You've done the hard academic bit already. A good degree, a University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) score, a personal statement that took far longer than you planned. Now comes the part you can't revise for in the usual way: Aberdeen's dentistry interview.
And it's an unusual one. Aberdeen runs the only four-year, graduate-entry Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) in Scotland. It takes just 23 students a year, and once you're on the interview list, every offer is decided on your interview performance alone. Your degree and your UCAT score get you into the room. The next hour and a half decides the rest.
Aberdeen has published its dates for 2027 entry: interviews run from 30 November to 10 December 2026, in person at the Dental School on the Foresterhill Health Campus. If an invitation lands in your inbox, you won't have long to get ready.
This guide covers how Aberdeen picks who to interview, exactly how its Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) works, what the seven stations test, how the UCAT is used, what Aberdeen's own numbers say about your chances, and more than 50 example questions sorted by station. 🦷
🆕 What's New for 2027 Entry (Updated 9 November 2026)
- 🗓️ Interview dates are out. Aberdeen's School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition lists dentistry interviews for 30 November to 10 December 2026. Last year's window was 3 to 8 December 2025.
- 📊 Admissions data for 2026 entry is published. Aberdeen's own figures show 249 applications, 102 interviews and 37 offers last cycle. Full breakdown below.
- 🧮 The UCAT scale has changed. 2026 entry is Aberdeen's first published data on the new 2,700-point scale, after Abstract Reasoning was removed. Older scores aren't comparable.
- ⏱️ Aberdeen's own pages disagree on station length. One says six minutes, another says seven. Prepare for seven stations of up to seven minutes and you're covered either way.
- 🌍 International place not yet confirmed. Aberdeen had one international place for 2026 entry and says the Scottish Funding Council hasn't yet confirmed whether there will be any for 2027.
🏫 An Introduction to the University of Aberdeen's Dental School
Aberdeen's Institute of Dentistry sits on the Foresterhill Health Campus, the same site where the university's medical school holds its own interviews. The course is the BDS, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) code A201, and it only runs one way: graduate entry. A normal BDS in the UK takes five years. At Aberdeen you join straight into what would be the second year and finish in four.
Aberdeen describes it as the only graduate-entry, four-year BDS in Scotland. The intake is 23 places a year, and those numbers are managed against targets set by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council. In the 2026 entry data, that breaks down as 22 places for applicants from the UK plus one international place.
🧱 How the four years fit together
Aberdeen builds the course around the fact that you've already got a degree behind you.
- Year 1: the oral environment, dental health and disease, patient management, communication and ethics. Clinical skills lab training starts straight away, and direct patient contact begins in the second term.
- Year 2: the clinical relevance of what you've learned, restorative clinics, and continued skills development in varied settings.
- Year 3: paediatric, emergency and special care clinics, plus outreach placements.
- Year 4: integrated oral care, team working, ethics and management. You complete and present several complex cases.
Teaching leans on case-based and enquiry-based learning rather than long lectures, with early patient contact throughout. Assessment mixes single best answer papers, clinical scenario papers and structured clinical examinations, finishing with an integrated clinical examination in the final year. Offer-holders are sent pre-learning materials, and a formative assessment in the first few weeks checks what you already know, so Aberdeen can see where your degree left gaps.
🎓 Still in sixth form? Why this page matters now
Aberdeen doesn't take school leavers. You need a good honours degree first, a first or a 2:1 in a medical or health science. Aberdeen lists examples including anatomy, biomedical science, dental therapy, genetics, human biology, microbiology, pharmacy, physiology, physiotherapy and veterinary medicine, and it also considers medicine graduates. If you're not sure your degree qualifies, Aberdeen asks you to email a transcript to its dental admissions team.
So if graduate entry is on your radar, it's worth choosing your degree with it in mind. Aberdeen doesn't accept transfers from other courses, and it says an extra Master's degree won't improve a 2:2. The route is simple: finish your degree well, then apply.
✨ How Aberdeen Stands Out from Other UK Dental Schools
Most dental schools take school leavers and use the interview to separate strong A-level candidates. Aberdeen is a different animal.
