After the UCAT: Preparing for Your Cambridge Medicine (A100) Interview

Booking for this cycle’s UCAT closed at 15:00 UK time on 16 September 2026 and the last test day is 24 September 2026. The score is fixed. What is not fixed, and what most guidance gets wrong about Cambridge, is whether the test is now finished: Cambridge’s own A100 course page says results are used “as part of our selection for interview and may use them when making offers”. Offers come after the interviews.

The second thing worth knowing before December is that there is no single Cambridge Medicine interview. Format, count and length are set by the College assessing you, and Cambridge publishes a table naming which College does what for 2027 entry. This page works through both, using Cambridge’s wording, and ends with what that leaves to prepare.

Where the UCAT sits in the Cambridge decision

Cambridge sets out its use of the test in four sentences on the A100 course page: “For UCAT results, we will look at an applicant’s overall cognitive subtest score. We will not be using the situational judgement score as part of our assessment for 2027 entry. We will use results as part of our selection for interview and may use them when making offers. We will consider your results alongside all the other information we know about you.”

Three things follow. The score Cambridge reads is the cognitive total — verbal reasoning, decision making and quantitative reasoning, each scaled 300 to 900 by the UCAT Consortium for a combined 900 to 2700. The situational judgement band, reported separately as bands 1 to 4, is out of scope for 2027 entry entirely. And the cognitive score has two jobs, not one: selecting who is interviewed, and possibly informing the offer afterwards.

Cambridge also declines to publish a bar: “We assess applicants through a mixture of academic record, UCAT and interviews. There is no minimum threshold for UCAT score.” Any “safe score” figure circulating for Cambridge Medicine therefore came from somebody other than Cambridge.

Nothing further is due between now and the interview. Cambridge: “You won’t need to submit any written work before your interview.” The UCAT Consortium’s key dates put results with universities in early November, which is when shortlisting can begin, ahead of interviews from 7 December 2026.

Which College is assessing you decides whether you travel

Cambridge is explicit that the format is not yours to pick: “Interviews may be online or in person, depending on which College is assessing your application and the course you have applied for. You will not usually be able to request a particular format.”

It then publishes the College-by-College table for 2027 entry, and counting it gives a Medicine applicant a real answer. A100 is taught at every College except Hughes Hall, which is 28 Colleges. For a UK-based applicant:

Source: University of Cambridge, What to expect at your Cambridge interview — interview formats by College for 2027 entry, read 18 September 2026. Counted for a UK-based applicant; several of these Colleges interview applicants based outside the UK online instead. The denominator was cross-checked against Cambridge’s separate subject-requirement lists for Medicine, which name 7 Colleges requiring Chemistry plus one other science or maths subject and 21 requiring Chemistry plus two — the same 28 Colleges.

Two entries deserve singling out because they name Medicine by name. Clare’s row reads: “All online except for the following courses. For these courses all interviews will be in person: Medicine Music”. Jesus lists Medicine among the courses for which “UK-based applicants: online except for the following courses. For these courses interviews will be in person”. At both, a Medicine candidate travels while most of that College’s other candidates do not.

The practical consequence is a scheduling one, and it is why the table is worth reading now rather than in November. If the College you applied to — or one you are pooled to — interviews in person, you need to be in Cambridge inside a fixed twelve-day window, and Cambridge will not move it: “You must keep the interview period free. We cannot reschedule interviews, unless under exceptional circumstances.”

How many interviews, and how long?

Cambridge’s published figure is a total across the day, which is not how the number is usually quoted: “Most applicants will have 1 or 2 interviews lasting a total of 35 minutes to an hour. Some may have 3 or 4 interviews, depending on subject and College.”

Two things are being said there. The range of counts is one to four, not a fixed two. And the 35-minutes-to-an-hour figure covers the whole set, not each one — so a candidate with two interviews is looking at something closer to half an hour apiece than the “roughly 20–30 minutes each” quoted by the highest-ranked 2027-entry guide on this search.

Cambridge then removes the temptation to read anything into either number: “You’ll be informed in advance about how many interviews to expect. The number of interviews you have does not relate to how strong your application is.” And on the date: “The timing of your interview does not reflect your perceived strength as a candidate.”

