Manchester Medical School: Overview

Manchester Medical School is the largest medical school in the UK, admitting over 400 students a year for its famous 5-year integrated MBChB course. Besides the standard 5-year course (A106) Manchester Medical School also offers a 6-year course with a foundation year (A104) for those who feel like they need a year of introduction before throwing themselves into the deep end.

Manchester is one of the few universities in the UK to offer full-body dissection, alongside other ways of learning human anatomy such as prosections and digital models. Together with other elements of Manchester’s integrated curriculum, such as PBL sessions, labs or early patient contact, makes studying medicine at Manchester Medical School an intense and varied experience.

More than that, Manchester as a city has been coined one of the best student cities in the UK. With its large size, many streetfood stands and chill-out areas, Manchester caters for every student’s needs, while being a fairly affordable and pleasant place.

Selection For Medicine Interviews at Manchester Medical School (2024 entry):
🔢 How does Manchester select for interviews?

GCSEs + Predicted Grades: As long as you meet the minimum entry requirements, your obtained and achieved grades won’t affect your application for medicine at Manchester.

Personal Statement: The personal statement usually isn’t read by the admissions staff at Manchester when selecting students for medicine interviews. Instead, all applicants are required to complete the so-called non-academic information form.

Reference: The reference forms an important part of the selection process at Manchester. If any unusual events have affected your academic performance (including your grades or the UCAT) you should ask your referees to write about it in the reference.

UCAT: Cut-off score set every year depending on the cohort’s scores and distribution. As far as the SJT goes, only students with Band 1 and Band 2 will be considered by Manchester for medicine interviews.

Moreover, if you are applying from the UK, your UCAT score will be considered against the score of your peers from a similar educational and socio-demographic background. You can read more about the way Manchester uses the UCAT here.

📊 What is the lowest required UCAT score to get an interview at Manchester Medical School?

MBChB Medicine (A106): For 2022 entry, the UCAT cut-off for medicine at Manchester was 2730 for standard applicants and 2590 for widening participation students. The median score for students shortlisted for a medicine interview was 2780, which means you’ll need a fairly high UCAT score to have a chance for an offer at Manchester. You can find Manchester’s admissions statistics from previous years under this link.

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💡 How To Prepare for Medicine Interviews at Manchester?

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:

📤 When does Manchester send out interview invitations?

The University of Manchester typically sends out invitations for medicine interviews between the end of November and February of the application cycle.

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

🇬🇧 Home Students: For 2022 entry, 2599 UK students applied for medicine at Manchester and 1258 (48%) have received a chance for an interview.

🌍 International Students: For 2022 entry 861 international students applied for medicine at Manchester and out of those 199 (23%) have been interviewed.

Medicine Interviews at Manchester (2024 entry):
🗓️ Manchester Medicine Interview dates (2023):

Most likely, this year’s medicine interviews at Manchester will take place between December 2023 and February 2024 (source).

💬 What’s the interview format at Manchester?

In the past two years (2021 and 2022 entry) Manchester has been conducting standard online MMI interviews. Manchester MMIs were comprised of 4-5 stations, each revolving around a different topic and marked by a different interviewer.

Each station lasted for 7 minutes and involved a few questions. There were 2 minutes of downtime between stations, where you could simply relax and summon some energy for the station to come. You didn’t have to read or prepare something during the 2-minute break.

Manchester still hasn’t published what the interview format will be for the 2024 entry. Check this website for the latest information on that front.

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

🇬🇧 Home Students: For 2021 entry (latest available data) 1587 UK students were interviewed and 870 (51%) have received an offer to study medicine at Manchester.

🌍 International Students: For 2021 entry (latest available data) 178 international students were interviewed for medicine at Manchester and 48 (35%) have received an offer.

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

• complete the non-academic information form
• use Medfully interview preparation tool to boost your confidence and improve your interview knowledge
• read about the four pillars of medical ethics and make sure you can apply them to different clinical scenarios
• go back to your personal statement and reflect on your work experience
• plan your journey to Manchester (if you are invited to an in-person interview)
• take care of your mental health - exercise regularly, eat well, don’t pull all-nighters and take care of your sleep etc.

