Medicine Acceptance Rates: G5 Universities

The G5 universities are some of the most popular and competitive in the UK. For many students, they represent the pinnacle of academic aspiration.

If you’re applying to Medicine, you likely want to know what your chances of success are with these elite universities. In this guide, we’ll break down the Medicine acceptance rates of the G5, including Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, and Imperial.

We’ll explore which are the hardest and (relatively speaking) easiest to get into, as well as analysing the universities’ admissions data to uncover important insights about Medicine applications to the G5.

Medicine Acceptance Rate vs Offer Rate

Before we dive into the data, a quick housekeeping point: students and parents commonly use the term ‘acceptance rate’ to mean the percentage of applicants to a university who are offered a place. However, universities themselves use a slightly different terminology.

For the rest of this article, we will be using these terms as per the following definitions:

1. Offer rate = percentage of applicants to a university who are offered a place
2. Acceptance rate = percentage of applicants to a university who accept a place

Acceptance rates are always lower than offer rates, usually for one of two reasons:

1. The student does not meet their offer conditions (e.g. by underperforming at A Level or IB)
2. The student decides to reject the offer (typically to attend another university)

This means that offer rates are a better guide to how difficult it is to get into a given university or medical school.

What Are the G5 Universities?

The G5 is a term used to refer to five of the highest ranking universities in the UK. They are all located in the ‘Golden Triangle’ – Oxford, Cambridge, and London.

The G5 universities are:

• Oxford
• Cambridge
• London School of Economics (LSE)
• Imperial College London
• University College London (UCL)

For more information, read our in-depth guide on the G5 universities.

Does LSE Do Medicine?

No, LSE doesn’t offer a Medicine degree. It is the only G5 university not to do so. For that reason, we’ll focus on the other G5 universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, and UCL) for the rest of this guide.

LSE has traditionally focused on social science subjects like Economics and Political Science. Our guide on ‘what can you study at LSE?’ contains more information on the subjects available.

Medicine Acceptance Rates Overview

The table below presents the offer and acceptance rates for Medicine at the G5 universities. The data for each university is from the most recent year when full data is available.

From this table, we can see that, as you might expect, getting into Medicine at a G5 university is very challenging. All these universities have offer rates below 20%, with Oxford’s below 10%.

Oxford has the lowest offer and acceptance rate for Medicine of the four. Imperial has the highest offer rate, though its acceptance rate is much lower, most likely reflecting the fact that many students who are offered a place by Imperial choose instead to study Medicine elsewhere.

We’ll go into a bit more detail on what these offer and acceptance rates tell us in the next section.

Medicine Acceptance Rates by University

Oxford

Based on this data, Oxford is the hardest medical school to get into among the G5. It made only 162 offers from more than 1700 applicants (by far the lowest number of offers in the group), resulting in an offer rate of below 10%.

Its acceptance rate (8.7%) and offer rate (9.5%) are very similar, meaning that almost all applicants who were offered a place accepted it. This likely reflects Oxford’s prestige (it seems to have been the first choice medical school for nearly all students who applied there).

Our guide on Oxford’s acceptance rates contains information for other courses and the university as a whole.

Cambridge

Compared to Oxford, the offer and acceptance rates for Medicine at Cambridge are significantly higher (c. 16% vs c. 9%). Why is this? Well, we can see that Oxford and Cambridge receive practically identical numbers of applicants for Medicine (around 1700) but that Cambridge gives out 288 offers to Oxford’s 162. Cambridge does not have lower entrance standards than Oxford per se; instead, Cambridge simply has more places for Medicine as its medical faculty is larger than Oxford’s. This means it can issue more offers to the same number of applicants, resulting in a higher offer rate.

Like Oxford, Cambridge’s acceptance rate for Medicine (15.6%) is scarcely lower than its offer rate (16.4%). This indicates that Cambridge is the first-choice medical school for most of its applicants.

Our guide to Cambridge acceptance rates includes details on various courses as well as the university overall.

Imperial College London

Imperial receives more than twice as many applications as Oxford and Cambridge for Medicine. This partly reflects the fact that students can only apply to one of Oxford or Cambridge within a given application cycle, whereas there are no such restrictions on applications to Imperial.

Imperial’s Medicine acceptance rate and offer rate tell an interesting story. It has the highest offer rate of the G5 – albeit a still very competitive 18.7%. Its acceptance rate, however, is lower than Cambridge’s, at 9.9%. Does this mean Imperial is more selective than Cambridge for Medicine? Probably not. The fact that around half the applicants who are made offers by Imperial don’t end up accepting them most likely indicates that they are taking up places elsewhere.

Discover more about Imperial’s acceptance rates for different subjects and the university as a whole in our guide.

UCL

UCL a similar number of applicants for Medicine as Imperial – far higher than Oxford or Cambridge, for the reasons noted above. Its offer rate is the second lowest among the G5, at 14%, while the UCL acceptance rate for Medicine is 9.3%.

From a lower number of offers than Imperial (503 vs 648), it receives a similar number of acceptances (334 vs 344).

Our UCL acceptance rates guide features data across multiple courses and the general admissions landscape.

Conclusion: G5 Medicine Acceptance Rates

The G5 universities offering Medicine – Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, and UCL – are all extremely competitive, with offer rates under 20% and acceptance rates under 16%. Oxford is the most selective, while Imperial and UCL receive far more applicants, partly due to Oxbridge’s one-application rule.

The very high offer-to-acceptance conversion rates at Oxford and Cambridge suggest they’re first-choice destinations for most offer-holders. Imperial and UCL see more declined offers, likely because many applicants also apply to Oxbridge.

While these figures highlight the challenge, they should guide, not discourage, your application. For expert support with your application, take a look at our Medicine application services or book a free consultation with our admissions experts to get started.