Medical school admissions has its own vocabulary. These are the words this site uses, in plain English. Wherever one is underlined with dots, you can hover or tap it for the same definition. Search them with /.
A100
The UCAS course code most standard five-year Medicine courses use. Graduate-entry courses, usually four years and only for people with a degree, have their own codes.
Contextual applicant
An applicant whose background suggests their grades understate them: a low-participation area, free school meals, time in care and similar.
Schools may lower the offer or the UCAT line, add points or guarantee an interview. Only the university decides who counts, using its own records, so treat any contextual reading as a rough guide until it confirms.
Cut-off
The lowest UCAT a school interviewed in a cycle, or a minimum it set. Most are set after applications close.
Last year's cut-off is a guide to this year, not a rule: it moves with each year's applicants. Only a minimum a school publishes in advance is a rule.
Decile
Where a score sits among everyone who sat the test that year, in tenths: the 10th decile is the top 10% of scores.
UCAT publishes preliminary deciles while the test window is still open and final ones afterwards, so a decile read from the preliminary table can still move.
EPQ
Extended Project Qualification: an independent project worth half an A-level. A few schools accept it in a lower alternative offer.
Extenuating circumstances
Something outside your control that affected your studies or exams, such as serious illness or bereavement. Schools usually want evidence.
First sitting
The first time you sat an exam. Some schools want minimum grades at the first sitting before they will look at resit grades.
FOI
Freedom of Information: a UK law that lets anyone ask a public body, universities included, for information it holds. Much of the data here comes from FOI responses.
Foundation year
A preparatory year before the Medicine course, with its own entry requirements, usually for widening-participation applicants.
Holistic
MedOffr's label for a school that scores or reads the whole application, so grades, GCSEs or points can offset the UCAT.
IMD
Index of Multiple Deprivation: the government's ranking of neighbourhoods in England by deprivation. Quintile 1 is the most deprived fifth.
Scotland uses the SIMD, where SIMD20 means the most deprived fifth of areas; Wales and Northern Ireland have their own indices.
MMI
Multiple Mini Interview: a series of short interview stations, each on a different topic with a different interviewer, scored separately.
Offer
A place that becomes yours if you meet its conditions, usually A-level grades, by results day.
Panel interview
One longer interview with two or more interviewers at once.
Personal statement
Your answers to three UCAS questions about why you want to study Medicine and how you have prepared. Most schools do not score it.
POLAR4
An Office for Students measure of how many young people in an area go to university, in five quintiles. Quintile 1 is the lowest.
Predicted grades
The A-level grades your teachers expect you to get, sent with your UCAS application. Offers are made on them and confirmed on results day.
Predicted minimum
The lowest predictions a school will consider, where it is below the offer: predicted AAB for an AAA offer, say.
Resit
Taking an A-level again to improve the grade. Each medical school sets its own rule on whether it accepts one.
Shortlisting
How a school chooses who to interview, before any offers are made.
SJT
The part of the UCAT about how you would act in workplace situations. Reported as Band 1 (best) to Band 4, not added to the total.
Some schools reject Band 4 outright, a few reject Band 3 as well, and some turn the band into points.
TUNDRA
Like POLAR4, but counting only pupils from state-funded schools, in smaller areas. Quintile 1 is the lowest participation.
UCAT
The admissions test most UK medical schools use. Three scored subtests of 300 to 900 each, so the total is out of 2,700.
The subtests are Verbal Reasoning, Decision Making and Quantitative Reasoning. Abstract Reasoning was dropped for tests sat from 2025, so older totals out of 3,600 are not comparable. The Situational Judgement Test is reported separately, as a band.
UCAT-heavy
MedOffr's label for a school that shortlists on the UCAT once its academic minimums are met.
Widening participation
Schemes that help under-represented groups into Medicine, often with outreach programmes and lower offers.
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