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

You will only hear back after your Manchester medicine interview once all applicants have been interviewed, most likely around the end of March 2023. You will receive information about the decision via UCAS Track.

🧠 Manchester Medicine Interview Questions:

Communication:

• You were supposed to take care of your friend's cat, while they were on holiday. A few hours before your friend was meant to come back, you realised you forgot to close the front door and the cat went missing. You tried looking around the house but to no avail. Your friend Max (the interviewer), just arrived home. Break the news to them.
• 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. How would you tell your best friend that you won't be able to attend their party tomorrow?
• How many basketballs would fit into this room?

Motivations for medicine:

• We’ve had over 3,000 applications this year. Why should we choose you over other candidates?
• In your personal statement you’ve written that you really enjoy learning the sciences. Why have you applied for medicine and not a more research-focused course such as biomedical sciences?
• Why would you like to study medicine, particularly at Manchester Medical School?

Previous caring experience:

• Tell us about a time when you had difficulties working as a part of a group and how you overcame them.
• Is empathy something that could be learned or is it an inborn ability? How have you learned to be a more empathetic and caring individual?
• What has been the single most important lesson you took from your online work experience?
• What steps have you taken to find out if medicine is the right path for you?
• What have you learned about the responsibilities and significance of General Practitioners through the “Observe GP” online work experience?

Insight into current medical issues:

• How can we tackle the racial and gender inequalities among the NHS workforce?
• How is the increasing number of dementia cases posing a challenge to healthcare systems worldwide?
• What are the long-term consequences of Covid-19 that will affect the NHS for years to come?
• Have you read about any breakthroughs or recent technologies being introduced/used in the NHS?

Medical scenarios & ethics:

• A 13-year old girl is rushed into A&E after an accident. The patient is unconscious and has sustained huge blood loss as a result of the accident. Together with your team, you decide the girl requires an urgent blood transfusion. As you are about to take the child into the OR, his parents arrive and forbid you to carry on with the blood transfusion on religious grounds. How would you proceed, and what factors should you consider?
• A young mother comes with their 3-years old child to your GP practice as a part of the routine immunisation schedule. However, the mother reveals that she decided not to vaccinate their child against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and appears to be anxious. What would you do?
• What do you understand by the term confidentiality? Is confidentiality absolute? Can you give an example situation when confidentiality can be breached?

🚀 TOP Tip: Have a hard time answering any of the above questions? You’ll find insider tactics to tackle all of the above questions and formulate convincing and structured answers at Medfully - The Best Medicine Interview Preparation Resource.

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

✅ Manchester Medical School Interviews: 3 Tips

Be Yourself

The primary purpose of medicine interviews is to learn more about who you are as a person. You’ve already demonstrated your academic aptitude and abilities in the UCAT, so it’s time you show the interviewers at Manchester your true personality.

Don’t be tempted to impress the interviewers at all costs, by throwing complex medical buzzwords wherever you can. Don’t over-rehearse answers to common questions. Don’t say what you think the interviewers want to hear. Be your genuine self and you’ll do well.

Reflect On Your Work Experience

Although it has been increasingly challenging to secure in-person work experience or volunteering in a healthcare setting in the past years, they are still an important element of the application process at Manchester (including the interviews). There is a very high chance that you’ll be asked about your “previous caring experience” during your Manchester medicine interview, so make sure you dedicate some time to preparing for the topic.

Go back to your personal statement and Manchester’s non-academic reflection form. Read through them and see what you wrote about work experience. Try to dissect your experiences into learning points. Ask yourself - What did it teach me about the roles of doctors? What qualities did the person demonstrate? How could I prepare myself for such a situation?

When answering questions on work experience, remember the interviewers don’t care about what you did or what operations you witnessed. It’s all about what you’ve learned. Therefore, make sure to focus on the reflections and learning points in your answers.

Practise With As Many People As You Can Find

You can treat the Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs) a bit like speed-dating: You have a short window of time to make the best impression on a person you’ve never met before.

Get comfortable selling yourself and talking about interview topics with people you don’t speak to very often. The more people you convince to do a mock MMI with you the more confident you’ll be facing various interviewers in the actual medicine interview.

🤞 Fingers crossed for your Manchester medicine interview! You'll smash it!