The University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine delivers the clinical half of Cambridge’s traditional six-year Medicine course (A100), which pairs three years of pre-clinical science with three years of clinical placements across the East of England. Cambridge is ranked 1st in the UK for Medicine in the Complete University Guide 2027, and 2nd out of 40 in the Guardian University Guide 2027, where it scores 100 for career prospects and has the best student–staff ratio in the table (4.5).
The University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine offers a course built on combining practical skills with “an excellent grounding in the science underlying practice”. It structures its programme into pre-clinical studies (Years 1–3) and clinical studies (Years 4–6). Complete the first three years and you’ll graduate with a BA (Hons); complete all six and you’ll graduate MB, BChir.
Clinical teaching is delivered on the wards and in general practice. There will also be opportunities to attend general and specialist outpatient clinics.
Although the course is based in Cambridge, some of it is delivered in regional hospitals or practices, to take advantage of the different educational opportunities they offer. You’ll spend much of your time at Addenbrooke’s Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and you’ll do your medical and surgical specialties at one of seven partner NHS trust sites:
You’ll also get experience at a range of community and mental health trusts and GP practices across the East of England. The School pays for one return journey for each clinical placement and covers accommodation near the placement hospitals, although you’re expected to cover basic subsistence costs.
Gain access to a recording of our free webinar and find out what a day in the life of medical student Helen looks like. There's also videos covering all aspects of medical school applications and the UCAT.
"I would like to thank you for providing a useful and detailed webinar giving me a better understanding and an insight into what medicine has to offer."
During your third year, you will have the opportunity to choose a ‘specialist study’ from a range of subjects offered at the University, following which you will receive a BA degree. You might see this referred to as intercalation, and options include a Year 3 Biological and Biomedical Sciences or Natural Sciences subject, or something less obviously related to medicine such as Anthropology, Management Studies, History of Medicine or Philosophy. The ‘Preparing for Patients’ module also continues throughout your third year, to ensure continued patient contact.
In the clinical years you’ll complete Student Selected Components (SSCs), which let you study areas that complement the core curriculum and build research skills such as literature searching, abstract writing and presenting. Your SSC portfolio must be finished before your Final MB Part III examinations.
There’s also an elective, with the option to go abroad for seven weeks in Year 5 (Cambridge estimates this costs around £3,000, and College and national grants may be available). You’ll submit an elective report in Year 6, and the best report each year receives an award.
If research appeals, the MB/PhD Programme lets you pause after Year 4 to spend three years on a PhD project, based in the Clinical School, a University department or an affiliated institute such as the Gurdon Institute, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology or the Sanger Institute.
Away from the curriculum, MedSoc (Cambridge University Medical Society) has been running since 1784 and offers talks by academics and clinicians, social events such as the MedSoc Ball, and travel grants each summer.
Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine emphasises the importance of learning in small groups, ensuring that Undergraduate Clinical Supervision groups and groups within clinical settings are limited.
Cambridge also offers a Graduate Course in medicine (A101) which is open to graduates of any subject with at least a 2:1 who have home fee status, taught at Hughes Hall, Lucy Cavendish, St Edmund’s and Wolfson Colleges, with clinical teaching based largely at West Suffolk Hospital. You can find more information on their website here.
Other selling points you could mention at interview include:
The typical entry requirements for 2027 entry are:
You must be 18 years old by 1 November of your first year, and you can’t apply if you’ve failed or been excluded from another medical school. There are 22 places for overseas fee status students, and in the 2025 cycle Cambridge received around six applications per place and accepted 270 students. Work experience, paid or voluntary, in a health or social care organisation is strongly recommended, and you won’t need to submit any written work or sit a College admissions assessment. You can find the full requirements on the course page, and compare them with other schools in our guide to medicine entry requirements.
Widening access: Cambridge uses contextual data rather than a standard reduced-grade contextual offer – it says it doesn’t systematically make conditional offers at lower grades, but ‘flags’ for things like free school meals eligibility, time in public care, refugee status, estrangement, area deprivation and your school’s exam performance are shown to assessors and used at the pooling and August Reconsideration Pool stages. Access programmes such as Insight, Sutton Trust Summer Schools, Target Oxbridge and Apply: Cambridge can help you prepare, travel and technology support is available at interview if you’re eligible for free school meals, and the Cambridge Bursary Scheme supports students once they arrive.
