University of St Andrews and University of Dundee Interview

Note: This is a Scottish Graduate Entry Medicine (ScotGEM) MBChB course only.

ScotGEM is Scotland’s graduate-entry medical programme, jointly awarded by the University of St Andrews and the University of Dundee and built around rural and generalist practice. Both partner universities perform strongly for Medicine: Dundee is 8th out of 40 in the Guardian University Guide 2027 and 11th in the Complete University Guide 2027, while St Andrews is 13th in the Guardian with the highest teaching satisfaction score in the table (97.2%) and 14th in the CUG – and Dundee reports that it is joint top in the UK for graduate prospects in Medicine in the CUG 2027.

The ScotGEM is a “unique and innovative” programme designed for those with an interest in a career as a generalist practitioner within NHS Scotland. The first half of the programme (Year 1 & 2) is led by the University of St Andrews and the second half (Year 3 & 4) by the University of Dundee. As the programme focuses on rural medicine, from Year 2 onwards you should expect periods of living and studying in rural areas of the Highlands and Dumfries and Galloway.

Teaching Overview

For the first two years, whilst based at the University of St Andrews and NHS Fife, you will experience a case-based learning approach, working through 30 week-long patient scenarios in Year 1 and a further 19 in Year 2. Teaching is supported by:

• Learning objectives
• Lectures
• Practical classes
• Tutorials
• Simulated and ‘real’ clinical and consultation skills sessions
• Extensive supported independent and peer-to-peer learning

Anatomy is taught in context rather than as a separate subject: a case of sore throat, for example, might lead into examination of the throat and neck and the related anatomy, microbiology, pharmacology and public health issues, while Semester 2 of Year 1 concentrates on body systems and the relevant regional anatomy.

During the programme, you’ll gain the following clinical experience:

• Year 1: One day per week in a GP setting, completing small-group, work-based learning with a ‘generalist clinical mentor’.
• Year 2: Continuation of the one day per week learning within a GP setting, plus an additional half-day per week within a specialist clinical environment, finishing with experience of unscheduled care such as GP, emergency department and ambulance work. You must be prepared to live and study away from St Andrews for between 16 and 18 weeks this year, with accommodation provided for placements outside Fife.
• Year 3: ‘Longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC)’ based within a general practice for the entirety of the year. Approximately half of your week will be spent consulting with patients, with the rest spent in hospital placements, small group tutorials and project work.
• Year 4: A two-month ‘foundation apprenticeship’ plus other hospital-based clinical attachments and an acute care block, to support your preparations for a Foundation Year 1 doctor role.

Running through all four years is Agents of Change, ScotGEM’s healthcare improvement theme – you’ll complete a voluntary sector placement and a prescribing improvement project in Year 1, community engagement work during the LIC, and a hospital-based quality improvement project in Year 4. You’ll be assessed each year through knowledge tests, an OSCE and a portfolio, and you’ll sit the national Medical Licensing Assessment in two parts: the Applied Knowledge Test at the end of Year 3 and the Clinical and Professional Skills Assessment at the end of Year 4.

You can find out more information about the course structure and different modules covered here.

Teaching Hospitals / Clinical Partnerships

The programme is delivered in collaboration with the following:

• NHS Fife
• NHS Tayside
• NHS Highland
• NHS Dumfries and Galloway
• The University of the Highlands and Islands

Year 1 is based in St Andrews and Fife, while Year 2 teaching runs simultaneously in three regions – Fife, the Scottish Highlands, and Dumfries and Galloway – with your location decided by regional quota and, where possible, your preference. LIC placements in Year 3 are available across all four health board areas and the majority are rural, predominantly in Highland and Dumfries and Galloway, so you must be prepared to live and study away from Fife and Tayside. In Year 4, placements are offered across the four health board areas and you have the option of being based in a single health board for the whole year.

Extracurricular / Additional Opportunities

During your final year, you’ll undertake an eight-week elective period, offering you the opportunity to explore an area of interest in medicine, anywhere in the world.

All students in Year 4 can also take student selected components, allowing you to focus on a particular clinical area of interest in greater depth, and the Agents of Change projects give you genuine quality improvement and research experience from your very first semester.