🥇 It's graduate entry only. Everyone in the cohort already has a degree, so you'll be learning alongside people with real life experience behind them.
🧑⚕️ Patients come early. Real patient contact starts in the second term of Year 1, with supervised clinics building from there.
👥 It's tiny. 23 places a year means close supervision and a cohort where everyone knows everyone. It also means very little room for error at selection.
🏔️ Rural and remote outreach is built in. Senior students train at outreach facilities in Elgin with National Health Service (NHS) Grampian and in Stornoway with NHS Western Isles. Not many dental courses will put you on a Hebridean island.
📚 Your degree matters more than your A-levels. Aberdeen's academic score is based solely on your final or predicted degree result. Beyond the minimum school-level threshold, A-level results aren't considered.
🎯 The interview is the whole decision. Once you've been shortlisted, offers come from interview performance alone.
💼 Employment outcomes are strong. Aberdeen states that 100% of its BDS graduates have gone on to find employment after graduation.
📊 Aberdeen Dentistry Rankings and Student Experience
Here's the honest picture, because it's not the usual one.
UK rankings
There's no dentistry subject ranking to quote for Aberdeen. The Complete University Guide's 2027 dentistry table ranks 16 universities, and Aberdeen isn't one of them. It's listed as offering dentistry but without enough data to be ranked. Aberdeen doesn't appear in the Guardian's dentistry table for 2027 either. That's what you'd expect when a course has one small graduate-only cohort and nothing to compare it against like for like.
At whole-university level, Aberdeen's own page lists these 2027 positions: 32nd in the Complete University Guide, 28th in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, and 50th in the Guardian University Guide. In the Times Higher Education (THE) UK table it's 28th.
Worldwide rankings
Aberdeen is 233rd in the world in the THE World University Rankings 2027, up from 248th the year before. In the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2027 it's 288th in the world and 33rd in the UK, down from 262nd.
So it's a mixed picture, and some of those numbers have dipped since last year. Don't lose sleep over that. League tables measure whole universities, mostly through research and entry grades, and a 23-place graduate dentistry course barely registers in them.
Student experience
Aberdeen says it came 3rd in Scotland for overall satisfaction in the National Student Survey 2026, which covers the whole university rather than dentistry alone. Dentistry-specific satisfaction scores for such a small cohort are hard to come by, so the best evidence of what it's like is the course design itself: early patients, close supervision, a hands-on clinical curriculum and an unusually broad set of placements. 💙
🎯 How Aberdeen Decides Who to Interview
Aberdeen's selection runs in two stages, and being clear on both tells you where you really stand.
Stage one: are you eligible?
Your application only goes forward if you meet the academic rules.
- Degree: a good honours degree, a first or 2:1, in a medical or health science. Your prior study has to cover relevant biomedical subjects.
- Schooling: you've achieved, or are predicted, CCCC at Scottish Higher or CC at A-level.
- Recency: Aberdeen says qualifications should have been sat within the last six years.
- 2:2 degrees: not competitive.
- English language: if English isn't your first language, you need 7.0 overall in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), with at least 7.0 in speaking, taken within two years of applying.
- UCAS choices: you can use four of your five choices on dentistry.
- Deadline: 18:00 on 15 October. For 2027 entry that date has now passed.
If you're a final-year student, your academic referee should state your predicted degree result on your UCAS form, because your application can't be scored without it. Graduates have to manage their own application, including getting hold of a copy of their reference, so don't leave that until the last minute.
Stage two: how your application is scored
Aberdeen scores every eligible application objectively. On the non-academic side, it looks at three things:
- Practical experience and what you know about the realities of a dental career
- Core qualities of a dentist, and your personal qualities including teamwork
- Practical skills
Aberdeen's published ranking weight is 60% academic and 40% UCAT, and the highest-scoring candidates are invited to interview. It doesn't publish exactly how the non-academic score sits alongside those two, so treat the personal statement and work experience as part of the picture, not an afterthought.
A few things Aberdeen says plainly about the written side:
- Don't list every placement. Explain what you learned from them. Aberdeen says that's far more revealing.
- If you found it hard to arrange work experience, say so, and describe how you researched dentistry in other ways.
