Medicine at Anglia Ruskin Medical School & Interview Questions 2026

As a medical student at Anglia Ruskin Medicine, you’ll have use of our cutting-edge skills laboratories and cadaveric anatomy suite. Our experienced tutors include consultants, surgeons, nurses and GPs - and they’re joined by visiting clinicians from NHS Trusts. But you won’t just learn on campus. Placements start early and continue throughout your course. You’ll get experience in primary and acute care settings, and in specialist medical centres.

Anglia Ruskin Medical School offers a fully integrated, spiral curriculum, which is delivered across three phases: foundational science, clinical understanding, and professional practice

Phase 1 (Year 1) combines systems-based blocks such as respiratory, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal systems, integrating anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and social behavioural sciences. Weekly cadaver dissection, small-group clinical skills, anatomy practicals, lectures, labs, and early clinical placements.

Phase 2 (Years 2-3) continues systems-based teaching alongside problem‑orientated learning rooted in clinical scenarios. Students deepen biomedical understanding through hospital and community placements.

Phase 3 (Years 4-5) emphasizes case‑based learning, hospital and GP rotations across specialties, supported by a clinical induction block, foundation assistantship, and student-selected components. In Year 5, students shadow Foundation doctors to transition into professional roles .

Throughout the programme, students must complete Student Selected Components (SSCs), longitudinal themes, and a mix of assessments including SBAs, OSCEs, anatomy spotter exams, the Medical Licensing Assessment, and a Prescribing Safety Assessment

Universities revise entry requirements between cycles, usually in August and September. Always confirm with the university before you apply.

Compare this with the A-level requirements for every UK medical school.

Still sitting your GCSEs? Protect the grades this course screens for with 1-1 GCSE Maths, Biology and Chemistry tutoring from medics.

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A-Level Requirements at Anglia Ruskin Medical School →

It is desirable for applicants to have undertaken work experience in the healthcare sector, whether that be shadowing, volunteering, paid-work or observing. Clinical and non-clinical experience are important, which could be in a nursing home, nursery, charities, voluntary organisations, pharmacy as well as GP surgeries and hospitals.

The purpose of the work experience is to give you an insight in to the working day of a healthcare professional, to challenge any preconceptions that you may have and give you a realistic view of the job roles you wish to pursue.

While we do not directly use your personal statement in the selection process, you should be prepared to discuss or use aspects of your statement at the MMIs.

We will be looking to understand your motivation to study medicine, your appreciation of the role and responsibilities of being a doctor, as well as evidence of any work experience you have undertaken to support your application. From your personal statement, we’ll be looking for realistic expectations of what studying medicine entails and that you fully understand the high level of commitment involved. We want to see that you have researched all the aspects of the course and subsequent roles and have a clear view of where you intend the degree to take you.

We are adhering to the Medical Schools Council (MSC) ‘Selecting for Excellence’ recommendations. The MSC also provides guidance on the personal qualities which are desirable in a prospective student. We strongly recommend that you read these documents before making your application.

Note: from 2026 entry, UCAS replaced the single free-text personal statement with three structured questions: why you want to study the course, how your studies have prepared you, and what else you have done to prepare. Any guidance above still applies; it is simply spread across those questions. For worked examples and a review of your own statement, see our medicine personal statement examples and review service.

See our medicine personal statement examples: model statements in the new UCAS format, each with commentary on what works and why.

Anglia Ruskin has no four-year graduate entry course. Graduates start in Year 1 with a 2:1 awarded in the last five years. Nursing and paramedic science degrees are not accepted. Compare every UK graduate entry course

We are committed to widening access and to recruiting students who have aspirations to study medicine but are from under-represented and/or disadvantaged groups. We aim to support applicants through the application and selection process and have a ’Widening Access to Medicine Scheme’ (WAMS). Depending on the circumstances, applicants eligible for this programme may be offered a lower conditional offer at A Level of ABB.

