A-Level requirements
What A-Levels do you need for medicine?
Chemistry almost everywhere, Biology nearly as often, and a third subject that matters less than people think. The grades are the harder part of the question.
The short answer
Take Chemistry and Biology, and a third subject you will get an A in. That combination is accepted everywhere that specifies subjects at all, and it keeps every medical school on the table. Anything else narrows the list, sometimes a lot.
What the schools actually say
The wording differs in ways that matter:
- Nottingham: AAA, must include Biology (or Human Biology) and Chemistry.
- Leeds: AAA including Chemistry and Biology.
- King's College London: A*AA, including grade A in both Biology and Chemistry.
- Liverpool: AAA with Chemistry, plus Biology, Physics or Maths.
- Leicester: A*AA including Chemistry or Biology, plus one of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths or Psychology.
- Manchester: AAA including Biology or Human Biology or Chemistry, plus one further listed subject.
- Lancaster: AAA including two from Biology, Chemistry and Psychology.
- Kent and Medway: AAB in subjects including Biology and/or Chemistry.
- Newcastle: AAA, with no specific science subjects required, though a short list of subjects is excluded.
Two things fall out of that. Chemistry and Biology together satisfy every one of them. And the floor is AAA at most schools, with several asking A*AA, so the subject question is settled long before the difficult part begins.
The third subject
It matters less than families expect. Where a third subject is specified at all it is usually drawn from a list that includes Physics, Maths and sometimes Psychology, and once Chemistry and Biology are in place the third slot is mostly free.
So pick it on two grounds. First, what you will actually get an A in, because a B in the third subject fails an AAA offer exactly as badly as a B in Chemistry. Second, what it leaves open: Maths keeps engineering, economics and the physical sciences available as the non-medicine fifth UCAS choice, which is worth more than it sounds when four medicine applications do not land.
A fourth A-Level is not required anywhere and is rarely the best use of the time. One school, Lancaster, will take AAB with an EPQ or a fourth subject, which is an argument for an EPQ rather than for a fourth A-Level.
The practical endorsement
Science A-Levels carry a separate practical assessment. It is reported as Pass or Unclassified alongside the A*–E grade rather than folded into it, as Ofqual describes, and medical schools generally require a pass.
It is not hard to pass and almost nobody fails it, so it is not worth worrying about. It is worth knowing about, because private candidates and some resit routes have to make specific arrangements to sit it at all, and that catches people out late.
Why Chemistry is the one that costs offers
Chemistry is required or effectively required almost everywhere, and it is also the A-Level with the sharpest step up from GCSE. The first term of Year 12 introduces moles calculations, mechanisms and a jump in mathematical demand at the same time, and students who got a grade 9 by memorising find the technique stops working.
The failure is usually diagnosed as not working hard enough, when it is a method problem. More hours of the same approach do not fix it.
The grades are the hard part
Subject choice is a decision you make once. AAA has to be predicted in the autumn of Year 13 and then achieved the following summer, and those are two separate problems:
- The prediction comes from mock results, which is why Year 12 summer exams and Year 13 mocks decide more than they appear to. See mocks and predicted grades.
- The achieved grades have to meet a conditional offer with no second look in August.
How we teach it
We teach Chemistry, Biology and Maths, which is the combination above, and nothing else, because those are the subjects our tutors sat and use. Either in a small group or one-to-one, and the first diagnostic hour is free. Details on the A-Level tutoring page.
Check before you rely on any of this
Entry requirements are set by each medical school and change between cycles. Everything above was taken from the requirements published by the Medical Schools Council, and it is here to show you the shape of the problem, not to be quoted at an admissions office. Before you build a shortlist, read the current requirements for the specific schools on it, on their own pages.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number.
- Written progress to parents every month. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and the assessment is yours to keep whether or not you carry on.