If you didn’t manage to get the A-level grades you were looking for and didn’t get into your universities to study Medicine, don’t worry – you can still become a doctor. Many students who are not accepted to medical school on their first applications take a year out and reapply the following year. Read on to find out which universities allow re-applications, how to improve and how to reapply.
Not sure what your next steps should be? Book a General Advice session!
Book a General Advice SessionThe good news is that most UK medical schools allow you to reapply to their Medicine programmes. Here is a list of each university and whether they accept reapplications or not. We updated this page in August 2020 – but please double-check with the university itself.
| Medical School | Can You Reapply? |
|---|---|
| Aberdeen | Yes |
| Barts | Yes |
| Birmingham | Yes |
| Brighton & Sussex | Yes |
| Bristol | Yes |
| Buckingham | No |
| Cambridge | Yes |
| Cardiff | Yes |
| Dundee | Yes |
| Edge Hill | Yes |
| Edinburgh | Yes |
| Exeter | Yes |
| Glasgow | Yes |
| Hull & York | Yes |
| Imperial | No |
| Keele | No |
| Kent and Medway | No |
| King's College London | Yes |
| Lancaster | Yes |
| Leeds | Yes |
| Leicester | Yes |
| Lincoln | Yes |
| Liverpool | Yes |
| Manchester | Yes |
| Newcastle | Yes |
| Norwich (UEA) | Yes |
| Nottingham | Yes |
| Oxford | Yes |
| Plymouth | Yes |
| Queen's Belfast | Yes |
| Sheffield | Yes |
| Southampton | Yes |
| St Andrew's | Yes |
| St George's | Yes |
| Sunderland | Yes |
| UCL (University College London) | Yes |
| University of Central Lancashire | Yes |
| Anglia Ruskin | No |
| Aston | No |
How can I improve before reapplying to Medical School?
Some universities, like St Andrews, UCL and Leicester, ask that they are shown new evidence of improvement in your application – this may be taking on some new work experience in a gap year, re-sitting your A-levels, or even working on your interview technique.
Resit your A-levels
If you didn’t get the right A-Level grades to meet your offer, speak to your teachers about resitting the exams at your school the following year. You don’t necessarily need to re-take the whole A-level at school – with some subjects you can re-take specific units. You could also choose to revise independently and sit the exam at your school in the summer. Speak to your teachers about which option is best for you, considering your grades. Make sure you start a revision timetable early, so when exam season comes around, you’ll feel fully prepared.
Before you consider re-sitting your A-levels, it’s important to know that not all universities will accept re-sits. Some, however, do accept them under certain conditions. Check each Medical School’s A-Level Resit Policies.
Ask for interview feedback
A good way to improve your chances when you reapply to medical school is to ask for feedback from different universities. For example, if you made it to the interview stage, you could ask the panel for your performance feedback. This can seem quite daunting, but is a great way to set goals to work on. Some students find that their feedback indicates that they didn’t have enough work experience of good quality, or didn’t perform well at the interview.
This is a great way to focus on specifics to practice your interview technique. For example, maybe you find it hard to relax in an interview environment. Or maybe you need to practice speaking confidently about your work placements, or communicating why you want to study Medicine. You could run through mock Medical School Interview Questions with a teacher or friend to help you familiarise yourself with an interview setting. You could also try our Online Mock Interview, Interview Tutoring or Interview Courses to improve your technique with admissions experts.
Start new work experience
Getting more work experience is a great way to make the most of your gap year, add more to your Personal Statement and to demonstrate your enthusiasm for Medicine to your school – and, importantly, to decide if studying Medicine is the right choice for you.
While that’s tricky right now, there are some COVID-safe work experience alternatives and a virtual work experience opportunity from BSMS. Make sure you swot up on what work experience med schools want for 2021 entry.
If you’ve applied to Medicine in a previous year, you’ll need to register with UCAS again – your username and password you had previously won’t work, so you’ll need to create a new account.
Otherwise, the process is the same: uploading a Personal Statement, your personal details and selecting the medical schools. When you’re making your selections, make sure you double-check which universities allow re-applications – you don’t want to waste an application space! Don’t forget to update your Personal Statement with your new work experience and information on how you made the most of your gap year, and/or update your details with new predicted A-Level grades.
Good luck!
Learn More:
Strengthen your interview technique with our bespoke one-on-one interview tutoring. Book your session today!
Strengthen your application by undertaking more work experience - find out more about securing medical work placements here.
Check the A-Level re-sit policies of each medical school here before you start your reapplication!
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