Queen Mary / Barts Medical School: Overview

Ranked #1 for Medicine in London by The Guardian University Ranking 2021, QMUL is certainly a great place to study medicine! With the main campus being in East London, medical students at Queen Mary not only get to experience the vivid life of London but also benefit from slightly cheaper rent and going out than in central London. Moreover, its location also means a link to large, world-class teaching hospitals, such as the Royal London Hospital and St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

Barts Medical School (which is another name for QMUL) offers a PBL course with early clinical contact (as early as the first term of Year 1). Students who enjoy a practical and independent approach to learning, those who are not afraid to take initiative and ask questions will likely find Queen Mary Medical School a good choice.

🔢 How does Queen Mary select for interviews in 2023?

GCSEs: QMUL doesn’t rank students based on GCSE scores, but only checks if you meet minimum entry requirements.

A-levels/IB: All academic and several non-academic scores are converted into a score according to the UCAT Tariff. This score is given 50% weight when shortlisting candidates for an interview at Barts. You can use this calculator created by UCAS to convert your predicted grades and other qualifications to the UCAT Tariff score. In the past few years, the minimum Tariff score for an interview was 152.

Personal Statement: The personal statement is not used by Barts to rank candidates for the interview, but may be used during the interview to spark a discussion about your interests and potential contribution to QMUL.

UCAT: UCAT scores are given 50% weight (with Tariff scores being the other 50%).

📊 What is the lowest required UCAT score to get an interview at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL)?

Home Students: For students from the UK, QMUL sets the UCAT cut off at the third decile. Therefore, if you score within the third decile or above, you won’t get automatically rejected (but it doesn’t mean scoring in the third decile will grant you an interview at Barts). For home students, the lowest UCAT score to get an interview was 2300 in 2021.

Home Graduates: Last year, the lowest UCAT score for graduate students with a 1st class degree was 2520, while for graduates with a 2.1 the lowest UCAT score to receive an interview was 2960.

International Students: Admissions officers at Queen Mary divide international candidates into 3 categories and students compete within these individual categories. The categories are based on your country of residence: Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong & Rest. The lowest UCAT scores to get an interview at QMUL were 2330, 2420, and 2310 respectively for each category.

📈 Want to save yourself some time, stress and money preparing for a medical school interview at Queen Mary? Prepare with Medfully, the best interview preparation tool for self-paced interview preparation!

📤 When does Queen Mary Medical School send out interview invitations?

In the past years, the admissions team at QMUL tended to send out all interview invitations and rejections on one day in December, right before Christmas. So make sure you include “an interview at Queen Mary” in your letter to Santa this year!

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

Home Students: In the 2021 interview cycle 2111 home students applied for Medicine at QMUL and 1015 (48%) were offered an interview.

International Students: In 2021, out of 563 overseas students who applied, 240 (43%) were offered an interview at Barts/QMUL.

2023/2024 Medicine Interviews at Queen Mary (QMUL):
🗓️ Barts Medicine 2023 Interview dates:

Medicine interviews at QMUL usually take place between January and March on campus. Interviews for overseas candidates also take place in person in Singapore and Malaysia around the end of February.

Make sure to regularly check the QMUL’s official medicine admissions website for the latest updates.

💬 What’s the interview format at Queen Mary University of London?

At Queen Mary/Barts you can expect a panel interview. The interview panel usually consists of 3 people; two members of the academic staff at QMUL, clinical staff or medical students and one layperson. Like most panel interviews, medicine interview at QMUL is short (20-25 minutes) and rather straightforward.

Check the sections below for example questions that can be asked at a Queen Mary Medical School interview! You can use those to get a gist of what’s the style of questions at QMUL and practise for your 2023 Queen Mary interviews.

👀 What are the interviewers at QMUL looking for during interviews?

According to QMUL’s official website, the interviewers will evaluate you within the following areas:

• Motivation and realistic approach to medicine as a career
• Show initiative, resilience and maturity
• Work well as part of a team
• Be well organised and demonstrate problem-solving abilities
• Likely contribution to university life
• Communicate effectively in a wide range of situations

📖 Queen Mary Medicine Interviews: The Article

If you happen to get invited to a medical interview at QMUL (which we are sure you will!) you should receive an article to read. The article differs from year to year and usually revolves around a medical topic and contains questions about the content.