- List all paid employment and say what it taught you.
- Choose a referee who knows you as a person, not only as a student. Make sure they know about the 15 October deadline, because supporting documents sent directly to dental admissions only count if they arrive by then.
Aberdeen says it plans to interview about 60 applicants a year. Its own published figures show more than that in recent cycles, which we'll look at shortly.
🧠 How Aberdeen Interviews: Format, Structure and Delivery
Format: a Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) made up of seven successive stations. You rotate round them one after another, and at each one a single selector explores one area and scores you against pre-set criteria.
Timings: one of Aberdeen's pages says each station lasts seven minutes and the whole experience runs just over an hour and a half. Another says six minutes per station and roughly 90 minutes overall. Nobody outside Aberdeen can tell you which will apply on the day, so practise for seven minutes and don't panic if it turns out shorter.
Delivery: in person, at the Dental School on the Foresterhill campus. Aberdeen's dental pages describe no online option.
No reading in the room: there's no reading required during the stations. The one exception is the article station, where you get the material by email in advance (more on that below).
Communication counts everywhere: your communication and interpersonal skills are scored at every station, not only the one with "communication" in its name.
Keep it tight: Aberdeen's own advice is to keep answers succinct, so selectors can score you fully across as many areas as possible.
🗒️ Your interview day, step by step
- Arrive and hand over your identification. Admissions staff check photographic proof of your nationality as stated on your UCAS form, such as a passport.
- Bring the right paperwork. That's your completed Work Experience Form, your signed Consent to Use Data and Declaration of Fitness Form, and a copy of your university transcript if you haven't already sent one.
- Leave your belongings behind. You can't take anything into the stations, so they stay with admissions staff or with friends and family who've come with you.
- Take the tour. About 30 minutes before your slot, you get a tour of the Dental School, then a welcome and briefing in a designated room, with a chance to ask questions.
- Rotate through the seven stations.
- Go home. There's nothing afterwards. You're free to leave.
You'll also be asked to sign a consent form allowing your UCAS, MMI and UCAT data to be used in educational research. It isn't reported individually, and you can decline without giving a reason.
Dress seriously. Aberdeen says the interview is a major part of the decision and asks candidates to think carefully about what they wear.
🧩 The seven stations
Aberdeen publishes the topics for the dentistry MMI. They are:
- Knowledge of the course
- Professionalism and ethics
- Manual dexterity
- Personal statement
- Communication skills
- Article comprehension
- Problem solving
📅 When Aberdeen Dentistry Interviews Are Held
Aberdeen has published a dentistry interview window of 30 November to 10 December 2026. Elsewhere its pages mention interviews running between November and March, and its frequently asked questions page says February to March, so the dated window is the most specific guide you've got.
Here's where the 2027 entry cycle stands on 9 November 2026:
- ✅ 24 September 2026: UCAT testing closed
- ✅ 15 October 2026, 18:00: UCAS deadline (passed)
- ✅ Early November 2026: UCAT results sent to universities
- 📬 Before your slot: interview invitations are sent by email. Aberdeen doesn't publish the send date, but with interviews starting on 30 November, expect them in November
- 🗓️ 30 November to 10 December 2026: dentistry interviews at the Dental School, Foresterhill
- 🗓️ End of March 2027: initial offers made through UCAS
- 🗓️ June 2027: degree results considered by the admissions panel
What to do with the waiting time
Check your junk folder every day. Aberdeen sends invitations by email to the address on your UCAS form and doesn't arrange alternative slots for people who miss them. You'll be given a specific slot, and Aberdeen says it will try to accommodate change requests but can't guarantee them. Tell them about any special requirements when you confirm your attendance, not on the day.
Your dentistry application is in. Are you interview ready?
Interview invitations are starting to arrive. Don't wait until yours lands to start preparing.
Our Dentistry Interview Course, designed with input from academic dentists, builds your confidence and interview technique. Put your skills to the test with realistic practice and written examiner feedback at our 40-station Dentistry Mock MMI Circuits.
