Liverpool medical school offers a 5-year MBChB degree, delivered using an integrated, system-based approach. The Medical School is a part of the University of Liverpool and is located in enchanting red-brick buildings in the centre of the city. The medical school is linked to numerous respected teaching hospitals, including Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital or Whiston Hospital.
What’s unique about the medical course at Liverpool is the early clinical exposure. Students visit hospital wards from year one and a large focus is placed on developing interpersonal skills such as doctor-patient communication or empathy. Most medical students at Liverpool cite this as a large advantage, which helps ease the transition from medical school to foundation years.
Historically, Liverpool medical school selected candidates for interviews based on UCAT (GAMSAT for graduate students) and GCSE scores, giving 25% weight to UCAT and 75% to GCSEs.
However, last year (for 2022 entry) the selection process has been changed due to the Covid-19 disruptions to GCSEs and A-levels. Although the university hasn’t been fully transparent with the selection process, much more weight was given to the UCAT last year.
Interviews invitations are sent out on a rolling basis from Mid-November to 15th March, with at least one week's notice before your interview date.
Those who have received offers were able to choose from the dates available for booking.
Liverpool medical school usually states the exact dates on their website when the interviews are going to happen, so make sure to check their website for the latest updates.
Since Liverpool requires the UCAT, they start interviewing candidates earlier than BMAT universities. As early, as the beginning of December.
For 2022 entry, the interviews at Liverpool Medical School took place between the 9th-15th of December 2021 and then after the winter break between the 10th of January and 11th of February 2022.
Although historically Liverpool conducted standard MMI interviews, for the 2022 entry, they switched to semi-structured, online panel interviews. What does that mean?
This means interviews lasted around 20-30 minutes and were held by a panel of 2 interviewers. Since the interview was semi-structured, the questions were a mix of scripted questions and follow-ups. In other words, ~70% of the questions were given to all candidates and the rest were based on what each of the candidates said.
We live in uncertain times and the interview format tends to change from year to year. If you applied to Liverpool, make sure to stay up to date with Liverpool’s website and check your email (and spam) for the latest updates about the interview format.
Liverpool offers interviews to the majority of applicants, so the chances are quite high if you applied and have a competitive UCAT score.
In 2021, out of 3154 candidates, 1855 were interviewed, meaning you have around 59% chance to get interviewed at Liverpool.
In previous years that percentage has been even higher (reaching as much as 70%), but due to the inflation of A-level and GCSE grades, most UK medical schools tend to offer slightly fewer interview offers and subsequent study offers.
Liverpool medical school has been known to give a lot of offers, over threefold the number of total places available. However, this has changed in recent years and the number of total offers made has been almost halved.
For 280 total places available, Liverpool gave a total of 546 offers in 2021. This means that approx. 30% of those interviewed and 17% of those who applied have received an offer.
This makes the interviews a competitive part of the application to Liverpool and a particularly important part of the process. If you want to increase your chances of receiving an offer from Liverpool, make sure to leverage the power of Medfully, the best interview preparation resource.
Historically, Liverpool gave 25% weight to UCAT scores when selecting candidates for interviews and is known for accepting candidates with scores on the lower end of the spectrum. UCAT cut off score varies from year to year, but a competitive score always averaged around 2400 for Home applicants and around 2550 for International candidates.
For the 2022 entry, Liverpool has reverted to using a ranking system, giving more weight to the UCAT scores compared with other components (like GCSE grades or A-level predictions). This means the cut-off score has gone higher and averaged around 2600 for 2022 entry, which equals to 6th percentile and above.
Rumours on online forums have it that last year (2022 entry) interviewers at Liverpool were rather quite cold and unwelcoming.
Don’t always expect interviewers to be kind and supportive throughout your interview, but at the same time, don’t be put off by this. Some interviewers may be instructed to act this way to see how you perform under pressure, when in an unfriendly environment.
Remember that as a doctor, your patient’s won’t be always kind and warm, so it’s good to learn how to deal with such conversations!
There are 4 so-called domains (essentially topics) of questions Liverpool asks about in their interviews. Out of these 4 domains, a maximum of 2 questions per domain can be asked. Here are a few example questions from each of the domains:
Communication skills:
Medical ethics:
Team working abilities:
Work experience:
Have a hard time answering any of the above questions? Check our Medicine Interview Preparation Resource, which is guaranteed to help you prepare convincing and structured model answers.
Caveat: these aren’t questions that have been asked at Liverpool in past years. Publishing such information would be against Liverpool’s policy. The above questions are adjusted for the interview style at Liverpool and are meant to give you a broad sense of the questions you may face.
Usually within 2-3 weeks, but can take longer. All applicants receive a response from Liverpool by the 31st of March together with feedback on their performance.
🤼 Practice with strangers
For better or worse, interviewers at Liverpool are known to be rather cold, which puts off many candidates. However, you can prevent it from affecting your performance.
Practising with strangers is one way to do so. Reach out to other candidates applying to Liverpool via online forums like TSR or Reddit and arrange an online mock. They are probably going to be slightly less supportive than your friends or family, but that’s a huge advantage and can give you a fresh perspective.
Additionally, doing a mock interview with a stranger from the internet can add a bit of extra stress to the mock, which will help you mimic the feeling of the actual interview and get used to it.
⚖️ Befriend the Four Pillars of Medical Ethics
There is a high chance that you’ll be asked questions about medical ethics during your interview at Liverpool. Although ethical questions can take various forms and relate to numerous clinical scenarios, the famous four pillars of medical ethics can help you tackle almost any ethics question.
Make sure you understand each of the terms (beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice) and practice dissecting ethical scenarios with the use of these four pillars.
🏥 Review Your Work Experience
Work experience (whether it be hospital, online, volunteering or workshops) is a common interview topic at Liverpool. Chances are, you’ve done it a long ago a don’t remember the details.
If you’ve kept track of your experiences and reflections, dig them up and go through them carefully. Highlight the most important experiences and example situations where doctors/staff you’ve followed have shown communication, teamwork, empathy or problem-solving abilities.
If you haven’t saved your work experience in a diary or notes of any sort, no need to panic. Just try to recall what you did and what each of the experiences showed you about what it means to be a doctor. Write it down on a sheet of paper or word document to systematise and solidify that knowledge.
Want to save yourself some time, stress and money in the process of preparing for interviews at the Liverpool Medical School? Prepare with Medfully, the best interview preparation tool for self-paced interview preparation.
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