During your QMUL interview, the interviewers will ask you questions about the article so make sure you are familiar with the content and thoroughly reflect on it! Check the Tips section at the bottom of this blog for more tips on how to best deal with this article task 👇

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

Home Students: Out of 1136 home students interviewed in 2020, 834 (so as much as 73%!) have been offered a place to study medicine at Queen Mary. This percentage has been similar (65-73%) in the past several years.

International Students: Out of 137 overseas students interviewed in 2020 86 (as much as 63%) were given offers to study medicine at QMUL.

This means that once you get invited to an interview at Queen Mary you stand a good chance to get offered a place! Yay!

💅 What to do before the interview at Queen Mary Medical School?

• go through the article you get with the email invitation
• come up with questions based on the content of the article
• find and prepare your ID
• prepare your outfit in advance, checking for stains and how well it fits you
• increase your confidence and interview knowledge by preparing with Medfully

⏳ How long does it takes to hear back from Queen Mary?

You will be informed about the outcome of your interview only once all interviews have been completed, so usually around the end of March of the application cycle.

💡 How To Prepare for Medicine Interviews at Queen Mary?

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:

🧠 Queen Mary Medicine Interview Questions (2023):

Motivation for Medicine:

• Why would you make a good doctor?
• Has anyone ever tried to dissuade you from applying to medicine? If yes, why did you made you decide to resist it?
• Why do you prefer medicine over a career in research?

Resilience:

• Tell us about a situation when you encountered a challenge, but were able to overcome it.
• How do you cope with stress?
• Why do you think we evaluate students applying to medicine on their resilience?

Teamwork:

• What’s your understanding of the term Multidisciplinary Team (MDT)? Follow-up: Why do doctors need to work in MDTs?
• When is it better that doctors work alone and when is it necessary that they work efficiently in a team?
• Based on your experiences, what makes a good team member?

Problem-solving:

• A 14-year old boy is rushed into A&E after a car crash. The patient is unconscious and has sustained huge blood loss as a result of the accident. Together with your team, you decide the boy requires an urgent blood transfusion. As you are about to take the boy 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?
• Imagine you are the head of the surgical department in a hospital. There are two patients, A and B, both requiring an urgent liver transplant, but there is only one viable liver. Patient A is a 32-year old social activist, with a drug abuse history. Patient B is a 78-year old woman, who takes care of 3 children, whose parents died in a car accident. How would you allocate the liver and why?

Contribution to QMUL:

• Why would you like to join Queen Mary medical school?
• How are you planning to contribute to QMUL, besides contributing academically?
• Are there any societies you would like to join or establish at Barts?

Communication:

• There are only 10 seats on a lifeboat, but 11 passengers on a sinking boat. What criteria would you use to decide who to leave behind?
• A patient weighing 72kg requires a 75mg dose of Ibunapratosan via an IV drip. You have a 0.1L bag with an Ibunapratosan concentration of 5mg/mL. What volume of fluid from the bag should you give to the patient?
• Describe the way you took to get here from your home.

🚀 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 - #1 Medicine Interview Preparation Resource.

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

✅ Barts and the London Medical School Interviews: 3 Tips

Familiarise Yourself With The Article

It’s guaranteed that you’ll be asked about the article during your interview at Queen Mary medical school, which is why you need to familiarise yourself with it.

Read the article a few times and dedicate some time to reflect on it. Think about the topics addressed by the article, the author's opinion and the arguments they use. Don’t be tempted to simply memorise the facts or figures in the text - formulate your own opinions and conclusions. Make sure to write them down and review them before the interview.

Write Down a List of Questions

Once you familiarise yourself with the article come up with a list of prompts/questions that you would use as an interviewer. Then try to go through these questions, answering them out loud and evaluating how easily and fluently you can talk about the article.

If you encounter any challenges whilst answering questions about the article, read up on the topic and check our interview knowledge bank.

Become Best Friends with Medical Ethics.

Make sure you know the meaning of and can apply each of the following terms; beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice, capacity, confidentiality and consent. These terms form the foundation of medical ethics and may come in handy when discussing the article or any topic related to ethics and clinical medicine.

🤞 Fingers crossed for your 2023/2024 interview at Queen Mary / Barts Medical School! You’ll crush it!