🤔 What Topics Are Covered in the Aberdeen Dentistry Interview
Aberdeen is clear that the interview doesn't test academic knowledge or what you've covered in your degree. Some questions have no correct answer at all. What the selectors are watching is how you think and talk about a problem.
Here's what each station is likely to feel like, based on its published title and Aberdeen's marking criteria.
- Knowledge of the course. Why Aberdeen, why this course, and whether you've understood what four compressed years of graduate-entry dentistry involves.
- Professionalism and ethics. Dilemmas with no tidy answer. They want you to weigh both sides, not guess the "right" one.
- Manual dexterity. Aberdeen doesn't publish what the task is, so be ready for discussion of your own dexterity and for something hands-on.
- Personal statement. Your own written application, and what you took from your experiences.
- Communication skills. Often a conversation with the selector, sometimes in role.
- Article comprehension. You read an article before the day and are questioned on it. It's the only station tied to advance material, and Aberdeen emails it 48 hours before your interview.
- Problem solving. Working out loud through a puzzle, scenario or practical dilemma.
Across the interview as a whole, Aberdeen says its selectors are looking for people who can express ideas freely and coherently, use existing knowledge to tackle unfamiliar questions, follow a reasoned argument and form an opinion, show they've prepared, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a problem, and show motivation, commitment, reflection, sensitivity and insight into working with others. 🧑🤝🧑
📈 How Many Are Interviewed, and How Many Get Offers?
Aberdeen publishes its admissions figures openly. These are its own numbers, split by fee status, with the percentages worked out from them.
2026 entry (the latest published)
- Everyone combined: 249 applications, 102 interviewed (about 41%), 37 offers (about 36% of those interviewed, or roughly 15% of applicants), 23 entrants
- Scottish fee status: 57 applications, 49 interviewed, 21 offers, 17 entrants
- Rest of UK: 178 applications, 48 interviewed, 14 offers, 5 entrants
- International: 14 applications, 5 interviewed, 2 offers, 1 entrant
The three cycles before that (Scottish and Rest of UK only; Aberdeen shows no international figures for these years)
- 2025 entry: 244 applications, 87 interviewed, 36 offers, 22 entrants
- 2024 entry: 193 applications, 81 interviewed, 29 offers, 20 entrants
- 2023 entry: 219 applications, 69 interviewed, 25 offers, 20 entrants
What those numbers actually say
🏴 Fee status changes your odds a lot
In 2026, 49 of 57 Scottish-fee applicants (about 86%) were interviewed, against 48 of 178 Rest of UK applicants (about 27%). Scotland's dentistry places are capped and allocated across groups, and Aberdeen's 23 entrants were 17 Scottish, 5 Rest of UK and 1 international.
🚪 Getting the interview is the hardest step for Rest of UK applicants
Over the last four cycles, between roughly one in five and one in three Rest of UK applications led to an interview.
🎯 Once you're in the room, it's still tough
In 2026, about 43% of Scottish interviewees (21 of 49) and about 29% of Rest of UK interviewees (14 of 48) received an offer. Rest of UK conversion was only about 11% in 2024, but with four data points, treat that as noise, not a trend.
📉 Entrants are fewer than offers
Some offer-holders go elsewhere or don't meet their conditions.
Aberdeen says it plans to interview about 60 applicants a year, but its published figures show between 69 and 102 over the last four cycles. Plan for the real numbers, not the stated one.
🧮 How Aberdeen Uses the UCAT
Every applicant has to sit the University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT) in the year they apply. Here's how Aberdeen uses it.
- There is no minimum score. Aberdeen states that "A minimum UCAT cut-off score is NOT used."
- It's weighted 40%. Academic achievement counts for 60% and UCAT for 40% in the ranking that decides who gets an interview.
- Deciles, not raw scores. Aberdeen ranks your score in deciles against its own pool of applicants, not against the national cohort.
- The Situational Judgement Test (SJT) isn't scored. Aberdeen's UCAT page says it may be used in offer-making when candidates have similar scores. Its interview page says offers rest on interview performance alone, so don't build your strategy around the SJT either way.
- Timing: if you're deferring or reapplying, you have to sit the UCAT in the summer of each application year.
