The University of Plymouth Peninsula Medical School is a community-focused, case-based medical school that teaches across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset, with placements from your very first year. Plymouth is ranked 32nd for Medicine in the Complete University Guide 2027 and 39th out of 40 in the Guardian University Guide 2027 – lower than many of its rivals – but it scores 98 for career prospects in that table, and the medical school reports that Plymouth graduates consistently report the highest measures of feeling prepared for professional practice in the GMC’s annual survey of Foundation doctors.
Plymouth University Peninsula Medical School adopts a spiral curriculum and uses clinical cases and patient narratives to initiate all teaching, so you’ll revisit and build on earlier knowledge and skills as you progress. Within the early phases of the course, the following teaching methods are used to support your learning:
The programme includes early clinical contact and the following clinical experience throughout the course:
Anatomy at Plymouth is taught without cadaveric dissection: instead you’ll learn using Anatomage virtual dissection tables, accurate 3D anatomical models, custom-printed molecular models, ultrasound simulators and a team of surface anatomy models who become your first “patients”. Most Year 1 and 2 teaching happens in the Portland Square Building on the main campus, with weekly trips to the Clinical Skills Resource Centre at the John Bull Building, where many training rooms are replicas of NHS wards and emergency departments.
You’ll also take an Interprofessional Learning module in each of your first three years, working and learning alongside students from other healthcare courses. You can find out more information about the programme structure and the core modules here.
Plymouth University Peninsula Medical School’s close partnerships with the region’s leading NHS trusts give you “unrivalled access to a wide range of patients, clinical settings and specialist knowledge”. The medical school works in partnership with the following:
Every student spends an extended placement of up to a year based in Torbay, Taunton or Plymouth, rotating around these sites, so you’ll need to be prepared to travel – and to see healthcare in both urban and rural communities.
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There is a student selected component (SSC) in each year from Year 2 onwards, providing the opportunity to explore an area of interest within an overall focus – research skills and doctors as educators in Year 2, health advocacy and public engagement in Year 3, and quality improvement and patient safety in Year 4.
Within your final year, you’ll undertake an elective placement (SSC5), planning and carrying out a medical elective “in your choice of social or cultural context”, within the UK or abroad – recent students have travelled to Nepal, Mexico and the Philippines.
In addition to this, Peninsula Medical School also offers the option of an intercalated degree, which allows you to take one year out of your medical course to study for an additional qualification. Plymouth offers a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to choose from, including BSc Critical Care, BSc Urgent and Emergency Care, MClinRes Clinical Research, MSc Global Health and MSc Expedition and Marine Medicine. You can find out more about the intercalated programme here.
If research appeals to you, the school is home to centres including the Brain Tumour Research Centre, the Community and Primary Care Research Centre, the Centre for Health Technology and the Peninsula Clinical Trials Unit. Away from the curriculum, Peninsula MedSoc organises student-led teaching, events and balls, and pairs new students with a “MedSoc family” of second years for support – you can join it through the Students’ Union.
Peninsula Medical School also offers a BMBS with Foundation, which is aimed at “able students whose education has been impacted by adversity”, as an alternative route into medicine. You can find out more about the course here.
Other selling points you could mention at interview include:
The typical entry requirements for 2027 entry are:
Plymouth only considers A Levels or equivalent qualifications completed within five years of the start of the application cycle, and BTECs aren’t accepted for the five-year course – although the CAVA Access to HE (Medicine) course is, with 45 credits at Distinction. Scottish Advanced Highers (AAA) and the Irish Leaving Certificate are also accepted, and you must have turned 18 before the end of induction week, as under-18s can’t be sent on placement. International applicants must meet the same criteria, including the UCAT, and are advised to contact the admissions team before applying. You can read the full requirements on the course page, and compare them with other schools in our guide to medicine entry requirements.
