Medicine and Dentistry Clearing 2026: What Becomes Available and When

1. Home
2. ›
3. Blog
4. ›
5. Medicine and Dentistry Clearing 2026

Medicine and dentistry clearing places exist in most years, but they are rare, unpredictable, and concentrated at a small number of the UK's 44 medical schools and dental schools. UCAS Clearing 2026 runs from 2 July to 19 October 2026, with A-level results published on 13 August 2026 and Scottish results a week earlier on 4 August 2026. Against roughly 9,500 medical school places and 1,100 dental school places available UK-wide each year, only a handful of schools have listed Clearing vacancies in any of the last five cycles. This guide sets out exactly which schools have appeared, what home and international applicants each need to know, and what realistic alternatives exist if Clearing does not produce a place this year.

What Is Clearing and How Does It Work for Medicine and Dentistry Applicants?

Clearing is the UCAS process that matches unplaced applicants to unfilled university places after results are published. You become eligible for Clearing if you apply after 30 June 2026, if you did not receive any offers, if you missed the grades required by your firm and insurance choices, or if you decline your firm place using the "decline my place" button. Unlike most subjects, where hundreds of courses list vacancies from the moment results are released, medicine (course code A100 and related codes) and dentistry (A200/A201) rarely appear on the public UCAS Clearing vacancy search at all — most years, the search returns zero or near-zero standard-entry places for these two subjects nationally.

Where places do appear, they surface directly on individual university admissions webpages and social media on the morning of results day, not through a searchable UCAS list. Universities that decide they have a small number of unfilled places typically open a dedicated Clearing hotline from around 8am on 13 August 2026, and places are allocated first-come, first-served to applicants who call in with their UCAS Clearing number, grades, and (for medicine) a valid UCAT score already on file. An interview — sometimes a short phone or video interview the same day — is standard practice before any offer is confirmed; a Clearing vacancy is very rarely offered without one. One structural change worth knowing: UCAS Adjustment, which previously let students with better-than-expected grades "trade up" without losing their firm place, was scrapped after the 2021 cycle and has not been available since 2022 entry — so exceeding your firm offer's grades no longer opens a parallel route into a more competitive medical school.

Can International Students Use Medicine and Dentistry Clearing in 2026?

Yes, in principle. UCAS confirms that international applicants can use Clearing on exactly the same terms as UK students — the eligibility rules (no offer, missed grades, or a declined firm place) do not distinguish by fee status. In practice, however, medicine and dentistry Clearing places for overseas fee-status applicants are rarer than home places, for a structural reason: most UK medical and dental schools set a fixed, small quota of international places each year, and that quota is normally filled during the main UCAS cycle (applications close in mid-October the year before, with offers made by late spring) long before Clearing opens in July. By the time results day arrives, the international places that do remain are usually the ones a school has deliberately held back or failed to fill, which is uncommon.

Historically, only a small number of schools have listed medicine Clearing vacancies specifically open to international applicants. UCL accepted international applicants into its Clearing medicine places in the 2025 cycle, while UCLAN's Clearing medicine places have, in some recent years, been restricted to international applicants only as part of its foundation-year programme. By contrast, Newcastle's 2025 Clearing medicine vacancies were explicitly restricted to UK home-fee applicants, and several other schools that have appeared in Clearing in past cycles (including Sunderland and Edge Hill) have similarly prioritised or restricted places to home students. The practical implication is that an international applicant relying on Clearing should not assume any given school's vacancy will be open to them — this must be confirmed directly, by phone, before travelling or making other plans.

Fee status also changes the stakes considerably. International tuition fees for UK medicine degrees for 2026/27 entry range from around £30,150 a year at Leicester to £70,554 a year at Cambridge, with Imperial College London at £58,600 a year and Glasgow at £62,730 a year — meaning a full five- or six-year international medicine degree typically costs between roughly £230,000 and £420,000 in tuition alone, before living costs. Because of this, international families exploring Clearing should confirm funding is genuinely available at short notice, not assume it can be arranged after accepting a place.

