Lincoln Medical School: Overview

With the first cohort enrolled in 2019, Lincoln Medical School is one of the newest medical schools in the UK. However, its unique collaboration with the University of Nottingham, means all the expertise needed to guarantee great quality learning is in place.

Moreover, that means that students studying medicine at Lincoln will have access to teachers, facilities and resources offered by the University of Lincoln, but also those offered by Nottingham. The fresh, cutting-edge and sustainable facilities of Lincoln Medical School attract numerous students from across the UK and make studying medicine easier and more pleasant.

Because of the small cohort size (below 100), students studying at Lincoln can benefit from a quiet study environment and form closer bonds with students in the year group. If that’s something that appeals to you, then Lincoln Medical School will be a good fit for you.

Selection For Medicine Interviews at Lincoln:
🔢 How does Lincoln select for interviews?

GCSEs (20%): All candidates applying for medicine at Lincoln have to meet the minimum entry requirements. If you are applying for the standard A100 course at Lincoln, the highest 8 GCSE subjects will be scored according to the following system: 4 points for 9/A*, 3 points for 8, 2 points for 7/A and 1 point for 6/B. You can get a total of 32 points and the more points you get, the higher your chances of getting invited to an interview.

A-levels: Predicted grades aren’t considered beyond checking if you’ve met the minimum entry requirements.

Personal Statement: The personal statement, alongside references, isn’t used when selecting students for medicine interviews at Lincoln. However, they will be reviewed after interviews “to make sure they are satisfactory”. What can that mean? Presumably, your personal statement and the references won’t be scored but will be checked in terms of their relevance to medicine. As long as you address all the standard themes (work experience, empathy, motivations for medicine, extracurriculars etc.) you should be safe.

UCAT (80%): The UCAT score accounts for 80% of the total score used when selecting students for medicine interviews at Lincoln. Your score is converted according to the following system:

Exceptions (Fast track): If you meet minimum entry requirements and have completed one of Nottingham’s or Lincoln’s summer school programmes, you’ll be invited to an interview regardless of the UCAT score. You can read more about it under this link.

📊 What is the average UCAT score of students who got an interview at Lincoln?

For 2022 entry, the average UCAT score of the students that have been offered a place at Lincoln was 2715.

📤 When does Lincoln send out interview invitations?

Usually, the University of Nottingham sends out interview invitations on behalf of the University of Lincoln between December and February of the application cycle.

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👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 How many candidates get interviewed for Medicine at Lincoln?

🇬🇧 Home Students: For 2020 entry, 182 students applied from the UK, and 118 (65%) have been interviewed.

🌍 International Students: For 2021 entry, 13 international students have applied for medicine at Lincoln and 5 have received an interview invitation (<38%)

💡 How To Prepare for Medicine Interviews at Lincoln?

Preparing for medical school interviews requires more than just reading an article or doing a mock interview. It requires intentionality, structure and commitment. Luckily, with Medfully it is simpler and more efficient than ever:

Medical School Interviews at Lincoln University (2023):
🗓️ Lincoln Medicine Interview dates (2024 entry):

This year's medicine interviews at Lincoln will most likely take place between December 2023 and March 2024.

💬 What’s the interview format at Lincoln? (2023 update)

According to Nottingham’s official website, Lincoln medicine interviews for 2024 entry are most likely to be conducted online via Microsoft Teams. More information on this year’s interview format has not yet been published, but it’s likely it will resemble that from the previous two years:

For the 2022 entry, Nottingham (on Lincoln’s behalf) has conducted standard, online MMI interviews. They usually included 8 stations, each lasting approximately 5 minutes. Before each station began, students had 1-2 minutes to read information about the upcoming station (a scenario that will be discussed or the general topic of the station).

Importantly, one of the eight stations was a role-play scenario with a current medical student and one has involved teaching the interviewer something about your chosen interest.

NB Interviews for admission to the University of Lincoln are conducted by the University of Nottingham. If you apply for both Nottingham and Lincoln, you’ll be interviewed only once, but you will be scored independently for each university and can get an offer from both, either or none.

🏆 How likely is it I’ll be given an offer after an interview at Lincoln?

🇬🇧 Home Students: Following 118 medicine interviews, 103 students have received an offer to study medicine at Lincoln.

🌍 International Students: After 5 interviews, 3 international students have been offered a place to study medicine at Lincoln (60%). Lincoln is a small medical school and has only 2 (from next year, 4)

💅 What to do before the interview at Lincoln Medical School?

