access.
How is UCAT used in the selection process?
Lancaster Medical School will be using the UCAT as part of its selection processes for the first time in the 2024-25 admissions cycle.
Applicants will be ranked according to their overall UCAT score. We anticipate selecting from candidates who have an overall score within the top 7 deciles, and with an SJT score between 1 and 3.
We will consider contextual information in cases where a candidate's UCAT score is borderline. If you think you meet our Widening Participation criteria, then please ensure you complete the Initial Applicant Survey (IAS), which will be sent to you following submission of your UCAS application.
3. Interview
Stage Three: Multiple Mini Interviews
No applicant will be offered a place without being interviewed. The Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs) will usually be held in January and February and are currently held remotely via Microsoft Teams. The exact timing of the MMI days will vary from year to year.
The MMI consists of 12-15 different 'stations', most of which will be five minutes long. Some stations will consist of a short interview, where you may be asked questions about your career choice, work experience or suitability for a medical career. At others, you may be asked to read a short paragraph or watch a short video clip, take some notes and then discuss at a subsequent station. An additional 20 minute station will involve group work and will assess your suitability for our problem-based learning curriculum. Applicants who are selected for interview will be sent detailed information prior to their interview. The applicant’s performance at each station is assessed by trained interviewers, against clearly defined criteria. Interviewers include members of University staff, NHS clinicians, local GPs, patients and public representatives, and medical students.
Applicants are assessed at each station and given a score for their performance at that station. The station scores are summed and applicants ranked according to their overall MMI score. Those with the highest score will be made an offer of a place to study medicine. All offers are conditional upon being deemed Fit to Practice (stage four).
Candidates who are successful at interview may be considered for a contextually lowered offer of ABB.
4. Fitness to practise
Stage Four: Fitness to practise
The professional body that governs medical practice in the UK, the General Medical Council (GMC), has specific requirements to protect staff and patient safety. In accordance with these requirements, all medical students must have the ability to function as a fully competent doctor and fulfil the rigorous demands of professional fitness to practise. Applicants are advised to familiarise themselves with the expectations of medical students to ensure that they are able to comply with these requirements before applying.
Fitness to practise
Fitness to Practise Accordion accordion
Lancaster Medical School strongly endorses the view of the General Medical Council (GMC) that applicants who have a disability or medical condition should be welcomed to the medical profession and valued for their contribution. Having a health condition or disability is not, in itself, a fitness to practise concern, but applicants with a condition that might impact on their ability to practise medicine safely should provide details on their UCAS application. Disclosed disabilities or medical conditions are not taken into account during the selection process. If successful after interview, the applicant will be assessed by an Occupational Health professional to determine whether they are fit to practise or if there are reasonable adjustments that Lancaster Medical School can make to support them in their medical training.
Any offer of a place to study medicine at Lancaster Medical School is conditional upon a satisfactory assessment of fitness to train from the Occupational Health Department (OHD) at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust (UHMFBT). You will be assessed initially through a health questionnaire before registration and then through follow-up appointments with the OHD. This health screening programme assesses the following: absence of infection with communicable diseases; immunisation status; functional capacity and ability to achieve the outcomes of Tomorrow’s Doctors. The standards are defined by the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Department of Health (DH). Read further guidance for potential applicants
Infection and Immunisation: All students will be tested for and/or immunised against a range of infectious diseases before any patient contact will be permitted.
Doctors are expected to maintain trust in the medical profession by “being open, honest and acting with integrity” at all times (Good medical practice).
Therefore, probity is taken extremely seriously during the admissions process for our medical degree programme. Applicants are advised to ensure that their UCAS application form has been completed fully, honestly and without omissions. Lancaster Medical School reserves the right to reject any applicant who is found to have been dishonest at any stage of their application.
Applicants should note that all medical students are subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. Details of any criminal convictions, reprimands, warnings, cautions or fixed penalty notices should be declared if you are invited for interview. This information is not taken into account during the selection process and is only considered after interview. If successful at interview, the circumstances of the incident will be considered by the Lancaster Medical School Fitness to Practise panel and a judgement made as to whether it impacts on your fitness to practise. Only those who are deemed fit to practice will be admitted onto the medical degree programme; applicants may be subject to further requirements to confirm their fitness to practise.
In most instances, minor offences do not bar entry to medical training or clinical practice.
Please note: Applicants who fail to disclose information that subsequently comes to light through their enhanced DBS check will be subject to Fitness to Practice procedures and may be excluded from the degree programme on the basis of lack of probity. Please note that spent criminal convictions, cautions, warnings and reprimands that would not normally appear on your criminal record may be disclosed through an enhanced DBS check.