Visa timing is the second constraint that home applicants do not face. Once a Clearing place is confirmed, the university issues a Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) number, and the subsequent Student visa application typically takes around three weeks to process, though processing times vary by country of application. With most medicine and dentistry courses starting in mid-to-late September, an international student confirmed through Clearing in mid-August has a genuinely tight but generally workable window — provided passport, financial evidence, and (where required) an English language test certificate are already prepared in advance of results day rather than gathered afterwards. Booking flights only once the visa has actually been issued, or ensuring any ticket booked earlier is fully refundable, is standard official guidance for exactly this reason. Students without a valid, in-date English language test result or with outstanding visa documentation should treat these as blocking issues to resolve immediately on results day, not after a place is confirmed.

Is There Actually a Medicine or Dentistry Place in Clearing This Year?

Almost certainly, somewhere — but in very small numbers, and never guaranteed at any specific school before results day. It is genuinely impossible to predict in July which universities will enter Clearing for 2026 entry; the honest, evidence-based answer is that a small number of the UK's medical schools typically do, based on the pattern of the last five cycles, and it is worth checking, but you should not delay preparing a Plan B on the assumption that a place will appear.

To put the scale in context: the House of Commons Library's most recent briefing on medical and dental student numbers confirms that the UK government funds around 9,500 medical school places and around 1,100 dental school places each year, and that under the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan these are due to rise to 15,000 medical places and 1,100 dental places by 2031/32 (dental capacity is not currently planned to expand). Against a total intake in the thousands, the number of places that ever reach Clearing in a given year is typically in the dozens at most, spread across a handful of schools — which is why demand for any Clearing vacancy that does appear is intense from the moment it is listed.

Which Medical Schools Have Historically Had Places in Clearing?

No fixed list of "Clearing medical schools" exists, because which university enters Clearing changes every single year depending on how many of their offer-holders meet their conditions. The table below sets out named schools and, where reported, applicant and offer numbers from recent cycles, to give a realistic sense of both which schools have appeared and how competitive their Clearing places actually were.

Two patterns are worth noting from this table. First, foundation-year and Gateway-year courses (Lincoln, UCLAN, Edge Hill) — which admit with slightly lower direct-entry grade requirements and build in an extra preparatory year — appear in Clearing noticeably more often than standard five-year A100 courses, because they are specifically designed to widen access. Second, the University of Buckingham has appeared as a Clearing option in multiple recent cycles because its accelerated, privately funded 4.5-year MB ChB programme runs on a different admissions cycle to NHS-funded places and has offered January-entry cohorts, including for January 2027 — worth knowing if summer Clearing does not work out. For general application strategy alongside Clearing, our medical school interview preparation guide covers what to expect if a same-day interview is offered.

Which Dental Schools Have Accepted Clearing Applicants?

Dentistry Clearing places are rarer than medicine places, appearing in fewer cycles and in smaller numbers. Against roughly 1,100 dental school places nationally each year — a figure that, unlike medicine, is not currently planned to grow under the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan — dental schools that have historically listed Clearing vacancies in recent cycles include Sheffield and Manchester, though no fixed list exists and any vacancies "change yearly," in the words of one specialist admissions guide. Where a dental Clearing vacancy has appeared, it has typically gone within hours of being listed, reflecting how few applicants are needed to fill it. Applicants should treat dentistry Clearing as a genuine but low-probability route, and — exactly as with medicine — should have a valid UCAT score, personal statement, and reference ready to quote immediately if they call a dental school's admissions line on results day.

What UCAT Score Do You Need for a Clearing Offer?

