Medicine - how to apply

Interested in studying Medicine at degree level? Find out about the application process.

Where you'll study

Find out more about where you'll be studying medicine at ARU – discover Essex's first School of Medicine today.

The application process

Applications to study Medicine open in the September of the year prior to entry, and close on 15 October.

You can apply for five courses through UCAS Medicine but only four choices can be for Medicine courses. 

We strongly recommend you attend one of our Open Days before starting your application. 

For full details on the UCAS application process please visit the UCAS website. Please note that there is an application fee.

Institution code: A60.

Application stages

  • Stage 1: University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT), previously known as UKCAT (apply May–September and take the test July–early October).
  • Stage 2: Prepare personal statement and apply through UCAS before 15 October deadline.
  • Stage 3: You will be sent a Widening Access to Medicine Scheme (WAMS) Eligibility Questionnaire to fill out and send back to the Admissions Team by the deadline. For more on WAMS, see below.
  • Stage 4: Short-listed applicants invited to Selection Day with Multiple Mini Interviews (November–March).
  • Stage 5: Offer to study Conditional on A Level or alternative exam results and satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service and Occupational Health checks.

UCAT (previously known as UKCAT)

Registration opens for UCAT in May each year and you can sit the test from early July. Testing ends in early October and the UCAS application deadline is 15 October for applications to study the MBChB in the UK.

Please visit the UCAT website for test information.

UCAS

Your UCAS application must be completed fully and accurately. There is a wealth of information on the UCAS website about how to fill in the application and what information is required at each stage.  

If a qualification is not declared in the UCAS application, we will conclude that it has not been taken. Any offer made will be conditional upon achieving specified grades in the qualifications declared as being undertaken at the time of application. If you intend to change the qualifications you are undertaking, please contact us immediately to determine if the new qualifications meet our required academic entry requirements.

Widening Access to Medicine Scheme (WAMS)

You must:

  • Have a permanent right or indefinite leave to remain in the UK, or have been granted settled or pre-settled status through the EU Settlement Scheme, and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for the three years prior to the start of the course
  • Not have undertaken or started another degree prior to applying

    • And either:

  • Be a Care Leaver or have been Care Experienced* for a period of longer than three months within the last five years*
  • Have attended a state school for GCSEs which has an attainment 8 score (in England) or a Capped 9 points score (in Wales) below the respective national average

    • Or attended a state school for GCSEs and A-levels and meet one of the following criteria:

  • Live in an area with an Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) in the bottom 20%
  • In receipt of free school meals, Pupil Premium funding and/or discretionary school/college payments, which are directly linked to financial hardship
  • You or your parent(s)/guardian(s) are in receipt of means tested benefits**
  • You are a person who has sole unpaid caring responsibility for another person
  • You are in receipt of a UCAT bursary
  • You have refugee status
  • You are the first in your family to attend university***
  • You are a young person who is estranged from your family
  • You are a member of the gypsy or travelling community

* A Care Leaver is someone who has been in the care of the Local Authority for a period of 13 weeks or more spanning their 16th birthday. A person is Care Experienced if they have been or are currently in care or from a looked after background at any stage of their life, including adopted children who were previously looked after. Care may have been provided in a number of ways or settings such as foster care, kinship care, residential care or through being looked after at home with a supervision requirement.

** Parental benefits will not be considered for applicants over the age of 21.

*** You count as first in family to go to university if your parents, stepparents, parents unmarried partner living in the household or adoptive parents who throughout the three-year period prior to the start of your university course have been living in the same household as you have not attended higher education (or equivalent) for at least one year full-time.