Cambridge doesn’t use the MMI format. Instead you’ll have academic interviews with your College: all Colleges conduct at least two interviews per medical applicant, and every College’s process involves at least one current practitioner. Across the University, most applicants have one or two interviews lasting 35 minutes to an hour in total, and you may be given material to read beforehand to discuss with your interviewers.
Interviews may be online or in person, depending on which College is assessing your application. For 2027 entry, Clare interviews Medicine applicants in person even though most of its interviews are online, and Jesus interviews UK-based Medicine applicants in person (online for those based outside the UK). Some Colleges interview everyone in person (including Churchill, Emmanuel, King’s and Selwyn) and others are entirely online (including Christ’s, Downing, Newnham and St John’s). You can check your College on the Cambridge interviews page.
For 2027 entry, the main interview period is 7 to 18 December 2026, with winter pool interviews around mid to late January 2027, and mature applicants in the January round interviewed between mid-March and early April. Decisions for applicants interviewed in December are released on 27 January 2027.
In a subject interview you’re likely to discuss topics with two or three interviewers, apply your knowledge to new situations and problems, and explain your understanding of the vocational aspects of the course. Cambridge states that “admissions decisions are informed by national guidance on what makes a good doctor”, and its Key Criteria for Medical Admissions sets out the three areas selectors assess: scientific and related competencies; personal qualities and communication skills; and understanding of the professional and career requirements. The Colleges also subscribe to the Medical Schools Council’s ‘Statement on the core values and attributes needed to study medicine’.
Most medical schools require you to pass an admissions exam before you’ll be invited for interview.
Admissions exam for Cambridge: University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT)
The UCAT is used to help determine if you’ll be invited to an interview, assessing your characteristics, attitudes and professional behaviours against those required for medical school. The exam is made up of 4 subtests: Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning and Situational Judgement (SJT). Abstract Reasoning has been removed from the test.
For 2027 entry, the UCAT is being held between 13 July and 24 September 2026. You’ll need to register by 16 September 2026 and sit the test by 24 September 2026.
Here’s how Cambridge uses your score, for both A100 and A101:
| How Cambridge uses the UCAT | Detail for 2027 entry |
|---|---|
| Scores used | Your overall cognitive subtest score (900–2700) |
| Situational Judgement | Not used as part of the assessment for 2027 entry |
| Minimum threshold | None – no cut-off score is published |
| When it’s used | As part of selection for interview, and it may be used when making offers |
| Weighting | Considered alongside your academic record, interviews and all the other information available |
Source: Medicine, MB and BChir, University of Cambridge.
Because Cambridge assesses applicants holistically and doesn’t publish cut-offs or decile statistics, a strong UCAT will help you stand out, but it won’t win or lose you an interview on its own.
To help you prepare for each area of the UCAT, we’ve created the free Medibuddy adaptive question bank, which uses artificial intelligence to identify your strengths and weaknesses within the syllabus, and carefully selects questions to meet your specific learning needs.
You can also use the question bank dashboard to see how you’re performing, with your calculated skill level, response time, total number of questions answered and the number of questions answered correctly, for each section of the UCAT. So you can easily identify which areas you’ve “mastered” and which you need to spend more time on.
To achieve the best possible UCAT score and secure an interview at the University of Cambridge, it’s important to prepare well for all areas!
For more information about the UCAT entry exam, visit our Medicine Entry Requirements blog.
You can also see how other medical schools use the test in our guide to UCAT universities.
Tuition fees for students starting in 2027/28 are:
The Graduate Course (A101) is only open to home fee status students, who pay £10,050. You’ll also need to budget for course costs such as equipment (around £60), theatre clogs and a stethoscope for the clinical years. Check the tuition fees page for the latest information.
Good luck with your application to Cambridge! For more help, take a look at our guides to applying to medical school and the best medical schools in the UK.
