Timeline

The School of Medicine uses the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) and our academic eligibility requirements to shortlist for interview. The 2025 entry year will be the first year that Imperial College School of Medicine has used the UCAT. Make sure you visit our bespoke UCAT page to help you to prepare thoroughly for your test, by reading the test-taker guidance, doing timed practice papers and revising areas you may not feel as confident about. You can find out more on the UCAT website.

Work experience is something that can be really important in your application. Through reading about your work experience, we can assess whether you possess the reflection skills which will be essential to your role as a doctor. We would like your work experience to show that you understand what a career in Medicine involves - including its challenges - and to demonstrate your interest regardless of these challenges.

We understand that it can be difficult to obtain work experience, or even a volunteering position, in healthcare settings. Looking very early should help, as well as being proactive and contacting a wide range of places, for example: voluntary service departments at local hospitals, local GPs, care homes, disability centres, and/or hospices.

During your work experience, make sure you keep a flexible and open approach. The harder you work and the more adaptable you are, the more you will take out of the experience. Make notes, so you can remember and reflect upon your experience later on and closer to your interview. Have a look at our Work Experience page‌ for more information.

Online resources can give you valuable insight into working in the healthcare sector and outline the wide range of careers and courses available. Sometimes, you can even undertake virtual calls or trainings that might help you understand clinical settings. We recommend you have a look at the following websites:

• NHS Health Careers website
• Working in Health YouTube Channel

In your personal statement, which is part of your UCAS application, you have the chance to tell us about yourself. Remember that we do not know you, we only know what you tell us: so, make sure you tell us about yourself. Think about the qualities that make a good doctor and show us how you reflect upon them. We are interested to know about your qualities, your skills and your interests and to understand why you would be a good doctor.

Our main advice is to be honest, specific and concise - exaggerating your work experience will not necessarily put you ahead of other students. It is more genuine to describe and reflect upon the real experiences you have had, even if things did not go to plan. Give specific examples related to a career in medicine, and make sure you always show how you meet the non-academic criteria of the medical school you are applying to.

Listen to Dr Heather Lewis talking about the personal statement in your application to medicine.

 

Play video

The next step of your application is apply to UCAS by the deadline. The UCAS website has all the information you need, including the application deadline, which is normally around 15th October each year. Make sure you submit all the documents needed for your application. We will look at your predicted grades and your reference, as well as your personal statement. For more information about entry requirements you can have a look at the MBBS prospectus page.

If you reach this step, congratulations, you will take part to our Multiple Mini Interviews. We have a dedicated MMI page that will tell you everything you need to know about MMIs and contains the most up-to-date information on how to prepare for them. 

This is the stage at which we will communicate the outcome of your application. This will be communicated through UCAS, and by no means can we communicate it in other ways. 

Offers

Your offer can be:

• Conditional - most offers are Conditional Offers. This means that you will be able to start the programme if you fulfil certain conditions. For example, you will have to achieve your predicted grades.
• Unconditional - this is less common but could happen for candidates who have already obtained their A-level results, like graduate students or gap-year students.

Contextual Offers

At Imperial we welcome diversity and want to ensure that our application process is fair to everyone. We use UCAS data to apply a Widening Participation flag to qualifying applications. At any point during the application process, you can let us know if your circumstances change or if you believe you are a candidate for Widening Participation. You can read more about contextual data and admissions schemes here. 

Rejections

If we reject you and it does not work out, do not despair. We have a high number of applications each year and thresholds can be very high, but we always offer feedback on the interview process. We do welcome re-applications, should this be your wish for next year, and we have a webpage dedicated to gap years, with tips on how to make the best out of the time off school.

You made it: you have an offer! Now you have to make sure you fulfill the conditions of your offer in time to start in October. Make sure you attend all the Offer Holder events, and study hard for your exams so you can achieve the grades you have been predicted. 

Once you have your grade, if you have sat your tests at School/College most of these will be automatically communicated to us from UCAS. However if you are independently sitting your assessment or are required to provide your qualification results (you will be told if this is the case), these must be sent to Medicine UG Admissions.