Because you matriculate at St Andrews for Years 1 and 2 and at Dundee for Years 3 and 4, you can access the facilities of both institutions, from accommodation and libraries to student societies – a real advantage of a jointly delivered programme. Current students also share their experiences of life on the course through the student-run ScotGEM Stories blog. Note that, unlike the standard undergraduate routes at St Andrews and Dundee, ScotGEM doesn’t advertise an intercalated degree option.

Selling Points

The unique opportunities that this programme provides – including studying across two universities, extensive general practice experience and a focus on rural medicine – will no doubt be the deciding factors if you’ve chosen to apply for the ScotGEM, and therefore, will form the basis of your answer should you be questioned on why you selected this particular course. However, an additional benefit is the ‘return of service’ bursary which financially rewards those who choose to work in NHS Scotland after they graduate. With the ‘return of service’ bursary, administered by NHS Education for Scotland, you’ll receive a four-thousand pound bursary per year in return for a year of NHS Scotland service, up to a maximum of four bursaries and four equivalent years of service. You can find out more information on the ScotGEM funding page.

Other selling points you could mention at interview include:

• A year-long longitudinal integrated clerkship in Year 3, which lets you follow patients through their illness journeys rather than rotating through short blocks.
• Agents of Change, a healthcare improvement thread that means you graduate with real experience of auditing and improving services.
• A very small cohort – there were 70 places for 2025 entry – with teaching delivered in small groups across two medical schools and four health boards.
• Strong league table performance at both partner universities, with Dundee 8th and St Andrews 13th for Medicine in the Guardian University Guide 2027.

Entry Requirements

The typical entry requirements for 2027 entry are:

• Degree: a 1st or 2.1 honours degree (or equivalent) in any discipline – arts, science and other subjects are all accepted. A 2:2 followed by a Masters or PhD isn’t accepted, and applicants who are on, or have been on, a medicine degree can’t apply.
• A Levels or Highers: Chemistry, Biology or Human Biology at grade A or B (Higher, A Level, ILC H2 or equivalent).
• GCSEs: Mathematics at GCSE grade B, National 5 grade A or B, Standard Grade Credit 1 or 2, or Intermediate 2 grade A or B. The Medical Schools Council entry lists GCSE Maths at grade 5, so check with admissions if you’re borderline.
• International Baccalaureate: Chemistry or Biology at Higher Level grade 5, according to the Medical Schools Council entry, alongside the degree requirement.
• Graduates: ScotGEM is a graduate-entry course only, so every applicant is a graduate or a finalist with a predicted 1st or 2.1.

You’ll also need in-person work or shadowing experience in a caring or health environment, a positive reference and a completed online questionnaire. Access courses, HNCs and HNDs are not accepted, and resits of the Chemistry, Biology or Maths requirement are allowed. ScotGEM is open to Home and RUK applicants only – there are no international places – and you can apply a maximum of twice, with no deferred entry. You’ll also need to register with the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme. Full details are on the ScotGEM entry requirements page, and you can compare schools in our guide to medicine entry requirements.

Widening access: ScotGEM is itself a widening access route in spirit – it accepts graduates of any discipline, fees for Scottish-domiciled students are met by the Scottish Government, and the return of service bursary reduces the cost of retraining. The ScotGEM pages don’t publish a separate contextual offer or guaranteed interview scheme, and St Andrews’ Gateway to Medicine programme is a school-leaver route into the university’s undergraduate medical degrees rather than into ScotGEM, so contact the admissions team if your circumstances have affected your degree classification.

Interview Information

Applicants who meet the entry requirements, have a positive reference and complete the online questionnaire are ranked for interview on their GAMSAT scores, with a limited number of interview places (around 160). For 2025 entry, 237 applications were received, 144 applicants were interviewed and there were 70 places.

The University of St Andrews and the University of Dundee uses the Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) format for its interview. Interviews are usually held in person at the University of Dundee School of Medicine at Ninewells Hospital, and consist of a series of seven-minute ‘stations’ with 30-second breaks in between. Each station has a card with simple instructions to orientate you, and each is marked independently, so a shaky start doesn’t follow you round the circuit. You can expect questions relating to the following:

• Your motivation to study medicine
• Relevant work experience
• Personal attributes
• Why you have applied to ScotGEM

For 2027 entry, interview dates haven’t been published yet – you’ll be invited after the online questionnaire deadline (likely mid-November 2026), candidates are expected to accept the date offered, and the majority of decisions won’t be made until the middle of March 2027. You can find more information about the interview process here.