📊 What the invited scores look like (2026 entry, new 2,700-point scale)
- Scottish fee status: average UCAT of those invited to interview 1,900; average of those made an offer 2,000
- Rest of UK: invited 2,060; offered 2,120
- International: invited 1,950
For context, the UCAT Consortium's final 2025 statistics, which are the ones that applied to 2026 entry, put the national mean at 1,891. The 5th decile boundary was 1,880, the 7th was 2,010 and the 8th was 2,100. So the typical Scottish-fee interviewee sat just around the national middle, while the typical Rest of UK interviewee scored, on average, between the 70th and 80th percentiles. This year's national mean, from the final 2026 statistics, was 1,918.
Aberdeen hasn't published 2027 entry figures yet. Its data page covers cycles that have finished.
⚠️ A crucial scale warning
Abstract Reasoning was removed from the UCAT in 2025, taking the maximum total from 3,600 to 2,700, and Aberdeen's own data page says scores from 2025 onwards look different to earlier ones. The averages for invited candidates in earlier years were 2,550 (Scottish) and 2,780 (Rest of UK) for 2025 entry, 2,470 and 2,670 for 2024 entry, and 2,550 and 2,720 for 2023 entry. Those are on the old 3,600-point scale, so do not compare them with your 2026 score.
The takeaway: with 60% of the ranking resting on your degree, a modest UCAT isn't the end of your application, but it isn't invisible either.
✍️ What Is the Interview Scoring Method?
Each station has a single selector who scores your performance against pre-determined criteria for that station's topic. On top of that, your communication and interpersonal skills are scored at every station. Your station scores then come together into an overall interview result.
Aberdeen doesn't publish pass marks or station weightings. What it does say is that, once you're shortlisted, all offers are made on interview performance alone. Your degree and UCAT have already done their work by that point.
For a bit of history, two British Dental Journal studies looked at Aberdeen's own selection data. One described the interview as scored out of 100. The other found that the work experience and manual dexterity stations were associated with how students later performed on the course, which hints at why Aberdeen takes both so seriously. Both cover older cohorts, so use them as background only.
Because each station has its own selector, a poor station doesn't automatically sink the next. Shake it off and start again.
📬 When Are Offers Released?
Aberdeen makes its initial offers through UCAS at the end of March. You can see the outcome in UCAS Track by the beginning of April at the latest.
Interviews in early December and offers at the end of March is a long wait, and that's normal for Aberdeen. 🤞
A few points on what happens next:
- Degree results are considered in June, when Aberdeen's admissions panel reviews all applications. If you're still finishing your degree, your offer will depend on your final result.
- Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) check. All dental school entrants need a PVG check or equivalent. Offer-holders are guided through Disclosure Scotland before term starts.
- Fitness to practise. Aberdeen's admissions policy asks applicants to declare any criminal offences on the UCAS form and to declare disabilities or health needs early, so adjustments can be made. Not all convictions bar entry, and you can ask the admissions office for advice.
- Feedback. Aberdeen's dental pages don't describe a feedback process, so if you're unsuccessful, email dental admissions to ask.
- Deferral. Aberdeen can consider deferred entry, but not if your current course won't be finished by the start of the deferred year, and requests made after an offer normally can't be considered. Note it on your UCAS form.
💬 44 Example Aberdeen Dentistry Interview Questions, by Station
Aberdeen's MMI is spoken throughout. There's nothing to read in the room, one selector sits at each station, and you'll have around seven minutes. So don't practise these by silently reading them. Get someone to ask you cold, run a timer, and answer out loud.
These are written to mirror Aberdeen's published station list. Twelve more Aberdeen-specific "knowledge of the course" questions come in their own section afterwards, taking the total to 56.
🧭 Personal statement and work experience
- Talk me through the experience in your personal statement that taught you most about dentistry.
- You've listed a placement on your Work Experience Form. What did you actually see the dental team do, and what did it change about how you see the job?
- Which of your placements challenged an assumption you had? What was the assumption?
- Tell me about a moment when you saw a nervous patient being put at ease. What would you copy from it?
- You have a degree in a health-related subject. Why dentistry, rather than a career in that field or in medicine?