This information is collected in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. For unsuccessful applicants, data related to any declared criminal convictions will be deleted and removed from our admissions system by the end of the relevant admissions period; if they apply before 15th October, any data will be deleted before the end of October in the following year (unless they apply for deferred entry, in which case the data may be retained for a further 12 months before deletion). Successful applicants, who become students, will have any declared criminal conviction information retained for the duration of their studies. This information will be securely deleted and removed from our systems within six months of the student graduating or terminating their studies.
All information on applicant declared criminal convictions will be stored securely within University systems and will only be accessed by appropriate University staff. To learn more about how the University ensures the security of personal information please refer to the University’s Information Security Policy.
GDPR grants individuals certain rights in relation to their own personal data. For more information on these rights and how they have been embedded at Lancaster University, please refer to the Rights of the Data Subject page on the University website.
For more information about how the University uses student and applicant data, please visit the Student Privacy Notice on the University’s website.
As a medical student, you will be expected to behave in a professional manner from the very outset of your medical degree programme. Medical students are expected to strive for high standards in both their professional training and their personal lives. This section aims to provide some guidance about the professional behaviour expected of medical students. Potential applicants should ensure that they would be willing and able to agree to the expected standards of behaviour before applying to study at Lancaster Medical School.
During your medical degree, much of your training will take place in a clinical environment and will involve extensive patient contact. Moreover, as a medical graduate, you will be entitled to preliminary registration with the General Medical Council and to work as a Foundation Year doctor.
Therefore, medical students are expected to act in accordance with the standards of professional behaviour as outlined by the General Medical Council in Professional behaviour and fitness to practice and Good medical practice.
Lancaster University has a duty of care to ensure that no member of the public comes to any harm as a consequence of contact with Lancaster University medical students during their training. To remind students of their responsibilities and the expected standards of behaviour, at the beginning of each academic year, Lancaster Medical School requires all medical students to sign our Student Agreement (please note that this is a sample agreement). Potential applicants should read these conditions of training carefully and ensure that they are willing and able to agree to them before accepting an offer from Lancaster Medical School.
In addition to maintaining certain standards of conduct during their professional training, medical students must also ensure that their behaviour outside of the clinical environment does not negatively impact on their fitness to practise; they must not bring the profession or the medical school into disrepute through their behaviour in their professional or their personal lives.
Application timeline
Summer
Pre-Application
14 May:
UCAT account creation opens. Bursary and Access Arrangement applications open.
18 June:
UCAT test booking opens.
8 July:
UCAT testing begins.
Autumn
September
15 September
UCAT Access Arrangements application deadline
19 September
Test booking deadline and UCAT account creation closes
26 September
Final UCAT test day
27 September:
UCAT Bursary Scheme application deadline
October
15 October
UCAS deadline for all applications to A100 and A104.
All applicants will be asked to complete the Initial Applicant Survey by email after their application has been received. This survey allows you to provide us with additional information about your qualifications, educational and residential timeline and background which will help the Admissions team to process your application.
The deadline to complete the Initial Applicant Survey for the 24/25 admissions cycle is Tuesday 29th October.
Eligible applicants to A104 will be sent the Supplementary Information Form to complete.
16 October to end of November
Stage One: Eligibility and academic screening of all applicants.
November
Early November
UCAT test results are delivered to universities
Stage Two: Applicants ranked according to UCAT score. Top-ranking applicants progress to Stage Three of the selection process.
We will consider contextual information in cases where a candidate's UCAT score is borderline. Candidates with borderline scores who indicated that they met Widening Participation criteria in the Initial Applicant Survey (IAS) will be asked to provide evidence in support of this.
December
Invitations for interview will be sent to the majority of candidates.
New Year
January to February
Stage Three: Interview period. Applicants who meet our academic entry requirements (Stage One) and have a competitive UCAT score (Stage Two) are called for interview.
Applicants will be asked to complete our Supplementary Information Form and provide evidence in support of our Widening Participation criteria if applicable.
March onwards
After all interviews are completed, all applicants are ranked according to their Multiple Mini Interviews (MMI) score. Offers are made to those with the highest MMI scores.
Conditional and Unconditional offers are confirmed on UCAS.
Candidates being held on the reserve list will be informed of this outcome.
Final Stages
June
Unconditional and Conditional offer holders are sent information about accommodation, finance and registration.
August
A Level results are published.
Conditional offer holders who have achieved the required grades become Unconditional.