Top Tips for your ScotGEM Interview

• Rehearse your “why ScotGEM” answer. This is a stated station topic, so be specific about rural generalism, the LIC and Agents of Change rather than giving generic reasons for studying medicine.
• Show you’re ready to relocate. Year 2 involves 16–18 weeks away from St Andrews and Year 3 is largely rural, so be honest and positive about living and working in the Highlands or Dumfries and Galloway.
• Keep to seven minutes. Practise making a clear point, giving an example and reflecting, all inside a short station, then reset in the 30-second break.
• Link your first degree to medicine. As a graduate entrant, you’ll be expected to explain what your previous study and work bring to a clinical team.
• Reflect, don’t list, your work experience. ScotGEM doesn’t credit the volume of experience, so focus on what you learnt about patients and healthcare delivery.

Admissions Exam

Most medical schools require you to pass an admissions exam before you’ll be invited for interview.

Admissions exam for ScotGEM: Graduate Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT)

ScotGEM doesn’t use the UCAT. Instead, all applicants must sit the GAMSAT before they submit their UCAS application. The GAMSAT assesses your ability to understand and analyse material, think critically and express your ideas clearly, and it’s made up of three sections: Written Communication (two 30-minute writing tasks, sat by remote proctoring), Reasoning in Humanities and Social Sciences (62 questions in 100 minutes) and Reasoning in Biological and Physical Sciences (75 questions in 150 minutes), the latter two sat at a test centre about three weeks later. Each section is scored on a scale of 0 to 100.

There are two sittings each year, in March and September, and for 2027 entry ScotGEM will accept results from March 2025, September 2025, March 2026 or September 2026 only. In ACER’s 2026 cycle, the September Written Communication window was 22–23 August 2026 and the Humanities and Biological Sciences window was 11–13 September 2026, with results available in mid-November 2026. Note that ACER’s own overall score double-weights the sciences section, whereas ScotGEM uses your unweighted overall score and also sets a minimum for each individual section.

Source: How ScotGEM students are selected.

The cut-off moves each year with the strength of the applicant pool – for 2024 entry it was 50 overall with no subset lower than 46 – and ScotGEM admissions are unable to advise what score will be needed for 2027 entry, so aim as high as you can rather than treating 50 as a target. There is no special consideration or score adjustment, so only sit the test if you’re fit to do so.

If you’re also applying to undergraduate medicine courses, most of those require the UCAT instead – see our guide to UCAT universities.

Tuition Fees

Tuition fees for students starting in 2027 haven’t been set yet. Based on the arrangements published for 2026-2027:

• Scotland fee status: your tuition fees are paid by the Scottish Government, and you don’t need to apply to SAAS for fee payment.
• RUK (England): you pay £3,826 in Year 1 and apply to Student Finance England for the remainder; in Years 2 to 4, SFE provides £5,707 and an NHS bursary covers the rest of the fee. The headline St Andrews RUK fee for 2026-2027 is expected to be £9,790.
• RUK (Wales): you pay £3,465 in Year 1, with a partial fee loan for the remainder, and can access NHS Wales bursary support in Years 2 to 4.
• International students: not eligible – ScotGEM is open to Home and RUK applicants only.

You’ll also need to budget up to £70 for lab and course materials plus your PVG registration fee. Check the ScotGEM funding page for the latest information.

Key Dates for 2027 Entry

• 11–13 September 2026 – last GAMSAT sitting accepted for 2027 entry (Written Communication 22–23 August 2026)
• 15 October 2026, 18:00 – UCAS application deadline (ScotGEM doesn’t consider late applications, UCAS Extra or Clearing)
• Mid-November 2026 – likely deadline for the compulsory online questionnaire
• Winter 2026 to early 2027 – in-person MMIs at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee (exact dates to be confirmed)
• Mid-March 2027 – majority of decisions released via UCAS

Good luck with your application to ScotGEM! For more help, take a look at our guides to applying to medical school and the best medical schools in the UK.