A valid UCAT score from that year's testing window is a near-universal requirement — you cannot sit the UCAT retrospectively once the summer test window has closed, so applicants without a score are effectively excluded from same-year medicine Clearing regardless of grades. The UCAT is used by all UK medical schools, including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial, and is scored across four sections — Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning and Situational Judgement — to a maximum of 2,700, following the removal of Abstract Reasoning from the main cognitive score. There is no single published "Clearing cut-off" score, since each school sets its own threshold each year and this is rarely made public in advance, but reported data from recent cycles shows that schools receiving high volumes of Clearing applications (such as St George's 1,524 applicants for 55 places in 2021) were able to be highly selective on UCAT and academic profile even within the Clearing pool. Students who sat the UCAT in this cycle and are considering Clearing should have their exact score, decile band, and Situational Judgement banding ready to quote on the phone, since some universities screen Clearing calls by UCAT threshold before agreeing to interview.

How Do You Apply for Medicine or Dentistry Through Clearing? Step-by-Step

1. Check your UCAS Hub as soon as results are released — you can add exactly one Clearing choice at a time in the system, so research before you commit to using it. 2. Call universities directly, starting with any school whose website or social media has confirmed a medicine or dentistry vacancy — most hotlines open around 8am on 13 August 2026 and places for these two subjects can close within hours. 3. Have your documents ready: UCAS Personal ID, Clearing number, exact grades, UCAT score and decile, and a one-line summary of your personal statement and work experience. 4. Expect a short-notice interview, sometimes the same day by phone or video — medicine and dentistry Clearing offers are essentially never made without one. 5. Add your Clearing choice in UCAS Hub only once verbally offered a place, since adding a choice before an informal offer risks using your single Clearing slot on a school that does not actually confirm you. For general Clearing mechanics beyond medicine and dentistry specifically, the official UCAS Clearing guide is the authoritative source and should always be checked directly rather than relying on third-party summaries, since dates and rules can be updated.

What Should You Do Before and On A-Level Results Day 2026?

In the weeks before 13 August 2026, confirm your UCAS login details work, save the direct admissions phone numbers (not general switchboards) for any schools you might target, and prepare a one-page personal summary covering grades, UCAT score, relevant work experience and why you want to study medicine or dentistry, so you are not drafting this under pressure on the day. If you are an international applicant, gather passport, financial evidence and any English language certificate in advance, since these cannot be assembled quickly once a place is offered. On the morning itself, check your UCAS Hub the moment results are released, call your firm and insurance choices first to confirm your actual status, and only then move to Clearing research if neither has confirmed you a place. Keep a family member on a second phone line if possible — many successful Clearing calls for medicine in past cycles have come from contacting several schools simultaneously in the first hour, before hotlines become overwhelmed.

What Are Your Options If You Don't Get a Place Through Clearing?

Most applicants who miss their offers will not secure a medicine or dentistry place through Clearing, given how few exist against total UK intakes of roughly 9,500 (medicine) and 1,100 (dentistry) places a year. This is not a reflection of ability — it is simply a function of how few Clearing vacancies these two subjects generate compared to almost every other course. Realistic next steps include: reapplying the following cycle, ideally after resitting the UCAT and strengthening your personal statement and work experience — many successful medical students reapplied at least once; Gateway or foundation-year medicine courses (such as those at Lincoln, UCLAN and several London medical schools), which have slightly lower direct-entry grade requirements and build in an additional foundation year; Graduate Entry Medicine (GEM), a shortened postgraduate route usually requiring a related undergraduate degree plus GAMSAT or UCAT; enrolling on biomedical science, healthcare science or a related degree with a view to transferring or applying to GEM later; or studying medicine abroad, including in Ireland, mainland Europe or the Caribbean, some of which allow return to UK practice via additional registration steps with the GMC. A structured gap year focused specifically on UCAT preparation, work experience and mock interviews is consistently the factor that most improves reapplication outcomes — see our UCAT score requirements guide and MMI interview preparation guide for a detailed breakdown of what to focus on.

Frequently Asked Questions