- What's the least glamorous part of dentistry you've seen, and does it put you off?
- You've had paid work. Which skill from that job will matter most at the chairside?
- If it was hard to arrange dental work experience, how else did you find out what the profession involves?
⚖️ Professionalism and ethics
- A patient asks you to whiten perfectly healthy teeth, and the dentist you're shadowing refuses. Why might they refuse, and do you agree?
- You see a dental nurse skip a step in the decontamination routine between patients. What do you do?
- A fifteen-year-old patient asks the dentist not to tell their parents about treatment they've asked for. How should the dentist respond?
- A patient refuses an extraction you believe is necessary and insists on a treatment that won't work. What now?
- You realise you've made an error during treatment that the patient hasn't noticed. What do you do?
- A colleague smells of alcohol before the afternoon clinic. Who do you speak to, and what do you say?
- Should dentists be free to offer private cosmetic treatments alongside National Health Service (NHS) care?
- Is it ever acceptable for a student to treat a patient when they aren't fully confident?
✋ Manual dexterity
Aberdeen doesn't publish its task. Expect a mix of discussion and a short hands-on activity, and practise both.
- What evidence can you give me of your manual dexterity?
- Tell me about a skill you've improved through repeated, fine practice. How did you get better?
- Why does manual dexterity matter in dentistry beyond drilling and filling?
- How would you know if your dexterity wasn't good enough for dentistry, and what would you do about it?
- Task: Fold this sheet of paper into the shape shown, following the instructions, and talk me through each step as you go.
- Task: Move these small items from one container to another using the tool provided, while answering my questions.
- Task: Copy the pattern shown using the pieces on the table. What would you do differently if you did it again?
🗣️ Communication skills
- Role-play: I'm a patient who hasn't been to a dentist for years because I'm scared. Talk to me.
- Explain to me, as if I were ten years old, why sipping fizzy drinks all day is bad for teeth.
- Explain what a filling is to someone who has never had one, in words a patient would follow.
- Tell me about a time you had to give someone news they didn't want to hear.
- How would you check that a patient has understood a treatment plan you've explained?
- Describe a time you changed how you communicated because the person in front of you needed something different.
- How would you communicate with a patient whose first language isn't English?
📰 Article comprehension
You'll have the article two days beforehand. Read it more than once, make notes, and expect questions like these.
- Summarise the article's main argument in your own words.
- What evidence does the author give, and how convincing is it?
- What's the main limitation or bias in the piece? Who might disagree with it?
- Which claim would you most want to check, and where would you look?
- How could the article's message apply in a dental practice?
- What would be the consequences for patients if its recommendation became policy?
- How would you explain its key finding to a patient with no scientific background?
🧩 Problem solving
- A busy practice has double-booked two emergency patients and there's only one dentist. How do you decide who's seen first?
- You've got a £200 budget and one day to organise a children's oral health event. How do you plan it?
- A dental practice has lots of patients who book and then don't turn up. How could you reduce it?
- The sterilising machine breaks in the middle of a clinic. What do you do?
- Estimate how many fillings a dentist in Scotland places in a year, and talk me through your reasoning.
- How would you get teenagers to brush their teeth twice a day, and how would you know it had worked?
- A new dental clinic in a rural area can't recruit enough staff. What could be done?
🏛️ 12 Questions Specific to Aberdeen Dental School
These belong to Aberdeen's "knowledge of the course" station, and they're where generic answers fall apart. The way to answer them is with specifics. Year 2 entry. Pre-learning materials and an early knowledge check. Patients in the second term of Year 1. Outreach in Elgin and Stornoway. Case-based and enquiry-based learning. A cohort of 23. The Foresterhill campus.
- Why graduate-entry dentistry, and why Aberdeen rather than another dental school?
- You'll join in what would be the second year of a normal BDS and finish in four years. What will be the hardest part of that pace, and how will you handle it?
- Aberdeen sends pre-learning materials and tests prior knowledge in the first weeks. How would you prepare, and where might your degree have left gaps?
- How will your first degree help you as a dental student? Be specific.
