GAMSAT in the United Kingdom

• Everything runs through UCAS, deadline 15 October, and several schools stack a second deadline on top of it.
• Scores last 2 years, not four — with one named exception, Ulster, at four.
• Two schools admit non-graduates through GAMSAT. Almost nobody covers this, and it materially widens who can apply.
• Per-section minimums are a British rule. They apply at several UK schools and at none in Ireland.
• International access is the exception, not the rule. Six institutions are confirmed open to international applicants; six are confirmed closed.

Plymouth states it outright on both its medicine and its dentistry pages: “although the GAMSAT is called a graduate admissions test, you do not need to be a graduate to sit the GAMSAT or apply with this qualification”. Prior degrees are not considered at all for those courses — GAMSAT is the only academic qualification that affects shortlisting.

Exeter goes further and reverses the logic. GAMSAT is compulsory for anyone who will be more than two full academic years past their A levels at the point of entry, degree or no degree. For that group GAMSAT replaces the UCAT rather than supplementing it.

Liverpool keeps a narrow professional-registration exception — certain paramedics with a pre-2021 Certificate of HE, operating department practitioners qualified pre-2018, and nurses registered pre-2000. Every other UK institution in our dataset requires a completed degree. Sunderland is ambiguous on its own pages and we have marked it unverified rather than guessing.

ACER states results are valid for two consecutive years in the UK and Ireland, then adds a single named exception: Ulster University has a four year results validity. Ulster’s own page lists eight accepted sittings for August 2027 entry, running back to March 2023.

Note also that Statements of Results stay in your ACER portal for four years in every country. Retention is not validity, and conflating the two is the likeliest source of the two-versus-four-year confusion in circulation.

The numbers below are not the same kind of number. City St George’s 56for the 2026 cycle is a real ranked cutoff. Ulster’s 59 is an average of interviewees pooled across 2020–2025 — roughly half of those interviewed scored below it. Keele’s and Sunderland’s are fixed published minimums that never move. Set side by side without labels, they would imply Ulster is the hardest of the three. It is not.

The practical consequence: in the UK a lopsided section profile can be fatal even with a strong overall. In Ireland it is not disqualifying at all.

1. Nottingham is switching to UCAT for 2027 entry.Confirmed on Nottingham’s own page, which splits its guidance into 2026 entry (GAMSAT) and 2027 entry (“the UCAT aptitude test (not GAMSAT)”). It was a significant destination — a four-year graduate-entry course that accepted a 2:2 and international applicants.
2. No new UK adopter was found for 2027 entry or later.
3. UCAT is an accepted alternative at eight of the 15 — Brunel, Chester, Liverpool (for non-graduates), Pears Cumbria, Surrey (for bioscience degrees), Swansea, UEA (for biomedical degrees) and Worcester. At each of those, a candidate can avoid GAMSAT entirely.
4. Two require UCAT regardless. Keele requires both tests; Sunderland is UCAT-primary and uses GAMSAT only to compensate for missing A levels or science GCSEs.
5. Genuinely GAMSAT-only routes are a minority— on this evidence, City St George’s, Ulster, ScotGEM, Liverpool’s A101 for graduates, Plymouth medicine and dentistry via the non-A-level route, and Exeter for anyone more than two years past A levels.

Caveat, stated plainly:no ACER, UCAT consortium or Medical Schools Council statement on GAMSAT’s UK status exists. The five points above are an inference from institution-level admissions pages, not a sourced sector-wide claim. They should be read as such.

The registration fee is £296; late registration adds £71. Test centres for the 2026 sittings covered Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Derry/Londonderry, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Newcastle, Norwich, Plymouth and Sheffield — the list differs between March and September, and ACER may add or cancel venues after registrations open.

Written Communication is sat remotely roughly three weeks before the test-centre day, which applies in every country. See remote proctoring for the mechanics.