Which UK Dental Schools Require UCAT?
The majority of UK dental schools that are members of the UCAT Consortium require UCAT for BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery) entry. This includes dental programmes at most major Russell Group universities that offer dentistry, including King's College London, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, and Birmingham. Some newer or smaller dental programmes may have different admissions requirements — always verify against the institution's admissions page.
A key question for dentistry applicants: do you need to sit UCAT separately from medicine applicants? No — the UCAT test is the same regardless of whether you are applying to medicine or dentistry. You sit the same test at the same test centres and receive the same score report. When you submit your UCAS application, universities receive your UCAT result and apply it to their specific admissions process for the programme (BDS or MBBS/MBChB) you are applying to.
Do Dentistry and Medicine Have the Same UCAT Thresholds?
At most universities, UCAT thresholds and usage for dentistry are similar to (but not always identical to) those for medicine. At some institutions, dentistry thresholds are slightly lower than medicine thresholds due to a different applicant pool profile; at others, they are effectively the same because both programmes draw from a similar high-achieving pool.
King's College London is one of the most sought-after dental schools in the UK. KCL uses UCAT alongside other factors — their overall cognitive score is averaged rather than summed, and SJT is considered. No published minimum threshold, but competition is high and a score in the upper third of the distribution is advisable.
Leeds Dental Institute began using UCAT for the first time in the 2023–24 cycle, so limited historical threshold data is available. Their approach is to use UCAT alongside academic data in a weighted model.
SJT for Dentistry: Is It Different?
The SJT in UCAT is the same test regardless of whether you are applying to medicine or dentistry. The scenarios are drawn from healthcare contexts — including dental contexts, not exclusively medical ones. For dentistry applicants, this is actually an advantage — the professional framework tested in SJT (patient safety, honesty, escalation within appropriate boundaries) is directly applicable to dental practice as well as medical practice.
Dentistry applicants preparing for SJT should not assume that because the scenarios sometimes reference a doctor or a clinical medicine context, the underlying principles are less relevant to them. The GMC framework applies to medical students and doctors, but the equivalent standards in dentistry (governed by the General Dental Council, GDC) are very similar in their core ethical structure. Understanding the GMC framework will give you the conceptual scaffolding you need for SJT regardless of whether you are applying to medicine or dentistry.