September
All Unconditional offer holders are sent further information about beginning their studies at Lancaster Medical School.
Admissions statistics
Find out more about our applicant statistics and how the BMAT was used in our selection process for the 2023-24 and prior admissions cycles
Admissions and Biomedical Admissions Test Accordion accordion
This data has been produced for the Admission cycles 2016-2017 to 2021-22 to help you understand the competition for places on the medical degree programme, and your likelihood of being called for interview, being made an offer or becoming a student.
Lancaster Medical School makes more offers than we have places available to account for the fact that not all applicants will accept our offer, and not all offer-holders achieve the grades required.
| Year of application | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 |
| Year of entry | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 |
| Number of applications | 633 | 986 | 1149 | 970 | 1224 | 1270 |
| Number of applicants who were interviewed | 282 interviews |
525 interviews |
450 interviews | 541 interviews | 453 interviews | 381 interviews |
| 268 Home/EU | 504 Home/EU | 430 Home/EU | 513 Home/EU | 418 Home | 353 Home | |
| 14 overseas | 21 overseas | 20 overseas | 28 overseas | 35 overseas | 28 overseas | |
| Number of offers | 150 offers | 286 offers | 298 offers | 273 offers | 182 offers | 180 offers |
| 144 Home/EU | 234 Home/EU | 292 Home/EU | 268 Home/EU | 174 Home | 174 Home | |
| 6 overseas | 8 overseas | 6 overseas | 5 overseas | 8 overseas | 6 overseas | |
| Placed from Reserve List | 9 reserve list | 26 reserve list | 1 reserve list/clearing | 0 reserve list | 9 reserve list | 36 reserve list |
| 8 Home | 25 Home | 0 Home | 0 Home | 9 Home | 36 Home | |
| 1 overseas | 1 overseas | 1 overseas | 0 overseas | 0 overseas | 0 overseas | |
| Number of places | 69 places | 129 places |
150 places* |
158 (12)** |
128 places | 129 places |
| 65 Home/EU | 125 Home/EU | 146 Home/EU | 157 Home | 125 Home | 125 Home | |
| 4 overseas | 4 overseas | 4 overseas | 1 overseas | 3 overseas | 4 overseas | |
| Female students (new registrations) | 43 | 71 | 93 | 108 | 80 | 77 |
| Male students (new registrations) | 26 | 58 | 57 | 50 | 48 | 52 |
| Graduate entry students | 2 | 17 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Mature students (21 years or older) | 4 | 22 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 3 |
| Students repeating year 1 | 4 | 7 | 0 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
*Due to the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and impact on achieved A level grades, additional places were made available by the Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care for 2020 entry only.
**Following Government guidelines for the 20/21 admissions cycle, applicants who missed their A Level grades at confirmation in August 2021 had their offer to study with us reinstated.
Applicants who meet the minimum academic entry requirements are ranked according to their total BMAT score. The BMAT consists of three sections:
- Thinking Skills
- Scientific Knowledge and Applications
- Writing Task
Information about how each section is scored can be found on the BMAT website. Lancaster Medical School calculates the total BMAT score by combining the individual scores for Sections 1, 2 and 3. Section 1 is scored out of 9; Section 2 is scored out of 9; and Section 3 is scored out of 5 (for quality of content). We do not use the quality of English score (A-E).
Please note that BMAT has now been withdrawn, and was used for the final time for 2024 entry. From 2025 entry onwards, Lancaster Medical School will use UCAT as our admissions test.
BMAT Scores 2023 Entry
| A100: Medicine & Surgery | A104: Gateway Year | |||||
| Stage of application | UK | Overseas | ||||
| Range | Average | Range | Average | Range | Average | |
| Applicants | 4.6 - 18.4 | 11 | 4.8 - 18.12 |
11 |
3.5 - 13.6 | 9.4 |
| Invited for interview | 11.7 - 18.4* | 13 | 12.4.0 - 17.1 | 14 | 9.9 - 13.1 | 10 |
| Offers | 10.3 - 18.4 | 13 | 12.6 - 17.1 | 14 | 9.9 - 11.9.8 | 10.6 |
| Students | 9.7 - 16.0 | 13 | 13.1 - 17.1 | 15 | 9.3 - 13.8 | 11 |
*Some applicants with a lower BMAT score were invited to interview. For example, if they completed the summer school and were guaranteed an interview.
Widening participation
The Lancaster Medical School is committed to recruiting students from all backgrounds, to ensure that our future doctors reflect the diversity within our society. Find out more about the range of different initiatives available at Lancaster University.
Widening participation
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