FOI_26-123 A104 admissions stats 2026 entry (sept)

Date of response: 21 July 2026

We have now considered your request of 17 June 2026 for the following information:

I am writing to make a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for admissions data relating to the undergraduate Medicine programmes at Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia.

Norwich Medical School offers the standard five-year MBBS Medicine (A100) and the Extended Medical Degree Programme (A104), a six-year widening participation route with adjusted entry requirements and no UCAT required.

I would be grateful if data could be broken down by UCAS course code (A100 and A104) where possible.

For the A104 route, please provide information on any alternative selection criteria used in place of or alongside UCAT.

I would be grateful if you could provide the following data for the 2025/2026 admissions cycle (entry September 2026), or the 2024/2025 cycle if not yet recorded. If both are readily available, I would welcome both.

Question 1. Total number of applications received (per course code).

Our response:

2025 -26 – S.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interest. Please see explanatory text at the bottom of our response.

Please note that the request incorrectly indicates that no UCAT is required. The UCAT has always been required. Please see: https://www.uea.ac.uk/course/undergraduate/mbbs-medicine-with-a-gateway-year

Question 2. Total number of interview invitations issued (per course code; split by home/UK and international fee status where available).

Our response:

2025 -26 – S.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interest.

Question 3. Total number of offers made (per course code; split by home/UK and international fee status where available).

Our response:

2025 -26 – S.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interest.

Question 4. Minimum GCSE requirements applied during shortlisting for each route

Our response:

A100, please see our website: MBBS Medicine 2025/26 | UEA

A104, please see our website: MBBS Medicine with a Gateway Year 2025/26 | UEA

Question 5. Predicted A-level (or equivalent) grade requirements applied at the point of shortlisting for each route.

Our response:

A100 – Please see our website: MBBS Medicine 2025/26 | UEA

A104 – Please see our website: MBBS Medicine with a Gateway Year 2025/26 | UEA

Question 6. In relation to UCAT scores (A100):

a. The lowest UCAT total score of any applicant invited to interview.

Our response:

2025-26 - Exempt S.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interests

2024-25 (2025 cycle) - 2080

b. The lowest UCAT total score of any applicant who received an offer.

Our response:

2025-26 - Exempt S.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interests

2024-25 (2025 cycle) - 2350

c. The mean UCAT total score of: (i) all applicants; (ii) all interviewees; (iii) all offer holders.

Our response:

2025-26 - Exempt S.43(2) Prejudice to commercial interests

A100 - 2024-25 (2025 cycle)

Mean total UCAT score of all applicants - 2601

Mean total UCAT score of interviewees - 2739

Mean total UCAT score of all offer holder - 2758

d. Whether the SJT band was used as a filter, and if so the minimum band accepted

Our response:

No, the SJT band is not used as a filter.

Question 7. For the A104 Extended Medical Degree: whether any admissions test is used, any alternative selection criteria applied, and the contextual eligibility criteria.

Our response:

Pleas see our website: MBBS Medicine with a Gateway Year 2026/27 | Undergraduate Degree | UEA

Please note that the UCAT has always been part of the entry criteria.

Question 8. Contextual admissions information:

a. Whether adjusted thresholds apply to contextually eligible applicants on A100.

Our response:

No.

b. The criteria used to identify contextual eligibility.

Our response:

N/A.

c. The number of contextually eligible applicants, interviewees, and offer holders, if recorded. N/A

Our response:

N/A.

Unfortunately, on this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption for the requested information relating to MBBS Medicine A100 and A104 courses.

We have applied this exemption for the requested information relating to the medicine (A100) applicant cycle 2026 entry. The University is currently in a live recruitment cycle for its medicine course, and it is our belief that release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the University of East Anglia.

Student recruitment is undoubtedly a commercial activity for all universities. The University’s success in recruiting students to the medicine course directly affects both our reputation and financial position.

To compete in the Higher Education market, with leading UK and international universities, the University must ensure that information that would be strategically useful to its competitors is not placed in the public domain. Release of such information would potentially compromise the University’s ability to attract and retain the high-quality students that allow it to be a progressive and sustainable institution.

The UK Higher Education sector is a highly competitive environment. All universities seek to recruit the best students from a limited pool of prospective UK and international applicants, as well as competing to attract high quality staff, research funding and accreditation. This competition is both on a national and international scale, with UK-based institutions in direct competition with institutions around the world for funding, students and staff.

The MB BS Medicine (A100) course and our Medicine with Gateway Year (A104) course, is expected to be an extremely popular course, and it is clear that real-time information on the requested information relating to the information requested within this live recruitment cycle would be of interest to our competitors. It therefore follows that information during a live recruitment cycle for the medicine course can readily be seen as commercially sensitive. We do not share information pertaining to live recruitment cycles with any of our competitors; this information would provide them with the insight to match and potentially exceed our recruitment activities. The University believes that its position would be severely compromised if it were to release information that would benefit its competitors.

We consider it would be likely for such prejudice to our interests to occur, given the sensitivity of the requested information, the consistent treatment of it as commercially sensitive by both this University and other Higher Education institutions, and the degree to which the number and value of applicants and subsequent registrants is now critical to any university’s success.

The application of this exemption requires an examination of the public interest in disclosure as opposed to that in non-disclosure.

The factors in favour of disclosure would include:

• There is a legitimate public interest in the information you have requested relating to the medicine course, both to further the transparency and accountability of public authority activities.

Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include:

• A public interest in protecting the ability of institutions to compete on a level playing field and to ensure that there is fair competition between universities for prospective students. By protecting the University’s real time recruitment information from public disclosure, we are acting in line with established practices across the sector within the UK and internationally in maintaining this fair competition.

• To disclose the requested information, at this stage in the process, would be likely to prejudice this institution’s competitive and commercial position, and it is difficult to see how this could be in the public interest.

After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in withholding the requested information.

We expect that the admissions data for MB BS Medicine (A100) and Medicine with Gateway Year (A104) will be available for disclosure from 01 October 2026.