• prepare for a role play and all the other possible stations using Medfully
• prepare a formal outfit in advance, checking for any stains and if it fits you well
• download Microsoft Teams and run a test call to see if it works flawlessly on your computer
• find a quiet room with a good lighting and a strong internet connection and conduct at least one mock in that space to test it
• don’t forget your reading glasses (if you use them), as you’ll be expected to read things off the screen

⏳ How long does it take to hear back from Lincoln?

In the past, candidates have started hearing back from Lincoln in February (after most interviews have been completed). From February on, Lincoln usually sends out the responses until the end of March/early April.

🧠 Lincoln Medicine Interview Questions:

According to Nottingham’s official website, the following areas will be assessed during your Lincoln medicine interview:

Understanding of professional issues:

• Why do medical schools teach their students how to become more resilient? Follow-up: How can we teach resiliency?
• What role does creativity play in medicine?
• You’ve written in your personal statement about working with care home residents who had dementia: How were you able to tell if a patient had dementia?
• Tell us about a situation when you experienced a challenge and how you overcame it.

Teamwork:

• Tell us about a situation when you had to work in a team.
• Teaching is an inherent part of the work of doctors at any level of expertise. What form does teaching take in medicine?
• What could you improve about your teamwork skills?

Contribution to medicine:

• Why would you like to study medicine at Lincoln?
• Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?
• What are your greatest strengths?

Communication skills + Role-play:

• Would you approach a patient with dementia any different from a 30-year old with a sports injury? If yes, how?
• You are a fresh FY1, 2-weeks into your oncology. You are responsible for a 12-year old patient, who is suspected to have leukaemia. The patient's father, who is visibly anxious and stressed, stops you in the hospital hallway to ask you if the boy's results are available already. They say they are tired of the waiting and uncertainty. At this point, you realise you forgot to bring the blood sample to the lab and need to take the bloods again. Explain your mistake to the patient's father.
• One of your best friends is hosting her 18th birthday party on Friday evening. It's Thursday evening now. As you advise her on the outfit for tomorrow you realise you are responsible for interviewing a professor of cardiovascular surgery for members of your medical school's surgical society on Friday at 6 pm. Tell your best friend that you won't be able to attend their party tomorrow.

Medical ‘hot topics':

• How would you define dementia? How is the increasing number of dementia cases posing a challenge to healthcare systems worldwide?
• Developing antibiotic resistance is a natural process. How do our actions impact the process of developing antibiotic resistance then?
• How would you support a colleague at work that feels discriminated against due to their ethnic background?

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Please note that these aren’t questions that have been asked at Lincoln Medical School in past years. Publishing such information would be against Lincoln’s policy. The above questions are adjusted for the interview style at Lincoln and are meant to give you a broad sense of the questions you may face.

✅ Lincoln Medical School Interviews: 3 Tips

Don’t Overlook Role-play Prep:

Since you are virtually guaranteed that a role-play is going to come up in your Lincoln medicine interview, you have to be prepared for it. Moreover, since it’s explicitly stated that the MMI will include a role-play, other students will be prepared too, meaning the bar may be raised high.

Role-plays require you to demonstrate all of the skills you would otherwise only talk about in action. Therefore, make sure to dedicate some time to preparing for the role-plays specifically. Our interview preparation tool includes an extensive, free guide on how to best tackle role-play scenarios (all you need to do is register with a free account and go to Guide → Miscellaneous).

You can also check example role-play stations to get a better gist of what to expect.

Be Passionate!

Whenever you are talking about your passion for medicine, about the thing you took away from your work experience, about the ways in which you are going to change the world as a doctor, don’t show your enthusiasm. Demonstrate how passionate you are by smiling, gesturing and a positive, open body language.

Use The Reading Time Strategically:

During your Lincoln MMI, you should get 1-2 minutes to read the instructions for the upcoming station. Make sure to use that time strategically:

Firstly, make sure you read the entire instructions and that you fully understand them. If not, read them twice. Next, if you still have some time left, use that idle time to structure your answer in your mind. Treat it a bit like a brainstorming exercise - try to come up with points you can make or examples that you can bring up. In this way, you’ll have a vague idea of what you’re going to say once you enter the station (which will help you avoid an awkward freeze).

Good luck with your Lincoln Medicine Interviews!