- You'll be in direct contact with patients from the second term of the first year. How do you feel about that, and what would you do to be ready?
- Senior students train in places like Elgin and Stornoway. What are the benefits and challenges of providing dental care in remote and island communities?
- Aberdeen only takes 23 students a year. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a very small dental school?
- Aberdeen teaches through case-based and enquiry-based learning. Tell me about a time you learned something from a problem rather than a lecture.
- Scotland runs a national children's oral health programme called Childsmile. Why might a national programme work better than leaving prevention to individual dentists?
- What do you understand about how NHS dental services are delivered in Scotland, and what challenges do they face?
- What would you contribute to the Institute of Dentistry beyond your clinical work?
- Where do you see yourself working in ten years' time, and would that include rural or remote areas?
💡 Read up before you answer these. Childsmile is worth an hour of your time, and so is how dental care works in the Highlands and Islands. Neither is a trick. They're the kind of context Aberdeen's selectors hope a well-prepared graduate already has.
🗣️ What Students Say About the Aberdeen Interview
The themes below are recurring points from applicants and students over several cycles, paraphrased rather than quoted from named individuals. Treat them as a steer, not as gospel.
"Seven stations go very quickly." The first one feels like a warm-up, then suddenly you're on the fifth. People who had practised against a timer said it was the most useful single thing they did.
"The article station rewards boring preparation." Applicants who read the article more than once, noted its strengths, limits and uses in a dental setting, and then slept on it felt far calmer than those who skimmed it on the train.
"Manual dexterity wasn't the trick I feared." Several describe talking through their plan, trying, and adjusting, and feeling that the narration mattered as much as the finished result.
"The personal statement station is about what you learned, not what you did." Applicants who just reeled off placements felt they'd missed the point. Those who stopped on one moment and unpicked it came out feeling better.
"'Why now?' catches graduates out." People with a strong "why dentistry" often hadn't prepared why they were doing it after a degree, rather than instead of one.
"The tour calmed me down." Getting there early enough to see the building and ask questions made the first station feel less like walking into the unknown.
"The wait is brutal." Interviews in early December and offers at the end of March leaves a long gap. People who planned something to fill it coped better.
🌟 Top Tips to Succeed at the Aberdeen Dentistry Interview
Practise for seven stations of seven minutes. Aberdeen's pages disagree on timing, so prepare for the longer version. A tightly structured answer that fits is better than a rambling one that doesn't.
Be succinct. Aberdeen's own advice. If you spend six of your seven minutes on one point, the selector can't score you on the others.
Treat the article like homework. It arrives 48 hours ahead. Read it twice, write down the main claim, the evidence, one weakness and one dental application, then practise explaining it aloud.
Know your own application cold. Your personal statement and your Work Experience Form are live material. Be ready to expand on every claim in both.
Build a genuine "why dentistry, why now, why Aberdeen" answer. Graduates need all three. "Why not medicine?" and "why not stay in my first field?" are fair follow-ups.
Prepare Aberdeen's specifics. Year 2 entry, pre-learning and early assessment, patients in the second term, outreach in Elgin and Stornoway, a 23-place cohort. Vague praise won't survive a follow-up question.
Collect your dexterity evidence. Music, art, model-making, sport, lab work, anything that involves fine control and deliberate practice. Be ready to explain how you improved. Then practise a hands-on task while talking.
Practise ethics without hunting for the "right" answer. Use the General Dental Council's (GDC) nine principles as a spine, from putting patients' interests first to keeping their trust in you, and don't recite them. Weigh both sides, then land somewhere sensible.
Rehearse with a real human. Communication and role-play stations can't be learned from model answers. Ask a friend to play an anxious patient, and work on listening, pace and checking understanding.
Read about Scottish dentistry. Childsmile and NHS dentistry in Scotland come up naturally in an Aberdeen interview, and it shows you've done your homework.
Sort the logistics now. Check your junk folder daily, confirm your slot promptly, tell Aberdeen about any requirements early, and get your passport (or other photographic proof of nationality), Work Experience Form, signed consent and declaration forms and transcript ready in a folder.
