Queen Mary University of London’s Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry is one of the oldest medical schools in the UK, teaching across East London and Essex. Barts is ranked 20th out of 40 for Medicine in the Guardian University Guide 2027, with 87% of students satisfied with their teaching and a career prospects score of 99, and 19th for Medicine in the Complete University Guide 2027 – a fall from 5th in 2026, although its graduate outcomes remain among the strongest in the country.
Queen Mary University, Barts and the London School of Medicine delivers an integrated, spiral curriculum, which revisits and builds on core science and clinical themes across the five years. A key feature of the curriculum delivery is problem-based learning (PBL), used alongside team-based learning (TBL), where you work through structured tasks with your team and get immediate feedback; you can find out more about how you’ll be taught at Queen Mary under their ‘learning and teaching’ section here.
You’ll also experience a range of other teaching methods to support your learning, including:
You’ll experience contact with patients from your first term and throughout the programme, including the following clinical experience:
Anatomy is taught at the Turnbull Centre on the Mile End campus, where you’ll study using prosections, models, bones and radiographic imaging across twenty stations equipped with anatomical images, x-rays, CT and MRI scans. You can also opt in to dissection classes, held once you’ve covered the basic anatomy in the practical lab: Year 1 students dissect the limbs and Year 2 students the thorax and abdomen, with clinical teaching fellows and surgical trainees demonstrating.
You’ll be based across three Queen Mary campuses – Whitechapel, Mile End and West Smithfield – including the Blizard Building and the Garrod Building, which reopened in January 2024 after an £11.2 million refurbishment and is now home to Barts and The London Students Association and the Institute of Health Sciences Education. You can find out more information about the structure of the programme here.
Queen Mary University, Barts and the London School of Medicine brings together two historic teaching institutions – St Bartholomew’s Hospital and The London Hospital Medical College – and is one of the oldest medical schools in the UK.
During your clinical years, placements are split between ‘in-firms’ close to the university, which you’ll commute to daily, and ‘out-firms’ further out in Essex, where most students stay in hospital accommodation. You may gain clinical experience in some of the following hospitals:
You’ll also attend primary care placements with GPs and community health centres across City & Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge, and mental health placements in east and northeast London.
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You will undertake student selected components (SSCs) throughout the five-year course, providing you with some choice and allowing you to explore areas of interest within the curriculum. SSC modules vary in length, with some running for two to five weeks and others spanning a whole academic year.
Within your final year, after your final examinations, you’ll also undertake a six-week elective period, allowing you to study a topic of your choice, either within the UK or abroad. Bear in mind that some host institutions charge up to £6,000, so a UK elective can be a more affordable option.
In addition to this, Queen Mary University 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. There are eight intercalated BSc programmes to choose from, plus a range of master’s degrees and an MB PhD programme, which you join after your third year to complete a research PhD before returning to your MBBS. You can find out more about the intercalated programme here.
One option worth knowing about is the intercalated BSc in Prehospital Medicine, the UK’s first intercalated degree in this field, run in partnership with the Institute of Pre-hospital Care at London’s Air Ambulance, which you can start after your third or fourth year.
Away from the curriculum, Barts and The London Students Association runs student life for medical and dental students, and is based in the refurbished Garrod Building on the Whitechapel campus.
Queen Mary University offers a five-year MBBS programme taught in Malta. You can find out more about this programme here; applications are made directly to the Malta campus rather than through UCAS.
There is also the option to study an accelerated four-year Medicine Graduate Entry Programme MBBS, if you already have, or are expecting to obtain, an honours degree with a minimum 2:1 grade – note that for 2027 entry this programme is only open to applicants who qualify for home fees.
Other selling points you could mention at interview include:
The typical entry requirements for 2027 entry are:
Scottish applicants need three Highers at AAA including Chemistry and Biology, plus two Advanced Highers at AA, and the European Baccalaureate is accepted at 85% overall including Chemistry or Biology plus a further science. GCSEs aren’t required for graduate applicants, and resits are only considered where extenuating circumstances fall within the Equality Act 2010 and have been approved before you apply. For September 2027, Queen Mary expects to have 311 places for Home students and up to 24 for Overseas students, so competition for international places is much tighter. Clinical work experience isn’t mandatory, but you’re expected to have people-focused experience of providing care or a service, and your personal statement isn’t scored at any stage. You can check the full details on the entry requirements page and compare schools in our guide to medicine entry requirements.
Widening access: eligible home applicants can receive a standard contextual offer of one grade below the standard offer – AAA, or IB 36 with 666 – based on criteria including free school meals, living in an area of disadvantage, attending a Queen Mary sponsored school, care experience, estrangement or a declared disability. An enhanced contextual offer of AAA plus a guaranteed interview is available if you’ve completed one of Queen Mary’s sustained or partnered access schemes, and care leavers may be considered at AAB. You can check your eligibility using the university’s contextual admissions checker, and find out about outreach through the Bridge the Gap programme.
Queen Mary University, Barts and the London School of Medicine uses an online panel interview for its A100 selection. The following are identified on their website as areas which will be evaluated through the interview process:
For 2027 entry, shortlisted applicants will attend an online interview, with interviews taking place between January and February 2027. Queen Mary doesn’t publish individual interview dates in advance. Offers are decided at a third shortlisting stage, which may take into account your interview score alongside your SJT band, your UCAS tariff of predicted or achieved qualifications (or weighted degree score, for graduates) and your UCAT score – so your interview performance matters, but it isn’t assessed entirely in isolation.
Most medical schools require you to pass an admissions exam before you’ll be invited for interview.
Admissions exam for Queen Mary: 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. Queen Mary University specifies that applicants will be ranked on a weighted score compared with other applicants in the same cycle, which may be made up of your UCAT score and your UCAS tariff of predicted or achieved qualifications (or a weighted score from your degree, if you’re a graduate), and only a certain number will be invited to interview. In addition to this, your application won’t progress beyond the first shortlisting if you score below the fourth UCAT decile, or if you score Band 4 for SJT. Home and Overseas applicants are ranked separately, and UCAT exemptions or waivers aren’t granted under any circumstances.
Queen Mary stresses that it isn’t possible to predict what the thresholds will be in any given year, or to use previous years’ data to predict them. It does publish admissions statistics for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 cycles, split by Home and Overseas – bear in mind that figures from 2025 entry and earlier are from the old test scored out of 3600, and so aren’t directly comparable with your score. The most recent competition ratios published for the course are:
| Applicant group | Applicants per place | Applicants per interview |
|---|---|---|
| Home | 1.8 | 5.8 |
| International | 4.4 | 23 |
Source: Medical Schools Council course entry and Queen Mary’s admissions statistics.
To help you to successfully prepare for all sections, the free Medibuddy AI-powered 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 2026/27 are:
Fees for 2027/28 haven’t been set yet, so check the tuition fees page for the latest information. Home students can apply for the standard student finance package for Years 1 to 4, and the NHS pays your tuition fees from Year 5 onwards. Queen Mary also offers the John Abernethy (Barts) Scholarship of £5,000 per year to two new medical students each year, awarded on household income and academic achievement.
Good luck with your application to Barts and The London! For more help, take a look at our guides to applying to medical school and the best medical schools in the UK.