What Cambridge says the interview is for

Cambridge publishes its reasons, and they are worth reading as a list of things to demonstrate rather than as a mission statement. Interviews, it says, help assess “your understanding of your chosen subject area your readiness to study at a high academic level whether you’ll thrive in the Cambridge learning environment your ability to think critically and independently your curiosity and openness to new ideas your enthusiasm for your subject”.

Notice what is not on that list: knowledge you have accumulated, or evidence you have already decided things. “Openness to new ideas” and “think critically and independently” are both about what happens when something unfamiliar arrives, which is the one thing a rehearsed answer cannot show.

For Medicine specifically, Cambridge adds a sentence and a frame: “You must be a keen scientist with a sound scientific understanding. As selection for medical school implies selection for the medical profession, admissions decisions are informed by national guidance on what makes a good doctor.”

Who you are competing with, in Cambridge’s own numbers

Cambridge’s key information for the course records: “UCAS code A100 Course length MB, BChir 6 years full-time Start date October 2027 Study at All Colleges, except Hughes Hall Applicant numbers Overseas fee status places: 22 2025 cycle: Applications per place: 6 Accepted: 270”.

Six applications per place is a different measure from anything Oxford publishes about its own course, and the two should not be set against each other: Oxford quotes about 2.5 applicants per place at interview, after shortlisting has already removed most of the field. Cambridge’s 6 counts applications. They are not the same denominator and neither number means the other university is easier.

On grades, the published minimum is “A level: A*A*A IB: 41-42 points, with 776 at Higher Level”, with Chemistry plus one or two other science or mathematics subjects depending on College, and “Colleges usually require A* in Chemistry. They may sometimes ask for higher grades or an A* in a particular subject.”

What happens if you are pooled

December is not necessarily the end of it. Cambridge publishes a second round: “Winter pool interviews: around mid to late January 2027”, and explains what it can involve — “If you’re placed in the winter pool, you may be invited to an additional interview at a different College in January.”

So a candidate can face a College they never applied to, weeks after the main round, having had no further chance to change anything on paper. There is also a separate round for mature applicants: “For mature applicants (January round): mid-March to early April”.

The practical reading is that interview preparation should not be scheduled to expire on 18 December 2026. If you are pooled, the skill you built in the autumn is the same skill you will need in January, and it will have had a month of disuse.

Preparing for a conversation the score cannot win

Put the pieces together and the preparation is narrow. Your academic record is filed. Your UCAT is sat, and Cambridge may or may not look at it again when offers are made — either way you cannot alter it. What remains is somewhere between 35 minutes and an hour of being asked about things you have not seen, by a College whose format you can look up today.

Two things are worth doing with the weeks to 7 December. The first is a logistics check: find your College in the table above, and if it interviews in person, plan the journey now rather than in the week Cambridge tells you the date. The second is rehearsal of the only skill being assessed — stating an assumption, following it, and giving it up when the evidence moves.

The Medicine pack runs ten questions across blood-chemistry calculations, pedigree inheritance, kidney and fetal-circulation physiology, and ethics on euthanasia and confidentiality, with the interviewer’s follow-ups kept apart from the question so nothing tells you where it is going. Medicine has no free sample; the hub’s card says so plainly.

Biochemistry for Medics and Vets covers the molecular side a Cambridge panel reaches for, and it does open the free chemistry sample, so you can read a worked answer in full before deciding. For the interview format and a question worked end to end, see our Cambridge Medicine interview page; for how the same test is handled at the other university, After the UCAT: Oxford Medicine (A100) and the Oxford Graduate-Entry (A101) page set out two quite different timetables. Cambridge’s own interview formats and dates page is the source for the table above.

Frequently Asked Questions

Work one question properly before 7 December

Hide the follow-ups, attempt a question out loud at full length, then read the worked answer against what you actually said. The full pack catalogue carries thirty subjects at £180 each.

Papers and packs from Leading Tuition — rated 4.8 / 5 from 59 reviews on Trustpilot. 91% of our students achieve their desired grades.