The University of Edinburgh Medical School delivers its curriculum through a variety of teaching methods, including:
The majority of your teaching within the first three years will take place within university; however, you will have the opportunity to spend time within general practice settings and benefit from GP-based teaching. You will also undertake the following clinical attachments within your ‘clinical years’ (Year 4–6):
More information can be found under ‘what you will study’.
Gain access to a recording of our free webinar and find out what a day in the life of medical student Helen looks like. There's also videos covering all aspects of medical school applications and the UCAT.
"I would like to thank you for providing a useful and detailed webinar giving me a better understanding and an insight into what medicine has to offer."
Following your final exams, you will have the opportunity to undertake an elective, which can be studied outside of the UK.
The programme at Edinburgh Medical School is six years, to include an intercalated degree, which you’ll undertake in your third year. This involves 'full-time, research-based study', resulting in a research-based Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMedSci) Honours degree in addition to your MBChB. You’ll have the choice from a number of programmes offered by the university; more information can be found here.
In addition to this, there is the option of an intercalated PhD for 'talented students' with an interest in pursuing an academic career and early training in research. You can find more information here.
Outside of the curriculum, Edinburgh Medical School also have a variety of medical-based societies which you can get involved in, including: Student Anatomy, Student Surgical, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and GP Society.
The selection process for Edinburgh Medical School includes an ‘assessment half-day’, which includes a series of short interviews.
The interview will assess you against the core values required for medical school, as outlined in the Medical School Council’s ‘Statement on the core values and attributes needed to study medicine’ and 'Outcomes for graduates'.
For more information about the interview for 2025 entry visit Edinburgh Medical School's website.
Most medical schools require you to pass an admissions exam before you’ll be invited for interview.
Admissions exam for Edinburgh: University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT)
The UCAT is used to assess the skills, characteristics and professional behaviours required for medical school. The exam includes 5 subtests: Abstract Reasoning, Decision Making, Quantitative Reasoning, Situational Judgement (SJT) and Verbal Reasoning.
As part of their entry criteria, Edinburgh state that you must meet a minimum UCAT score and achieve a band 3 or higher in the SJT section (band 4 will not be accepted). For 2025, the minimum score is 2450. If you meet the criteria, your score will be used to rank you against the other applicants to determine if you’ll be invited for an interview. A good UCAT score will help you to secure an interview place and preparation is key to this.
To help you, there’s the free Medibuddy UCAT question bank, which uses artificial intelligence to carefully select practice questions based on your individual strengths and weaknesses in the syllabus. Rather than spend hours answering questions which you can easily do, you’ll be given questions in the areas which you need to develop, to help improve your UCAT score.
The question bank dashboard (below) also shows you how you’re performing in each of the subtests, with your calculated skill level, response time, and the total number of questions answered and correctly, for each section of the UCAT. This means you can quickly identify areas that you’ve “mastered” and those which you need to spend more time on. For example, for SJT (which Edinburgh requires a minimum band 3 in) you can easily see if you’re performing at the level which you need to.
Our Complete Guide provides more information on the UCAT and there’s also preparation advice on our website.