Reset between stations. Each one has its own selector. A shaky station is not a reason to walk into the next one rattled.
⚡ Key Facts at a Glance
🏛️ Dental school: Institute of Dentistry, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill Health Campus
🎓 Course: Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS), graduate entry only, four years (48 months), entry into Year 2, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) code A201, institution code A20, September start
🎟️ Places: 23 a year (22 UK-fee applicants plus one international place for 2026 entry; 2027 international place not yet confirmed)
📚 Entry requirements: first or 2:1 honours degree in a medical or health science, plus CCCC at Higher or CC at A-level; 2:2 not competitive; International English Language Testing System (IELTS) 7.0 overall and 7.0 in speaking if English isn't your first language
📅 Application deadline: 15 October 2026, 18:00 (passed); up to four dentistry choices
🧮 Admissions test: University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT), required every cycle; no minimum score; academic 60%, UCAT 40% in the shortlisting ranking; Situational Judgement Test (SJT) not scored
📊 2026 entry UCAT (invited to interview): Scottish 1,900, Rest of UK 2,060, International 1,950 (2,700-point scale)
🗣️ Interview format: Multiple Mini Interview (MMI), seven stations, one selector per station, six or seven minutes each (Aberdeen's pages differ), about 90 minutes
📰 Stations: knowledge of the course, professionalism and ethics, manual dexterity, personal statement, communication skills, article comprehension (article emailed 48 hours before), problem solving
📍 Delivery: in person at the Dental School, Foresterhill
🗓️ 2027 entry interview dates: 30 November to 10 December 2026
📬 Offers: initial offers through UCAS at the end of March 2027, visible by early April at the latest; degree results considered in June
📈 2026 entry numbers: 249 applications, 102 interviews, 37 offers, 23 entrants; Scottish-fee applicants interviewed at about 86%, Rest of UK at about 27%
🎯 How offers are decided: interview performance alone, once shortlisted
🏔️ Outreach: Elgin (National Health Service (NHS) Grampian) and Stornoway (NHS Western Isles) for senior students
📊 Rankings: no dentistry subject ranking; university 32nd (Complete University Guide 2027), 233rd in the world (Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2027), 288th in the world (Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2027)
🔗 Useful Links
University of Aberdeen: official pages
- Dentistry (BDS), 2027 entry: course page and entry requirements
- Study Dentistry (BDS): Institute of Dentistry overview
- Application process: Dentistry (BDS)
- Interview: Dentistry (BDS)
- Coming to interview: what to bring and the day itself
- Coming to interview: station topics for the dentistry MMI
- Interview dates and format (School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition)
- University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT): how Aberdeen uses it
- Academic requirements: graduate entry
- Non-academic requirements
- Admissions data: applications, interviews and offers
- Frequently asked questions: Dentistry (BDS)
- Admissions policy: Institute of Dentistry
- University of Aberdeen: facts, figures and rankings
Admissions test, regulators and national bodies
- UCAT Consortium: official website
- UCAT Consortium: 2025 test statistics
- UCAT Consortium: test format and scoring
- Dental Schools Council
- General Dental Council: becoming a member of the dental team
- General Dental Council: Standards for the Dental Team
- UCAS: Dental Surgery (Graduates Only), University of Aberdeen
- Complete University Guide: Dentistry subject league table
- Childsmile: Scotland's national children's oral health programme
Research on Aberdeen's dental selection
- British Dental Journal: selection and performance at Aberdeen's graduate-entry dental school (2013)
- British Dental Journal: admissions measures and academic performance at Aberdeen Dental School (2015)
Admissions policies, interview formats and application statistics change every cycle. Always confirm the current requirements directly on the University of Aberdeen's own admissions pages before you apply or attend an interview. Last updated 9 November 2026.
Your application is in. Now prepare to secure your dental school offer.
Learn from Dr Abdul Mannan and Dr Imran Khan, NHS doctors, former admissions assessors and current placement supervisors at two UK medical schools. Our dentistry preparation is designed with input from academic dentists.
Build confidence with our Dentistry Interview Course and gain realistic interview experience with personalised written feedback at our 40-station Dentistry Mock MMI Circuits.
