Imperial College London Medicine Entry Requirements for 2027 Entry

Imperial College London Medicine (UCAS code A100) is a six-year MBBS/BSc starting in October 2027, taught at Charing Cross and South Kensington. The minimum entry standard is A*AA including Biology and Chemistry. Imperial publishes what most medical schools will not: for 2026 entry it applied a minimum UCAT total of 2320, and 2170 for contextual applicants. It received 6 applications for every place.

What Imperial Publishes That Other Medical Schools Do Not

Most UK medical schools decline to publish a UCAT cut-off, on the reasonable grounds that it moves every year. Imperial publishes the exact thresholds it applied, and publishes a second, lower set for contextual applicants. Between those and its place counts, an applicant can size their own chances before the UCAS deadline rather than after it.

Our arithmetic on those published figures, rather than numbers Imperial states: 271 Home places plus 74 Overseas places is about 345 places. At 6 applications per place that implies roughly 2,070 applications, and interviewing the top third implies roughly 690 candidates at MMI — about two interviewees for every place. That second ratio is the one worth carrying into preparation. Clearing the UCAT threshold is the hard filter, but once you are through it the interview is close to a coin toss, and it is the stage most applicants under-prepare.

How Far Is 2320 From a Perfect UCAT?

A threshold means nothing without the scale behind it. The UCAT total runs from 900 to 2700, built from three subtests each marked between 300 and 900, with the Situational Judgement Test reported separately in Bands 1 to 4 rather than folded into the total. On that scale, 2320 is about 86% of the available marks and the contextual threshold of 2170 is about 80% — 150 marks of headroom, which is a meaningful gap on a test where a single subtest is worth 900.

Two consequences follow for an Imperial applicant specifically. First, because Imperial discounts Situational Judgement Band 4 outright, the banded subtest is a pass or fail gate rather than a scoring opportunity: a strong 2320 with a Band 4 does not clear the threshold. Second, because there is no negative marking, leaving a question blank is never correct. An unanswered question and a wrong one score exactly the same, and on Verbal Reasoning, where 44 questions share 22 minutes, guessing the last few is strictly better than running out of time honestly.

The A-Level Offer, and Where It Actually Bites

Imperial's minimum entry standard is A*AA, and the shape of it matters more than the letters. The A* and the A must fall across Biology and Chemistry, with the A* in either of those two, and the third A can be in another subject. All qualifications must be taken in the same sitting. General Studies and Critical Thinking are not accepted. Imperial's typical offer is the same A*AA with the A* in Biology or Chemistry, and Imperial defines a typical offer as one made to at least half of its 2025-entry applicants who had not yet achieved their grades.

The practical implication is that a candidate predicted A*AA with the A* in, say, Mathematics does not meet the standard entry requirement, however strong the overall profile. For contextual offers Imperial relaxes exactly that constraint — the A* may be in any subject — and drops the minimum to AAA with an A in Biology, an A in Chemistry and an A in a third subject. On the International Baccalaureate the minimum is 38 points including 6 in Biology and 6 in Chemistry at Higher Level, with a typical offer of 39 points and 6 and 7 in those two subjects.

One condition catches offer-holders after results day rather than before it. If you are made an offer, Imperial requires a pass in the science practical endorsement in every science subject that forms part of that offer. It is not scored and it is easy to forget, but it is a condition of the offer like any grade.

The Shortlisting Sequence, Month by Month

Imperial publishes the order in which it does things, which is more useful than any single deadline because it tells you when each part of your application is actually being read.

Two dates on that page sit outside the UCAS calendar entirely and are missed every year. If you are claiming contextual consideration on carer status, the supporting evidence has to be with Imperial by 13 November 2026 — before, in practice, most applicants have thought about interviews at all. And if something goes wrong before results day, the Mitigating Circumstances Form for Results Day closes on 17 July 2026. Neither deadline moves because you were busy.

One more rule shapes the whole plan: Imperial states that you must book the UCAT yourself and must only take it once in an admissions cycle. There is no second attempt to fall back on, which is why the preparation has to be finished before the sitting rather than adjusted after it.

Where Imperial Sits Against the Other London Medical Schools

Applicants rarely apply to Imperial alone. The four UCAS medicine choices usually cluster, and in London that clustering has a cost: the schools use the UCAT differently enough that a strategy tuned to one can be wrong for another. Imperial applies a published total-score threshold and discounts Situational Judgement Band 4 outright. That is a different mechanism from ranking applicants by UCAT decile, and it produces a different decision.

With a threshold, a score of 2320 and a score of 2650 are worth the same at the shortlisting stage: both clear the bar, and neither buys an advantage from the extra marks. With a ranking system the extra 330 marks matter a great deal. So a candidate who scores comfortably above 2320 but not spectacularly should not read their score as marginal at Imperial, and a candidate sitting just under it should not assume a strong personal statement will carry them across, because the threshold is applied before the rest of the application is weighed.

The banding rule cuts the same way and is the one most often missed. Imperial discounts Band 4 on the Situational Judgement Test, so a candidate with 2500 and a Band 4 does not reach interview, while a candidate with 2330 and a Band 2 does. The Situational Judgement Test is 69 questions in 26 minutes and does not contribute to the total score at all, which is exactly why applicants deprioritise it in preparation. At Imperial that is the wrong call: it is the only subtest that can end the application on its own.

What Happens After the Six Years

Imperial's Medicine degree is an MBBS with an integrated BSc, and the final MBBS/BSc classification is Pass/Fail rather than a graded honours result. To register with a licence to practise, Imperial states that a graduate must pass both parts of the General Medical Council's Medical Licensing Assessment, pass university finals, and demonstrate their fitness to practise. The MLA exists so that everyone entering the register meets a common threshold for safe practice, whichever medical school they came from.

Reviewed August 2026: every entry requirement, UCAT threshold, place count and interview detail on this page was checked against Imperial College London's own Medicine course listing on 22 August 2026. The UCAT subtest structure, timings and scoring were confirmed against the UCAT Consortium's published test format the same day.

Frequently Asked Questions about Imperial Medicine