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.

University	Year	Applicants	Offers	Acceptances	Offer Rate	Acceptance Rate
Oxford	2025	1,156	175	–	15.1%	–
Cambridge	2025	1,530	307	270	20.0%	17.6%
Imperial	2024	4,867	–	485	–	10.0%
UCL	2025	2,092	628	337	30.0%	16.1%

From this table, we can see that, as you might expect, getting into Medicine at a G5 university is very challenging.

Oxford has the lowest offer and acceptance rate for Medicine of the four. UCL 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 UCL 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 Oxford’s latest official Medicine admissions statistics, the university remains one of the most selective medical schools in the G5. In the 2025 admissions round for 2026 entry, Oxford received 1,156 UCAS applications for A100 Medicine. After excluding applicants who did not complete the process or were not eligible, Oxford analysed a pool of 1,026 eligible applicants. Around 425 candidates were interviewed, and colleges made 175 offers in total.

Oxford’s own figures show that competition remained intense. Approximately 41.4% of complete applicants were shortlisted for interview, while the overall offer rate was roughly 15.1% when calculated against all UCAS applications, or 17.1% when calculated against the eligible analysed pool.

Applications fell slightly from 1,164 in the 2024 admissions round to 1,156 in 2025, while Oxford continued to interview roughly 425 applicants for Medicine. This suggests that the course remains exceptionally competitive, with only a small proportion of applicants progressing to an offer.

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

Cambridge

Compared with Oxford, Cambridge’s Medicine offer and acceptance rates remain noticeably higher. In 2025, Cambridge received 1,530 applications, made 307 offers and recorded 270 acceptances, giving it an offer rate of 20% and an acceptance rate of 17.6%. Why is this? Well, we can see that Oxford and Cambridge received a similar number of applicants for Medicine (1500) but that Cambridge gave out 307 offers to Oxford’s 175. 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.

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

Imperial College London

Imperial receives substantially more Medicine applications than either Oxford or Cambridge. Imperial’s latest official Undergraduate Medicine data shows an admissions rate of approximately 10.0% for 2024–25 entry, based on 485 new admissions from 4,867 applications. 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. Its offer rate is usually around 19%, with an acceptance rate of around 10%, lower than Cambridge’s. 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

Like Imperial, UCL gets a far higher number of applicants than Oxford or Cambridge, for the reasons noted above. Latest official data shows that Medicine remains highly competitive. For 2025/26, UCL Medical School received 2,092 applications, made 628 offers and filled 337 places, resulting in an offer rate of 30.0% and a places rate of 16.1%.

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. Oxford is the most selective, while Imperial and UCL receive far more applicants, partly due to Oxbridge’s one-application rule.

The very high yield rates (i.e. the 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, including the highest standards of UCAT preparation and interview preparation, or book a free consultation with our admissions experts to get started.