UK Vet School Entry Requirements for 2027 Entry

• Usually no admissions test: Medicine applicants build their summer around the UCAT. 9 of the 12 vet schools name no admissions test at all, so for most vet applicants that summer belongs to work experience instead. The three that do assess run their own test rather than a national one, so check the admissions-test column for the schools on your list before you assume either way.
• Work experience is selection, not decoration: Medical schools have moved steadily away from counting weeks. Several vet schools have not: two set a hard 140 hours inside an 18-month window, and two more set minimums in weeks that are evidenced separately from UCAS and rejected if the evidence is missing. Three schools have gone the other way and require none. There is no single vet school position, which is exactly why you read this column school by school.
• Chemistry and Biology are the pivot subjects: Medicine is usually Chemistry plus Biology or a flexible second science. Seven of the twelve vet schools require both at A-level, two more require Chemistry plus a second science, one asks for either Biology or Chemistry plus a second science, and only two name neither subject individually. Pick the wrong three subjects in Year 11 and no amount of work experience recovers it.
• Four choices, twelve schools: Medicine applicants choose four from about forty. You are choosing four from 12, several of which are new and still completing accreditation. The margin for a wasted choice is far smaller, which is the real reason to read the requirements school by school rather than in aggregate.

If you are applying to medicine as well as veterinary medicine, note that the UCAS deadline is the same for both and your four choices are shared across the whole application. Our veterinary school application guide walks through the cycle end to end.

Where vet schools ask for work experience, they are not asking as a formality. They ask because the drop-out risk they are managing is a student who loves animals but has never seen the reality of the job: the early starts, the farm work in February, the euthanasia conversations, the business of running a practice. Your placements are the evidence that you have seen it and still want it.

Because the stated expectations differ so much, plan against the most demanding school on your shortlist rather than the average, and start in Year 12. A school that states no minimum is not a school with no expectation: it is a school that will judge the quality of your reflection instead of counting your weeks. Even the three schools that have removed the requirement outright still ask you to draw on your experience, in a questionnaire or at interview, and still expect you to know what the job involves.

• Spread the settings: Small animal practice, farm or equine, and something outside clinical practice such as an abattoir, kennels, a stables or a research setting. Breadth is what lets you compare, and comparison is what makes your personal statement sound like a vet rather than a pet owner.
• Keep a reflective diary from day one: One short entry per placement day: what you saw, what surprised you, what you would want to ask. Written at the time it takes two minutes, and it is the raw material for both the personal statement and the interview. Reconstructed a year later it is worthless, and it shows.
• Record the dates and the hours: Some schools ask you to list placements with dates and durations. Keep a simple running log with the practice name, dates and rough hours so you are never guessing on a form in October.
• Ask for a contact who will confirm it: A named supervisor at each placement, with their permission, so that any school that verifies can do so quickly.
• Quality beats accumulation: Two weeks you can talk about thoughtfully beat six you merely attended. Interviewers probe what you understood, not how long you stood there.

Our vet school work experience guide covers how to find placements when you have no contacts, what to do if you cannot get farm work, and how to write the reflection up.

If you do not meet a school's standard offer, the standard offer is not the only door. Several vet schools run a gateway or foundation year: a preliminary year that leads into year one of the veterinary degree, usually aimed at applicants from widening-participation backgrounds or those whose subject combination does not meet the direct-entry requirement. The entry requirements for those years are different, and lower, than the ones in the table above.

These routes have their own eligibility criteria, and they are genuinely competitive rather than a soft option. The table above deliberately records the standard undergraduate course requirements only, so check each school's own gateway page for the separate criteria if that is the route you need.

Our veterinary medicine clearing and gateway courses guide covers which schools run gateway years, how clearing works for veterinary medicine, and what to do on results day if your grades land below your offer.

Vet schools vary on resits more than on almost anything else, and the published positions run the full width of the scale: accepted without penalty provided you meet the full requirement on the second sitting, accepted but with a higher offer, capped at one resit per subject, effectively ruled out by a first-attempt-and-one-sitting rule, or not normally considered at all. Two schools publish no admissions resit policy on the pages we read.

Every school's published position is below, in its own wording. Where a school states nothing, ask the admissions team directly before you use one of your four choices on it, because a school that will not consider resat grades turns a choice into a blank.

• University of Cambridge: Resit policy not stated. Reapplications are welcomed and put you at no disadvantage, provided you have since achieved the typical conditional offer. Source
• University of Liverpool: Resit applications are considered without prejudice if the GCSE criteria are met, though a resit offer may be higher than typical, a minimum of A*AA. A total of two applications are considered from an undergraduate candidate. Source
• University of Nottingham: One resit attempt per subject is considered for D100, with no further resits after the second attempt. A second UCAS application will be considered, but subsequent applications will not. Predicted grades are not considered. Source
• Royal Veterinary College (RVC): Retaken grades or modules at GCSE or A-level are accepted without penalty, but you must meet the full grade requirement on the second sitting, AAA at A-level, and must have achieved at least BBC at the first sitting with a B in Biology. Applications from those narrowly missing the published requirements are accepted. Source
• University of Glasgow: Resit policy not stated. Candidates are welcome to reapply, provided they achieve the necessary A-level or Advanced Higher qualifications. Source
• University of Surrey: Applications are considered from students who have resat A-level modules, whole A-levels or GCSE subjects, and from those who have applied previously, including applicants unsuccessful at interview. Source
• University of Edinburgh (Royal Dick): Qualifications should be gained at the first attempt in one set of exams, so resits are effectively excluded. Resits of AS level modules are acceptable where the candidate is predicted the relevant A2 grades within the normal two-year period. Reapplication policy not stated. Source
• University of Bristol: The department will consider applicants who resit their qualifications. Reapplication policy not stated. An unsuccessful D100 application cannot be transferred to the accelerated graduate entry course, though you may apply for both. Source
• Harper & Keele Veterinary School: Applicants resitting whole or parts of their qualifications are considered, with a maximum of one resit allowed in any one subject. Reapplication policy not stated. Source
• SRUC (Scotland's Rural College): SRUC would not normally consider applicants resitting examinations to upgrade results, unless very serious personal difficulties at the time of the first sitting can be demonstrated, and asks you to contact the admissions team. Reapplication policy not stated. Source
• Aberystwyth University: No admissions resit or reapplication policy is stated on the pages we read. Source
• University of Lancashire (UCLan): No admissions resit or reapplication policy is stated on the pages we read. Source

If you are reapplying, the question every interviewer will ask is what is different this time. A stronger answer is rarely just better grades. It is more work experience in a setting you had not seen, a clearer sense of which part of the profession you are aiming at, and a personal statement that reads like someone who has been inside a practice rather than outside one.

Use the extra year deliberately. The applicants who succeed second time tend to have spent it accumulating evidence, not simply waiting.