After we receive your UCAS application, we will send you a WAMS ‘Eligibility Questionnaire’. We will give you a deadline to complete and return the Questionnaire to the Admissions Team, otherwise we will assume that none of the information applies to you and you will not be considered for WAMS.

Anglia Ruskin is one of the few UK medical schools that will consider its own students for a place on the MBChB. If you are in the first year of certain ARU undergraduate courses, you can apply to transfer into Year 1 of medicine rather than carrying on with your original degree.

The scheme is open to students registered on the first year of:

• BSc (Hons) Medical Science, or Cert HE Medical Science
• BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science
• MOptom (Hons) Optometry

It is a competitive application, not an automatic progression

Places are limited and you have to meet exactly the same criteria as every external applicant before an offer is made. You still apply through UCAS, you still sit the UCAT, and you are ranked alongside everyone else who meets the academic requirements. For September 2028 entry that means a UCAS application by 15 October 2027 and a UCAT sat in the summer of 2027.

What you need to apply

• An average of at least 75% across your first year, with no single module below 65%, achieved by 1 September of the year of entry.
• A valid UCAT score from the summer before you apply, held at the point of application.
• The standard ARU medicine GCSE requirements: four GCSEs at grade 5/B or above, including maths, English language and two sciences.
• At least 112 UCAS tariff points at Level 3, for example BBC at A level.
• A personal statement that sets out why you are applying to transfer to the MBChB.

Worth knowing: MBChB selectors cannot take extenuating circumstances into account when they assess your first-year marks. If something has affected your performance, it has to go through your faculty process at the time, not to the medical school later.

How selection works

• Shortlisting checks your GCSEs, your Level 3 points and that you hold a valid UCAT score.
• Score highly enough on the UCAT and you are invited to interview.
• MMIs run in December and January, covering communication and empathy, teamwork and leadership, motivation, critical thinking and problem solving, ethical reasoning and integrity.
• Successful candidates get a conditional offer. The conditions are the 75% average and 65% per module, plus satisfactory occupational health and enhanced DBS checks.
• If English is not your first language you also need IELTS 7.5 overall with at least 7.0 in every component, taken within two academic years of applying.
• A reserve list is drawn up after interviews, so a near miss can still convert if a place frees up. No feedback is given on the internal process.

The one-attempt rule

If you started your degree in January

January starters need to look at the timing carefully. Interviews are held in December and January and offers go out by the end of March, which is after you will have started the second year of your original course. Depending on when the offer lands, it may be too late to withdraw without still being liable for that year of fees. ARU advises speaking to its Money Advice Service before you apply.

Full details, including the current deadlines, are on ARU's internal transfer page. Checked September 2026, and the dates there move with each cycle, so confirm them before you apply.

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) selects MBChB Medicine applicants using a Multiple Mini Interview (MMI), confirmed on the university's own admissions page. The circuit consists of six stations (each described by ARU as a "mini-interview"), each lasting seven minutes with one minute of reading time outside the station to review instructions.

Interviews are held in person at ARU's School of Medicine in Chelmsford and are conducted by School of Medicine staff, healthcare professionals, junior doctors and service users, with some stations using role-play scenarios. The MMI assesses interpersonal and communication skills (including empathy), teamwork and leadership, motivation and preparation for medicine, critical thinking, ethical reasoning and integrity.

Once a candidate reaches interview, ARU makes offers based solely on MMI ranking, with the UCAT used only at the shortlisting stage.

Comparing this against your other choices? Every UK medical school's interview window is in one table, checked against each university's own website, in our UK medical school interview dates guide.

Prepare with 1-1 medicine interview coaching and practise with our medicine interview questions guide.

Practise under timed conditions with our free generator. It builds a randomised circuit from real Anglia Ruskin interview themes, with follow-up questions and a notes summary you can keep. It opens preset to Anglia Ruskin's own interview format, and you can record your answers to watch them back.

More information

Anglia Ruskin Email: answers@aru.ac.uk

Call: 01245 686868

Official website →