FOI_26-190 2026 Applicants and entry requirements A100 MBBS Medicine

Date of response: 09 September 2026

We have now considered your request of 23 August 2026 for the following information:

I would be grateful if you could provide the following information regarding your A100 Medicine admissions process.

If any of the requested information is not held in the exact format specified, I would be grateful if you could provide the closest equivalent information that is available.

I would also appreciate it if you could clearly distinguish between contextual and non-contextual applicants where possible.

Clarification received 24 August 2026:

Thank you for acknowledging my request. I would like to clarify some of my questions further.

Please find my clarification below.

1. Number of applicants invited to interview

When I referred to the "threshold" of applicants selected for interview, I meant:

• Do you have a fixed number of non-contextual applicants that you aim to invite to interview each year (e.g. X number)?

Our response:

No

• Do you have a fixed number of contextual applicants that you aim to invite to interview each year (e.g. Y number)?

Our response:

No

2. Number of applicants offered a place

Similarly, when I referred to the "threshold" of offers, I meant:

• Do you have a fixed number of non-contextual applicants that you aim to offer a place to each year (e.g. X number)?

Our response:

No.

• Do you have a fixed number of contextual applicants that you aim to offer a place to each year (e.g. Y number)?

Our response:

No.

If these numbers are not fixed and vary from year to year, I would be grateful if you could please explain how the number of interview invitations and offers is determined.

Admissions and selection process

Question 1. Do you rank contextual and non-contextual applicants separately at each stage of the selection process through to the final offer stage?

If not, please explain how contextual and non-contextual applicants are distinguished when making interview and offer decisions.

Our response:

No. We do not rank contextual and non-contextual applicants separately at each stage and are not distinguished when making interview and final offer decisions – the are included in the same pool.

Question 2. What was the threshold of applicants selected for interview from the contextual and non-contextual applicant pools?

Our response:

None, there is no UCAT threshold.

Question 3. What was the threshold of offers intended to be made to contextual and non-contextual applicants?

Our response:

None, there is no UCAT threshold.

Question 4. Do you accept applicants with lower UCAT scores as part of your contextual admissions process? If so, how is the UCAT score considered differently for contextual applicants?

Our response:

No.

Question 5. How are final offers determined? Are offers based solely on MMI performance, or are other factors also taken into consideration? If other factors are considered, please specify what they are.

Our response:

Following the completion of interviews, interviewed applicants are ranked (by interview scores – which includes the UCAT SJT subsection score - and UCAT overall scores) within the applicant cohort. The interview score and UCAT score is weighted equally and the top ranking applicants will receive offers.  

Section 2 ; 2026 Entry – Home Applicants

For the following questions, I am strictly referring to Home applicants for 2026 entry.

Non-contextual applicants

Please provide:

1. Total number of applicants.

2. Total number of applicants invited to interview.

3. Total number of applicants who received an offer.

4. Lowest, median and highest UCAT scores among applicants invited to interview.

5. Lowest, median and highest UCAT scores among applicants who received an offer.

Contextual applicants

Please provide:

1. Total number of applicants.

2. Total number of applicants invited to interview.

3. Total number of applicants who received an offer.

4. Lowest, median and highest UCAT scores among applicants invited to interview.

5. Lowest, median and highest UCAT scores among applicants who received an offer.

Our response:

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 Home applicant figures for the MBBS Medicine A100 course, 2026 entry year (Section 2 - questions 1-5).

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 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) will be available for disclosure from 01 October 2026.