Widening access: eligible applicants can receive a contextual offer of AAB (IB 35 points), with GCSE and UCAT requirements staying the same. To qualify you need at least 5 points from Plymouth’s contextual markers – being care-experienced, receiving free school meals, refugee or asylum seeker status, attending a low-performing school, or receiving EMA, a 16–19 bursary or a UCAT bursary are worth 2 points each, while living in an IMD 1–4 or POLAR4 quintile 1 area, significant engagement with Peninsula Pathways, being a south west resident and receiving service pupil premium are worth 1 point each. Applicants on the UKWPMED scheme can be made an ABB offer. The BMBS with Foundation (A102) route has a typical offer of BBB and five GCSEs at grade 4, is only open to applicants who don’t meet the A100 requirements, and has 40 places – for 2025 entry there were 408 applications, 162 interviews and 101 offers.
Peninsula Medical School uses the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) format for its interviews, and is committed to interviewing online for the current admissions cycle.
You’ll be assessed across five stations by four different interviewers, which takes approximately 55 minutes. The MMI will not assess your medical or scientific knowledge; its focus will be on assessing your skills and qualities that make you suitable for medicine – the school looks for communication skills, decision making, understanding the impact of illness, reflection and self-insight, motivation and commitment, integrity and inclusivity, resilience and adaptability, and teamwork. Assessors come from a range of backgrounds, including clinicians, academics, medical students, other healthcare professionals and members of the public. Stations are scored on a numerical scale alongside a “red flag” section, and both are considered when outcomes are decided; candidates are then ranked and the top performers receive offers.
For 2027 entry, interviews are expected to take place between December 2026 and February 2027, which is when Plymouth says they typically run, and you’ll be able to choose your preferred date through the school’s online booking system. Remember that shortlisting is based on your academic qualifications and UCAT alone – your personal statement and work experience aren’t scored – and that Plymouth typically interviews around 60% of applicants and makes offers to about 25%.
You can find a list of the qualities that interviewers will be looking for, as well as more information and updates on Peninsula’s MMI, on their website here.
Most medical schools require you to pass an admissions exam before you’ll be invited for interview.
Admissions exam for Plymouth: University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT)
The UCAT assesses your characteristics, attitudes and professional behaviours against those required for medical school. The exam is now divided into 4 sections: 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. It must be sat in the year of application, as results are only valid for 12 months.
Peninsula Medical School select candidates for interview based on their UCAT score, and their GCSE and A-Level results. Plymouth applies an overall target score methodology, ranking applicants by their total cognitive score, and states that it does not currently include the SJT banding score – although the Admissions Advisory Panel reserves the right to consider all aspects of the UCAT. The threshold changes every year depending on the number and quality of applications, so it can’t be confirmed until all applications have been assessed. Separate thresholds are set for home, international and widening access applicants:
| Year of entry | Home | International | UKWPMED / widening access |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 entry | 2680 | 2440 | 2330 |
| 2024 entry | 2210 | 2600 | 2210 |
| 2025 entry | 2600 | 2670 | 2540 |
Source: BMBS Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.
These cut-offs are all from cycles when the UCAT was scored out of 3600 and still included Abstract Reasoning, so they aren’t directly comparable with today’s 900–2700 scale – use them to get a sense of how competitive each applicant group is rather than as a target score.
To help you to successfully prepare for all sections, the free Medibuddy AI-powered, adaptive question bank carefully selects questions based on your strengths and weaknesses within the syllabus, to ensure that you’re focusing on areas which will have the biggest impact on your UCAT score.
You can also clearly see in the question bank dashboard the areas you have “mastered” and those which you need to focus more time on.
It’s crucial that you prepare well for all areas to ensure that you get the best UCAT score possible and secure your interview place!
For more information and guidance, see our complete guide to the UCAT and our UCAT preparation tips.
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:
Plymouth notes that a proposed government levy on international fee income could change international fees, and that Peninsula Medical School is unable to offer scholarships or reduced tuition fees. There may also be additional placement and equipment costs, so check the fees and funding information for the latest position.
Good luck with your application to Plymouth! For more help, take a look at our guides to applying to medical school and the best medical schools in the UK.
